Vinyl Liner Problem Help

[Chig2000]

We live in Houston and bought a house with a vinyl lined in-ground pool last October. On the Fourth of July we discovered that the pool had several wrinkles and the liner had slipped out of the track in the shallow end of the pool along one wall. We recently had a lot of rain due to Hurricane Alex and believe that this could have been caused by the rain and increased ground water levels. We have been successful at putting the vinyl back in place using popsicle sticks in a few places. There is still a large amount of water behind the walls. We do know that the liner was installed in late 2007. Is there anyway to know if we have a ground water problem that will eventually go away or a bigger problem?

We are having someone coming to look at the pool this week. However, vinyl pool professionals in Houston seem to be far and few between. We finally located one business that deals exclusively with vinyl and found out that his company actually installed the last liner. He has been extremely helpful over the phone but I am worried that we will not find anyone to give us a second opinion if this turns out to be a bigger problem. Can anyone recommend any good resources for vinyl in-ground pools--books, websites, etc.?

We had our pool inspected prior to purchase and were told that it was in excellent condition.

 

[waste]

Welcome to TFP!!

I can't think of a better site than this to find out what you need to know about what's going on with your pool. I've got a few posts here about liners out of track and wrinkles in the bottom. I don't foresee any problems with a liner on it's 3rd season

Sounds like the water got high in the pool area and pushed the liner around and 'popped' the bead out of the track (the question is whether it's water from the surface trying to reach the level of the ground water or the level of the water in the ground rising in response to all the rain - the ways to prevent future problems are different)

You can use the search function and look into 'wrinkles', 'ground water' and 'liner tucks'. IG liner pools are what I've specialized in for the past 10 years and I'll be happy to give you a second opinion on what the pool dude you've found has to say - and I know others here will chime in with their help

If you need more help with anything I've said, don't hesitate to ask :-D

 

[Chig2000]

Thanks, Ted! We have been actively searching the site for information and appreciate all of the great info!

On the question of whether it's an issue of the water from the surface trying to reach the level of the ground water or the level of the water in the ground rising in response to all the rain...How do we know?

We just watched the weather report and are expecting more rain...a tropical wave with heavy rain over the next few days. Houston gets a lot of rain and we want to believe that our pool was built to handle to the environment. I think the next storm will hit early AM. Is there anything we can do but wait in the mean time? I think the liner could detach again...

 

[waste]

While not 100% conclusive - if you have a stream, pond, etc near the house and it sits at ~ the level of the bottom of the pool, it's groundwater. If your pool is at the bottom of a slope or you have real hardpan soil, it's probably surface water.

The PB would probably know if they hit groundwater while building the pool and the pros you called in are probably familiar with the water table in your section of Houston. I suspect it's surface water and the way to treat that is to dig a trench to divert the water away from your pool (and towards the obnoxious neighbor's ). The trench would need either just gravel or drainage pipe and gravel to aid in the flow. The pipe has to pitch down and have someplace lower than your pool to collect. Tell me a little about your yard/ neighborhood topography and I can better advise. With the rains you can reasonably expect from time to time - I'd imagine there's already some sort of storm drains or runoffs already in place that you could send your water to.

Short of getting a backhoe and trenching up the yard tonight, see what Ma Nature has to offer this time - probably what she did last time - as I said, your liner is new enough to handle this a few times.

Here's a little advice on getting the slipped liner back in

Let me know how you weather the next storm, I'm hoping you only get a glancing blow!

 

[Chig2000]

Hi Ted,
I wanted to give you an update. We weathered the storm just fine. It ended up not being as much rain as expected and the liner stayed in place. Based on your information and confirmation from our pool guy, we definitely have a surface water problem. So, we are digging a trench to move the water away from the pool. As soon as we started digging, water that must have come from behind the pool walls began filling the trench. Luckily we have a corner lot and the water will be directed towards the street so we don't have disturb our neighbors. Our pool guy did tell us that he had instructed the last owners to complete the exact same project to prevent the issue we experienced. This was obviously never done. Too bad we can't direct the water towards their house! Anyways, we hope to be done with the trench project by the weekend. For the most part, the pool looks good with the exception of a couple of minor wrinkles.

Thanks so much for your advice!

One more thing. We are getting all kinds of mixed information on what type of automatic pool cleaner we should buy. We bought a new Barracuda X7 and then were told we shouldn't use it because it could rip the vinyl. The pool store took it back but we really want to get something. Any advice here?

 

[waste]

Always happy to help

Thank you for the update! I'm glad you didn't get much rain this time!

I'm also happy to hear that your pool dude agreed with me

Re. the auto vac -

I'd suggest that you start a new thread in the pool cleaners section (here)

My advice on auto vacs would be limited to the few brands I know and you would probably get better 'real world experience' answers from the members here who use the different kinds.