First question that comes to my mind is what was it filled with? And what are you planning to do with it?

Karen

A bobcat is not heavy enough to compact the soil. I would wait to plant anything and keep soaking it, it will eventually settle.

Greg
Southern Nevada

I was a part-time construction inspector about 12 years ago. The compaction every 6" of fill meets code, but not using a bobcat. Why not just run it over with a pickup truck? That's not the proper method for compaction.

How deep was the excavation? What type of fill was used? Are you talking about top soil? Or are you sinking in the "fill" dirt?

You can hasten the settling by soldering a hose fitting onto a length of copper pipe - 4' to 5'. Close the pipe at the bottom end and drill holes along the bottom foot or so. Now connect a water hose to this pipe and go along the fill area sticking the pipe in to the fill. The water will settled the fill and allow for additional material to be added.

I would go after the contractor to bring in more fill. If not just lodge a complaint with the BBB.

The pool sides were cut down 24" below grade and the bottom (8 ft deep) was perforated with 2" holes on 2 ft centers; all concrete and rebar was hauled away. The bottom was covered with 2 ft of gravel; compacted every 6"; covered with filter cloth material, then soil with considerable clay content, finished with 12" of good topsoil. Always compacted every 6" and wetted down frequently. This will be a backyard lawn and patio area.

I filled in my inground pool in 2006. It had concrete block walls, vermiculite floor and vinyl liner. My friend has a mini excavator and demolished the hole thing and dug up the floor for drainage. We put the walls, perimeter concrete decking, pool pump and filter, some fencing, etc into the hole. We then had 2 huge dumps of unscreened soil brought in then a big dump of screened soil in whing my buddy tilled and leveled along with some lime and milorganite. That was September 2006. I seeded the same day and had lush grass by October. Its now 2010 and I have had zero settling.

Thanks for all of the excellent experience sharing here!

If you have time, please consider helping out a newbie with a similar situation. You can check out my post here:

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/ohioval/msg0920035213984.html