LESLIE: Patrick in Florida, you’ve got The Money Pit. How can we help you today?
PATRICK: We’ve got probably a 20 or – nah, 15,000- or 20,000-gallon pool above ground, OK?
TOM: OK.
PATRICK: So that’s a lot of weight. Since, I have put in three shallow wells and with a 1-horsepower pump that draws for my sprinkler system.
TOM: OK.
PATRICK: We have a standard lot. It’s probably 80×125. And I’m getting some sagging or – not some sagging. I’m getting a decent amount of sagging on the pool fence. So am I sucking too much water out and then the weight is pushing it down or what do you think?
TOM: The water shouldn’t impact the fence. If the fence is settling, I don’t think it’s because you’re pulling water out from under it. Usually, if you get a lot of settlement, it’s because of the grade of the land. If there’s a lot of water sitting in there, like from rainfall, and then you have weight on top of that, then that will disturb the soil, it makes the soil weaker and then things shift.
PATRICK: OK.
TOM: So I don’t know if you can connect the well with the movement of the fence. Just the fence that’s moving?
PATRICK: Yeah, it’s pulling away from the main post. It …
TOM: Yeah, it’s probably just a little bit of settlement in that area. Pulling away from a post like that is not that terribly unusual and so I wouldn’t attribute that to some shifting of ground underneath.
PATRICK: OK. OK. So you don’t think I’m sucking too much water out of the water table and then now it needs to go somewhere?
TOM: I don’t know what you’re taking out of the water table, Patrick, but I know it’s not likely to cause the fence to move.
PATRICK: Oh, got it. OK.
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