Help, someone stole my water!!!!!!!!!!

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D

danpik

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TFP Guide
Jun 4, 2012
1,757
western NY
Back in January my pool looked like this...


Not bad, A little cold but overall pretty good.
The last couple of days I started to notice that there was no water on top of the cover. This is a bit unusual based on past years experiences. Yesterday I went out and checked to see what was up. Lifted the cover and noticed that there was a large gap between the ice block and the side of the pool. So big in fact, that I could stick my arm down between the side and the ice clear up to my elbow. Later that night I got to thinking that the water should have been up near the top. With that I suspected that I may have a leak. Should have taken a picture and planned to do so today. Imagine the above picture with no snow on it. Barrel float up on top of the ice, no visible sign of a problem.

Today when I got home I found this...















My wife said I missed the "Event" by about 10 min. She was sitting at the kitchen table and heard the ruckus.
I went out to investigate and found this...









I always suspected that the pool froze in a dome type of configuration. With the cold we had this year I would have bet money that it was frozen solid. Looks like I have a liner replacement in my near future. Was kind of planning on it anyway in the next couple of years as it had some dark stains showing up on it. At least I won't have to pump it out.
 
Yeah, I figure on getting a liner for it over the next few days. Once the ice is gone and I am reasonably sure the ground has settled back down from the frost heave, I will get it installed. Looking things over yesterday I also noticed that one of the base blocks slipped out from under one of the uprights. Need to get that back in place too. Nice Sat afternoon job. If I don't get to it too quickly I plan to put some anchors in the ground around it and put in some ratchet straps to stabilize it. I have done this before with a customers pool. We kept the cover cable in place around the pool and had 4 ratchet straps evenly spaced and tensioned around the pool. The pool was almost as stable as if it were full of water.
 
Good luck.

Hubby is worried sick over ours. He's just nervous being it's his first year with a pool and doesn't know what to expect. It looks the same as it always has to me and I've checked it a few times since September, last time yesterday and we're still holding water and thawing nicely. Cover needs drained but everything is A-OK considering the brutal winter.

Keep us posted on how it works out. :cool:
 
Just take it all in stride...Nothing you can do about it anyway. If you are holding water then you are good to go. My first clue something was up was the fact that there was no water on top of the cover after a couple of thaws and rain storms. Just have to wait until the rest of the ice melt out now. Kind of curious as to where the leak is though. I am betting either a split seam at the base of the wall or a hole in a small washout area neat the wall base.
 
New liner today

Topics merged. It tells a better story if you keep everything together. JasonLion

some of you may remember a post I had earlier this year showing an interesting problem I had with my pool. The ice this winter apparently caused a leak in my pool. I was unaware of what was lurking under this mess...



Sometime during the winter, the ice, seen here, was enough to be a problem for my aging liner...



What was cool (no pun intended) was that the ice was so clear you could see the bottom thru it.

Anyway, one day I came home to this...




I suspected that something was wrong as there was no water building up on top of the cover as it usually does in the spring. When I pulled the cover back to check I could not find any water. There was actually a gap between the pool wall ant the ice block that I could put my arm down into up to my elbow and I could not feel water.

After the cave-in, I pulled the cover back again and saw this...








Today, I finished pumping out the remaining water. I did not find any obvious leak but figured the bottom must have had some cracking as the bottom was very brittle.



Had to fix this support block as it got pushed out from under the post.


New liner installed, water going in...



24 hours and it will be full.
 

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Re: New liner today

Congrats on the new liner! Crazy how that happened!
 
Re: New liner today

Casey said:
Crazy how that happened!
Click to expand...

Yeah, I was told by someone years ago that the water in an above ground pool freezes into something of a dome. Kind of makes sense when you look at the way the ice was built up around the edges and kind of curves toward the center at the top. Anyway, at 4:30 this morning the pool was about 2/3 full. Left a note for the wife to shut the water off before she goes to work so it does not get up over the skimmer and return holes. I will make final adjustments tonight after golf league and get the caps on.
 
Can you add your pool specs to your signature please and thank you! ;)
 
I bought the pool used about 15 years ago. Moved it from the original home to mine. The liner that came with it was the second one in it as the original was still in the pool when we tore it down. I used the good one for a couple of years until it developed a leak. That was replaced with a $99.00 liner that I did not do any favors to. I was very uneducated about pools and chemistry at the time so I pretty much am to blame for the liner only lasting about 10-12 years.

As for the block that was pushed out, that is because I did something that is usually frowned upon when installing pools. The pool needed to be cut into the side of the slope in the yard. If I were to cut the slope deep enough to allow for no fill on the back side the cut would have put the pool over half way into the ground. With young kids around I did not want that so I did the fill for half of the pool. The block that moved out was from the water running around the pool at the mid way point between the cut and fill sections. It basically eroded all the dirt away and the frost this year and the weight of the water pushed the block out. That has been addressed now so it should not happen again.

Water in the pool is currently up to the bottom of the skimmer opening awaiting me to get time to cut the skimmer and return in. Too much other work combined with rain is keeping me from getting to this.
 
10 -12 years on a liner is good. My brother's liner is 3 years old and is deteriorating around the top of the stabilizer bars on the inside of the pool and I have no idea why. So you getting 10-12 years out of a $99. liner is great.
 
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