Upon opening my pool for this 2017 season (24' x 52" AGP) a couple weeks ago my liner ripped in two places where the wall meets the floor. Of course I had already refilled with water and added 2 gallons (or was it 3?) of liquid chlorine before losing it all down the hill into the road ditch! It lasted all winter just fine. At the time I noticed the leak I was brushing my sidewalls after shocking. At first I broke my usual brush (HTH brush from Walmart) and so I started using the one that came with my pool (much smaller). I've brushed my walls many many times before so I can only assume the liner had gotten weak and brushing it just put enough force on it to finally give way and rip. I'm a little irritated that I only got 6 years (5 swimming seasons) out of this liner! I keep the solar cover on majority of the summer and it's covered in the winter. Of course the pool techs I talked to suggested I had let Chlorine levels get too high, but I started on the BBB method at the end of the first swimming season (after running into my first algae outbreak and wondering why following the pool store's instructions weren't working). Off the top of my head I think I typically run CYA around 35 to 40, keep CL up at 6 (and try never to get below 3), keep ALK around 100, & pH between 7.2 to 7.8 (I boost it up to 7.8 and it slowly decreases over time down to 7.2, maybe 7.0 before I boost it back up again - last year I was facing the jet further up to aerate and slow down the rate the pH would drop at). In addition to using the PoolMath calculator, I reference Ben's Best Guess chart found here. At opening this year I shocked with CL at 20 (assuming CL was 0 to start, which it has been every other opening season, and assuming CYA down to the 10 to 20 range). Actually, right now thinking back on this, I remember targeting CL of "20", but I thought I used 3 gallons of 10% liquid chlorine. Even if I did use 3 gallons, resulting in CL of 30, would that have mixed in with +/-10,000 gallons of water fast enough to cause a liner issue in less than an hour? (I dumped the CL in at various locations and didn't just dump it all in one spot.)
Anyway, I've had a heck of a time finding a tech that wasn't too busy to take a look and offer to do the liner replacement. He finally came out today (2 weeks later) and has suggested switching to a uni-bead liner with bead receiver. His price is "not to exceed $1,200" for all parts, liner, and labor. Uni-bead seems the way to go and forum searches don't show any serious negatives going this way. Oh, and the tech started talking bad about the bottom drains saying they are simply a way for the pool store to make an easy $200 during install, but make liner replacements more difficult. I basically cut him off telling him I'd never want a pool without them.
Any suggestions on if there's anything I can do to improve liner life expectancy? Is a CL of 20 anywhere near high enough to cause liner degradation? If not, how high would CL have to be to do so? I do wonder if the sand washed out from the spot under the rip and the liner ripped because of no support under it, but it seems odd that only a small spot washed out. (I do have a rock on top of plastic sheeting "landscaped" drainage swale around my pool to divert any surface water from heading under the pool).
-Garry
Anyway, I've had a heck of a time finding a tech that wasn't too busy to take a look and offer to do the liner replacement. He finally came out today (2 weeks later) and has suggested switching to a uni-bead liner with bead receiver. His price is "not to exceed $1,200" for all parts, liner, and labor. Uni-bead seems the way to go and forum searches don't show any serious negatives going this way. Oh, and the tech started talking bad about the bottom drains saying they are simply a way for the pool store to make an easy $200 during install, but make liner replacements more difficult. I basically cut him off telling him I'd never want a pool without them.
Any suggestions on if there's anything I can do to improve liner life expectancy? Is a CL of 20 anywhere near high enough to cause liner degradation? If not, how high would CL have to be to do so? I do wonder if the sand washed out from the spot under the rip and the liner ripped because of no support under it, but it seems odd that only a small spot washed out. (I do have a rock on top of plastic sheeting "landscaped" drainage swale around my pool to divert any surface water from heading under the pool).
-Garry
