hole patch not holding ... can you help?

[FastCougar]

Shortly after installing my pool (July 1st) and filling it (July 1-4) I noticed it wouldn't hold water past a certain height on the 2nd day of filling and promptly walked the perimeter of the pool to investigate. The sand I had put on the outside was pooling water around a certain area so I got in to investigate further. I quickly found a hole in the brand new liner (wasn't from install) about the size of my thumb in width. The "split" was horizontal the only vertical wall seam in the liner, about half-way up. Due to it's location, and how delicately I installed the pool & liner, I can only imagine that it was a manufacturer defect that only came to light once pressure was applied (filling pool). Once it was discovered, I got to the pool store at once and got a patch kit and immediately patched the hole. However, due to it's orientation next to the lap seam, I feared it would never hold. It appeared to hold, enough to continue to fill with water and start enjoying the pool. Here we are a week later and I'm noticing a small puddle of water outside the pool on that side daily and suspect that I'm losing roughly a gallon or more an hour ... hard to measure. Any way, here is a video I made in order to get my warranty claim started ... however, I can't find my warranty card right now with the serial number, so filing the claim might be an issue. Any ideas on how to resolve this without replacing the liner? As you can see, the horizontal gash butts into the lap seam, so getting a complete seal is proving to be hard. I currently have 3 patches overlapping, the bottom one is butted up against the vertical seam and the other two above are lapping that one.

[youtube:1wqogvxn]9Mb5pOe_H4k[/youtube:1wqogvxn]

 

[X-PertPool]

Patch the hole with actual pool vinyl. (you can get free vinyl from liner samples)
Use Boxer "100" glue to attach the patch. boxer glue can also be applied to the edges of patch by putting some on your glove covered fingers and rubbing it on the surface.
HH-66 Glue is also a good adhesive and won't temporarily weaken the vinyl like the boxer glue.

If you are still having trouble with the edges sealing you can use flexible sealer made by anderson to seal the edges.

 

[FastCougar]

Thanks Kevin ... I now have 3 layers of patch on it (bottom layer is butt joined to the vertical seam and the other two are lapped over). It's holding, but leaking VERY slowly. I'm afraid of removing the patches to try new vinyl (even though it will be thicker) due to how the glue partially melts to the vinyl ... I don't want to make matters worse. I'll give the Anderson flexible sealer a shot on the lap seam both above and below the patch. Luckily, I located my warranty card w/serial number, so I'm filing a claim now.

 

[X-PertPool]

How do you know it's still leaking (dye?)? It doesn't seem like a massive hole that can't be patched. So far the worst hole I patched is a toss up between two pools. both with slices about 2 feet long. The first pool was an inground that you could hear leaking while standing on the deck and could watch the water level drop in front of your eyes. The second pool was an inground too that had so much water behind the liner that it was like trying to patch a flag in the wind. I had to put a temporary patch on the hole and suck the water out from behind the liner while sandbags held the patch in place.
You are lucky compared to those pools

Good luck

 

[FastCougar]

Well, it's been over 2 weeks since my last reply and I have since filed a claim with the liner manufacturer and with a little strong arming was able to get them to replace the liner. I have been told that a new liner will ship this coming Monday (5 days away) ... we shall see. Now, since my water is near perfect chemically and borated, I don't want to waste it by draining the pool before the season is over. Also, since the water isn't hitting the sewer system and I have been using a separate outdoor meter to fill, I can get back my sewer charges for water usage, but only during the month of October. Since this is about when I plan on closing down the pool (sometime before Halloween), I planned on replacing the liner in October and filling to winter height (about the same height as when you cut in the return & skimmer holes) since I won't have to wait the entire season to get my sewer charges back. Sounds like a trivial reason until you see our sewer charges, which are sky high ($7.31/1K gallons of water use). In the meantime, I have noticed that the leak is persisting at a very slow pace, only saturating the soil around the pool in a confined area about 1/4 of the pool's circumference. It hasn't "pooled" since fixing the leak, but it's obvious that it's still leaking.

 

[FastCougar]

Matter of fact, I'd like to patch the liner and keep the replacement on hand as long as possible to be honest ... what would you do and why?

 

[frogabog]

It's difficult to patch on a seam, every time I try to patch a floatie (pool toy) on a seam it is a PITA because the leak often follows up the seam and the glue doesn't seal that line very well. Gooping glue into the edge of the seam can help but the only thing I've found that really helps is to patch long distance up the seam far away from the leak area which increases the chance that at some point the glue will block it up good.

In your case, I might try to use a 2-3" wide, long patch running maybe a half foot or so above and below the original patches and press glue into the edge of the seam along that patch.

That's my floatie version of seam patching, it may or may not work for you. It's a pool with water pressure, not a cheap floatie leaking air which obviously is a whole different animal.

Best of luck.

 

[X-PertPool]

I would personally replace the liner in the spring if possible, but I only say this because that's when the weather is descent here. It's really a pain when dealing with warranties. That's why I only deal with a local liner manufacturer. When something is wrong, they physically come to the site to see what's going and take the liner back with them. Maybe I'm lucky to have a manufacturer only 40 min away.