What tends to cause a pool to collapse?

[vk]

As luck would have it the day after we list our house for sale I come home to find our pool has collapsed out of the blue. Everything was great the day before and never had a real issue since the thing was installed.

Four of the wall supports were crushed in and the metal went through the liner in two spots. The metal frame completely tore in half and it looked like a giant blue water balloon was hanging out the side. If it wasn't for the 4x4's from the deck I'm guessing we'd have one very wet crawl space to deal with, but thankfully the leak was much slower and the only damage is the total loss of the pool.

I'm guessing the previous owners who installed the pool built the pool first and then the deck that goes completely around it so I have no idea how much trouble it is going to be setting up a new pool in the very tight space. We are still in shock over this happening to be honest.

 

[laceygirl]

G'day vk... Wow, that's a failure all right.... :-( Its hard to tell structurally what happened from your photos, but is that the beginning of the side wall that's been blown out? Where the two pool wall ends meet? I'm so sorry for your loss... :-(

 

[vk]

I have no idea if that was the beginning - that is a good question. I guess that could have been the failure point - I really have no idea how these things are constructed.

 

[Pigeonlove]

That just plain sucks. Hopefully no one was in or near it when it happened!

 

[jblizzle]

Was the pool structure level?
I think this is usually only a concern if the pool is not properly leveled and installed putting greater stress on parts of the pool.

 

[vk]

It was installed back in 1999 and we moved here in 2009 so there is no telling - I'd guess a problem would have happened before if that was the case.

It is almost funny because if we weren't moving we had talked about tearing it down and I guess it was offended by that.

 

[Pigeonlove]

Teenage pools are very sensitive.

 

[GreatCanadian]

Salt pool by any chance? Just wondering about corrosion under the liner.

 

[vk]

I'm not sure if it was salt all of its life, but I know previous owners ran salt and we ran salt as well - lots of corrosion on the top metal

 

[gtnos]

I'm not sure if it was salt all of its life, but I know previous owners ran salt and we ran salt as well - lots of corrosion on the top metal

dollars to donuts that was your issue right there. SWG and AGPs = bad mix. In fact, many AGPs like my doughboy pool specifically state the use of SWGs void the warranty due to the corrosion. sorry for your loss though, that stinks.

 

[ranger_ric]

Sorry for your loss.

 

[techguy]

Sorry for the loss.

On the bright side, many feel a pool adds no dollar value to a home and may prevent some people from buying it. Time to remove the pool and deck, sell the house and move on to greener pastures.

 

[vk]

I agree about the value, but a nice 30' pool sure looked better than a 30' hole in the deck.