What did i get myself into?

[milkwasabadchoice]

Located in South Jersey. Purchased a house with an inground vinyl lined pool in the fall - we moved in and closed the pool and that was it until now. Now I want to open the pool and removed the cover and the liner is floating pretty bad. There is a pump installed to remove the water and it is currently running.

The "pool guys" came out and basically said the pool shouldn't have been installed because of the ground water level. Well it is there now so I would like to figure out what to do.

1st question - there is a pump installed to pump out groundwater which should prevent this problem during the summer as long as I run the pump, but what about during the winter? The pump needs to be winterized as far as I know, so how do I prevent this being a problem every year when I open the pool if i can't run the pump during the winter?

2nd question - what are the chances of everything being okay once the water drains out? Is it likely the liner can be put back into place? The liner is probably at least 5-7 years old.

any other tips or suggestions?

 

[JasonLion]

Welcome to TFP!

1) To make this work you will need to start using the ground water pump as soon as things start to thaw in the spring, possibly draining it and starting it up again as you get early spring freezes.

2) So so. The liner tends to shift when it floats. Those shifts often won't go back into place as you drain out the ground water, which can potentially tear the liner. To some extent you can help things along by pushing the liner back into place as the draining continues, but to a large extent it depends on there being enough stretch left in the liner, and that stretchability goes away after the liner is a year or two old.

 

[ship of fools]

How bad is it floating? Just the sides or the bottom too? I opened to a floating liner after losing a foot of water over the winter. My shallow end had a small corner floating off bottom and all of the sides too. I ended up with two wrinkles and that was it. My liner was five or six years old.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[milkwasabadchoice]

I have been able to pump a lot of water from under the pool and it is looking a lot better and water is still being pumped out. There are some wrinkles but that my isn't my main concern at the moment. The liner has a few tears in it - probably from being stretched back out now that the water is being pumped out? All the tears are above the water line. I would like to get through this summer and worry about a new liner for next year if possible. One of the tears is probably close to a foot long -is this too big to patch up for the summer or do I have a shot at getting through the next few months?

 

[duraleigh]

do I have a shot at getting through the next few months?

I would speculate that you have a shot but (and I am only guessing) I would say your odds are somewhere around 50-50 at best. Never hurts to try.