Hi Dbustamante00,
I had this same problem this year. I noticed that the liner had pulled away from the bottom of the skimmer and was severely leaking last year when I closed the pool. I decided to lower the water level below the the bottom of the skimmer and then I put the pool to bed for the winter. I was doubly annoyed because the liner was installed new in 2014.
I was very worried when I saw it and didn't know what to do. Over the winter I came up with the idea of putting a large patch on the inside of the liner between the the liner and pool wall. I think you must drain the pool down below the skimmer for this idea to work.
My liner had pulled down from the skimmer about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch. I guessed that since the liner was 18 months old, that it had settled away from the skimmer all that it was going to and that my patch only had to span the gap; i.e. there would be little or no further downward pulling on the liner since it had already done all the pulling that it was going to do.
My plan was for the patch to completely cover the opening with an overlap of about 2 inches on all sides. I was able to buy a large piece of vinyl patch material and a large can of vinyl glue at the local pool store. I cut a 12 in x 12 in section of patch. I let the patch sit in the sun for a couple of hours so it got soft and the fold marks flattened out.
I carefully got everything ready pool side because the glue spreading was going to be tricky; a lot of area to cover before the glue starts to setup and I was by myself. I also had a small wallpaper seam roller and a small piece of wood that I could fit behind the patch so I could roll it smooth. My pool liner is beaded so I was able to pull it out of the bead in the area of the skimmer to do this work. This allowed me to get to both sides of the patch area. After I got the patch on I also went around the seams with the glue to make sure that everything was sealed. I let it sit for 24 hours and I have to admit that it came out pretty well.
The last part would be lining up the skimmer faceplate and cutting into the patch to assemble the skimmer. I let the patch area sit for a few more days and then with my son there for moral support we cut a small "x" (3 in x 3 in) in the middle of the patch where the skimmer opening would be. We then held up the skimmer faceplate and aligned the skimmer faceplate by two corners and starting at the top right corner, we punched a hole through the liner into the skimmer screw hole and did the same at the lower left. My son held the faceplate and kept it aligned from the pool deck and I was in the pool looking at the skimmer.
This was so tricky because we had to work from either the top of the liner or from inside the little "x". We also had to line everything up with all of the gaskets. It goes faceplate -- gasket -- liner -- gasket -- spacer -- gasket -- skimmer. We found out that we needed the spacer because it helps mount the skimmer structurally to the pool deck. Many parts lists for the Hayward SP1092 skimmer say the space is not needed anymore. I don't know what you have so you might be able to skip the spacer and one gasket. I also didn't like the paper gaskets that were provided so I made two of my own from rubber gasket material that I had around. The gasket between the skimmer and the space is the paper one and the other two are the rubber ones.
We made sure everything looked good and then went around and carefully punched all of the other holes with the awl and tightened all of the screws up. After that I trimmed the material from inside the skimmer hole and we were done.
That was about 4 weeks ago and so far so good. No leaks and I've been checking daily.
I'm sorry but I don't have any pictures of the patching and assembly; only of the skimmer with the faceplate removed before the repair and the skimmer area after the repair. I'll see if I can post them.
I hope this helps. I was very leery of trying this on my pool but it was either this or a new liner and install which would have been $1100. The cost for the materials was about $8 for the vinyl, $8 for the can of glue and a few more dollars for the gaskets and for some Magic Lube to lube the gaskets. Maybe $20-$25 total plus my time and anguish.
Good luck. If you have any questions please ask.
Bill
Skimmer before (I think about 7/4/16 -- pool was filthy green almost black)
Pool after (sorry I was just trying to get the pool but you can see the skimmer, 7/24/16)
