Doing some research for possible pool purchase

VinnyinNJ

Bronze Supporter
Jul 20, 2022
815
New Jersey
Pool Size
13500
Surface
Vinyl
Chlorine
Salt Water Generator
SWG Type
Hayward Turbo Cell (T-CELL-5)
Hi everyone,

I am a former above ground pool owner that may be purchasing another pool, not sure if it'll be inground or above ground but have questions about both. We had our last pool for about 20 years without any major problems, I found the BBB method and pretty much used it exclusively except when going on vacation which is when I used trichlor pucks.

I have a couple of questions that may pertain to both types of pools and then some specific questions that pertain to each type of pool. Either pool will not be close to the house and the inground pool will need to be fenced.

* Filter - I prefer a DE filter, last one was great - any noticeable difference in cleaning/function between a grid style (my filter was this) and the Hayward system with fingers?

* Liner - I keep reading and was told by the pool company both AG and IG only last 5 to 7 years; is this something new? Has the quality of liners gone down that much? My liner probably should have been replaced after 15 years as the floor pattern started to delaminate and lasted around 20 years when the liner ripped below water level. Would have put a new liner in it except the pool wall was rusted, the bottom track was completely gone and I was told by someone the metal stains I was having was from the rust (this started happening about 3 years earlier) ... not quite sure if this was true or not but didn't want to install a new liner and have the rust slice through the liner.

For above ground - Our last pool was a 24 foot round galvanized steel pool and it lasted quite a while. Is there a big difference between an aluminum walled pool vs galvanized steel? I understand aluminum won't rust but will pit. We are in our 60's so not looking for longer longevity just better experience if one is better than the other?
My wife is saying she would like a deck on the pool as she felt that was missing on our last pool - I know there are national and municipal codes but does anyone know if there has to be concrete pilings below frost lines for a deck not attached to a house? I would think those metal decks that pool installers put up don't have concrete pilings.

For inground - this is a whole different "beast"! :LOL: First I'll go back to the liner - 5 to 7 years?! Seems like a lot of money to be putting out to have the pool liner replaced so often. Anyway, to keep costs down we would be looking at a 16x32 rectangle pool, vinyl lined (we were told fiberglass is 20% more and forget about gunite!) with 3 foot wide concrete surround, we were told this is a standard setup. Is 3 feet actually good enough? We don't entertain so it's not going to be a party pool but don't want to run out of room on the surround.
* Salt water generator - doing some research it seems as though they were frowned upon and now accepted. Based on what I've read I should get one that's made for a pool about 2x the volume, I'm not sure if the package would allow me to substitute. Is it worth getting if I can't? I've read that they cause more rust if something isn't bonded, not sure what people are talking about. When winterizing/backwashing, does the salt water kill vegetation?
* Pool pump and filter - Last pool filter was 120V and was told that inground is 220V, is the pump very noisy? My AG filter wasn't noisy and sat next to my pool. I have noticed that most people tuck the filter away around the side of their house or in a shed, ours would probably be out in the open not far from the pool. I don't want the sound to disturb us or the neighbors.
* No heater - we had luck with solar blankets on our AG pool and would use this method to heat an IG adding a reel to make it simpler. Also we found very little evaporation happening with the cover on.
* Winterization - How hard is it to winterize? Can an air compressor be used? If salt water - will it kill vegetation.
* Fence - was told we would need a 6 foot high fence.

Is there anything I missed? I know it's a lot of questions and I appreciate any information from people who know. For the AG since I've been through it before I kind of have a clue but I don't have a clue for IG. It's a lot of money to spend to make a mistake on and regret having it.

I want to thank everyone in advance for helping me out!
 
Welcome to the forum!

* Filter - I prefer a DE filter, last one was great - any noticeable difference in cleaning/function between a grid style (my filter was this) and the Hayward system with fingers?
DE filters are being surpassed by cartridge filters in new installs as there is no DE to manage and the filtering capability is just as good.
* Liner - I keep reading and was told by the pool company both AG and IG only last 5 to 7 years; is this something new? Has the quality of liners gone down that much?
I do not have a liner pool, but it seems that it really depends on water chemistry.
For above ground -
No background. Let's ask @Mdragger88 @zea3 for some opinions
* Salt water generator - doing some research it seems as though they were frowned upon and now accepted.
You would be hard to find a member of this forum with a SWCG that would give it up. Many pools are being converted to SWCG. The issues surrounding the use of SWCG are nearly 100% due to poor water chemistry maintenance
* Pool pump and filter - Last pool filter was 120V and was told that inground is 220V, is the pump very noisy?
Depends. All new pool pumps greater than 1 hp must now be Variable Speed as per DOE regulations. So noise is less of an issue.
* Winterization - How hard is it to winterize? Can an air compressor be used? If salt water - will it kill vegetation.
I have no background in winterization. There are a number of videos, articles, etc here on the forum. Do a search.
If you get rain, then the low salinity water used for a SWCG will not harm your vegetation.

Good luck on your research!
 
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About the liner - that 5-7 yrs sounds insane. 10-15 yrs is more common.
I purchased my pool on Black Friday of 2018 - the only liner offered was boulder swirl (I don’t care for the pattern).
It is still available today & has a 30yr warranty (not sure if that would be completely honored but it’s kind of a gauge like a mattress warranty - longer warranty often indicates longer life)
its not a cream of the crop Latham liner either.
Unfortunately, I am pretty sure it will outlive my steel walled above ground pool & I will be looking at it for a long time.
I am 4+ years in & i have a little fading from uv as it was very slightly noticeable when I relocated my wedding cake steps about a month ago. The spot where they had been is just a tiny bit darker blue than the rest of the pool. Follow TFP recommended levels What Are My Ideal Pool Levels?
& your liner will likely live a long time barring some sort of catastrophe. The main issues I have seen with liner quality is that the ones printed on a white background seem to fade prematurely. Also Darker liners obviously have alot more fading to go before getting extremely light due to uv than liners that start out lighter in the 1st place.

About the salt:
I have a swg, I backwash & also drain my pool down below the skimmer for winter to the same spot in my yard - the bermuda is fine, the weeds are also fine 🤣
 
Welcome to the forum!


DE filters are being surpassed by cartridge filters in new installs as there is no DE to manage and the filtering capability is just as good.

I do not have a liner pool, but it seems that it really depends on water chemistry.

No background. Let's ask @Mdragger88 @zea3 for some opinions

You would be hard to find a member of this forum with a SWCG that would give it up. Many pools are being converted to SWCG. The issues surrounding the use of SWCG are nearly 100% due to poor water chemistry maintenance

Depends. All new pool pumps greater than 1 hp must now be Variable Speed as per DOE regulations. So noise is less of an issue.

I have no background in winterization. There are a number of videos, articles, etc here on the forum. Do a search.
If you get rain, then the low salinity water used for a SWCG will not harm your vegetation.

Good luck on your research!
Thanks for the reply!

As for the filter - I guess things have changed over the years! DE was "IT" back then. The place we went to has either sand or DE in the package. Got to keep cartridge in mind.

As for the liner - For my above ground I followed the BBB method and had a couple times I needed to hit the pool hard with 10+ PPM chlorine for a few days. I think that's why eventually the liner started to delaminate but it held up pretty well, the thought back then was vinyl liner pools don't need the the water chemistry to be as precise as a concrete pool. Maybe I was an outlier but 15 good years before delamination was a good thing!

AG pool - Since we are in our 60's, 20 years should be long enough! I was just wondering as back then most AG pools were galvanized steel as far as I know.

SWG - Glad to see they are no longer considered a gimmick, I will agree that water chemistry is important.

Pump - Good to know.

Winterization - I'll dig around!

Thanks again!!
 
My avatar photo was taken right after the pool was installed
& this photo was taken 2 seconds ago -
38C98185-3475-4D53-875F-A20B502B2B11.jpeg
the arrow is pointing to the darker area where the steps were before
 
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About the liner - that 5-7 yrs sounds insane. 10-15 yrs is more common.
I purchased my pool on Black Friday of 2018 - the only liner offered was boulder swirl (I don’t care for the pattern).
It is still available today & has a 30yr warranty (not sure if that would be completely honored but it’s kind of a gauge like a mattress warranty - longer warranty often indicates longer life)
its not a cream of the crop Latham liner either.
Unfortunately, I am pretty sure it will outlive my steel walled above ground pool & I will be looking at it for a long time.
I am 4+ years in & i have a little fading from uv as it was very slightly noticeable when I relocated my wedding cake steps about a month ago. The spot where they had been is just a tiny bit darker blue than the rest of the pool. Follow TFP recommended levels What Are My Ideal Pool Levels?
& your liner will likely live a long time barring some sort of catastrophe. The main issues I have seen with liner quality is that the ones printed on a white background seem to fade prematurely. Also Darker liners obviously have alot more fading to go before getting extremely light due to uv than liners that start out lighter in the 1st place.

About the salt:
I have a swg, I backwash & also drain my pool down below the skimmer for winter to the same spot in my yard - the bermuda is fine, the weeds are also fine 🤣
Thanks!

Our pool liner lasted about 20 years but the bottom started to delaminate after about 15. It was a blue wall liner with a swirl bottom and was the liner that came with the kit. It eventually had a large rip way below the water line and we figured it was time to get rid of it; unfortunately the pool walls were very rusted all around the bottom so we got rid of the whole thing. My experience is similar to yours, we had a safety ladder that had a bath mat under it to protect the liner (was recommended by the installers) and we saw little fading. Toot it out of the pool every year and you really couldn't tell where it was placed. I was a little surprised to be told and read of the limited time... my thoughts were why would anyone buy this money pit especially with an IG pool!

Good to here about a SWG not killing vegetation since I would have to drain the pool to a wooded area behind my fence. I guess it makes sense now that you said that as I remember now I dumped a whole bottle of bleach in an area to kill stuff and it did absolutely nothing!

Thanks again!
 
I would look into resin wall pool if possible. Steel wall pools seem to have more rust issues than in the past. Mine only survived 10 years and started to rust long before that. My liner was 10 years old and had horizontal wrinkles on the wall from a couple of years of tablet abuse driving the pH way too low. The only reason it failed was the pool wall failed due to rust. A liner with good chemical levels should last longer than 10 years.

If your area is prone to frost heave then you will need to build the deck to those specifications. We have had posts where AGPs were damaged by frost heave. Also be sure the pool is not tied to the deck, so that if it heaves it won't damage the pool.
 
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Re liner: My pool builder said that the length of time is highly dependent on how well the chemistry is maintained. Our liner is on its 15th summer and is fine. When the PB ppl come out to open or close the pool they always comment on how good the liner looks.
 
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I would look into resin wall pool if possible. Steel wall pools seem to have more rust issues than in the past. Mine only survived 10 years and started to rust long before that. My liner was 10 years old and had horizontal wrinkles on the wall from a couple of years of tablet abuse driving the pH way too low. The only reason it failed was the pool wall failed due to rust. A liner with good chemical levels should last longer than 10 years.

If your area is prone to frost heave then you will need to build the deck to those specifications. We have had posts where AGPs were damaged by frost heave. Also be sure the pool is not tied to the deck, so that if it heaves it won't damage the pool.
Thanks!

It's the end of the season here in NJ and the one place we went to had galvanized steel and aluminum; they may sell resin walled but didn't have any in stock. I was interested in the aluminum walled pool (it was slightly more expensive) since it won't rust but know aluminum may be less durable than steel. I noticed rust around the skimmer at about 15 years and it was kind of surface. Once the liner went and we took it off is when we noticed the rust working up the walls all the way around; the bottom track was completely gone though. I was lucky in that I found the BBB method pretty much a year after my pool was installed and made sure the pool water chemistry was within parameters. I have seen some ugly water pools and vowed to never have my pool get to that level! LOL!!

Yes, NJ is prone to frost. I just spoke to someone who said I would need to put concrete footers down below the frost line which is 36 inches down. Much more work than I anticipated. But that is great advice not to connect the deck to the pool.
 
Re liner: My pool builder said that the length of time is highly dependent on how well the chemistry is maintained. Our liner is on its 15th summer and is fine. When the PB ppl come out to open or close the pool they always comment on how good the liner looks.
Thanks!

Glad to hear a success story! I started seeing some delamination on the floor with my AG liner at the 15 year mark. I believe it came from having to hit the pool a few times with heavy dose of chlorine. One thing that did start to happen after the 15 year mark was my liner (light blue walls) started to get metal stains (looked dirty) and I had to use metal stain remover. Pool place said it was probably rust leaching into the pool from the pool wall, I don't know.
 

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Aluminum can corrode, but I don't know if it has the same failure rate as steel. You can read about the demise of my pool during Hurricane Harvey. There's a link in my signature. In the photos you can see my pool also had a lot of rust under the liner on the inside pool wall. My liner did not leak but the rusted areas bubbling on the outside of the wall "weeped". I think water from condensation was trapped between the pool and liner and caused the rust. You probably had a similar issue.
 
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Aluminum can corrode, but I don't know if it has the same failure rate as steel. You can read about the demise of my pool during Hurricane Harvey. There's a link in my signature. In the photos you can see my pool also had a lot of rust under the liner on the inside pool wall. My liner did not leak but the rusted areas bubbling on the outside of the wall "weeped". I think water from condensation was trapped between the pool and liner and caused the rust. You probably had a similar issue.
WOW!

I also had a Vogue pool but didn't have anything like you had. Skimmer area had rust, the bottom on the pool had rust and the inside wasn't nearly as bad as what happened to yours. No weeping other than by the skimmer and I attributed it to wide mouth skimmer cutouts, we had a standard skimmer. The seal around the skimmer was starting to ooze but that was after 17 or 18 years, I wasn't brave enough to take the skimmer off and try to fix it. Maybe I was wrong but I couldn't justify a new liner with the rusted areas as I knew it was a matter of time before we'd see issues. Also luckily my backyard is sloped so they had to excavate the pool area to flatten it, any pool bursting should have it flowing into an empty land area!:)
 
I replaced the vinyl liner on my inground pool at 10 years. I replaced it more for aesthetics reasons than concern over getting a leak. It was bleaching out from the sun.
Thanks!

Good to know! It sound like there's a lot of disinformation on pool liner life.
 
Good to know! It sound like there's a lot of disinformation on pool liner life.
Well, yes and no. If you follow the misguided pool store / service methods, then they're right and you'll wreck the liner much sooner.

But you're here already so you'll fare alot better. Have you seen how we roll ? Cuz you're gonna be one of us on the cheap and easy.

How Clear is TFP Clear?

Welcome to TFP !!!!
 
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Well, yes and no. If you follow the misguided pool store / service methods, then they're right and you'll wreck the liner much sooner.

For me, it was more about methods of maintenance than chemistry levels. Before TFP, my numbers were similar to TFP with the exception of FC. The pool store wanted me to run at 1-3 ppm. Often I was near 5 ppm so I was closer to TFP than their numbers. The main difference was the method to lower pH and the method to add CYA. The pool store sold me pH down and said to dump in the deep end. To add CYA, again just dump in the deep end. Now that I use the sock method for CYA and use muriatic acid, longevity of the liner should increase. I won't know since I'm selling the house.
 
Well, yes and no. If you follow the misguided pool store / service methods, then they're right and you'll wreck the liner much sooner.

But you're here already so you'll fare alot better. Have you seen how we roll ? Cuz you're gonna be one of us on the cheap and easy.

How Clear is TFP Clear?

Welcome to TFP !!!!
I understand the TFP method although there seems to be some tweaks that were made. I originally was on the forum that predated TFP and I believe the founders were part of that forum; it's actually still around. I believe I was a TFP member years ago, I looked to see if I had any info but I didn't so re-register.

Yes Bleach, Borax and Baking Soda is much cheaper although I kept a small amount of trichlor for vacation time. Luckily I understand the relationship between chlorine and CYA so I never really fought a really green pool. I even used the BBB method in my hot tub!

I will need to brush up on the Borates as that wasn't discussed way back when.
 
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For me, it was more about methods of maintenance than chemistry levels. Before TFP, my numbers were similar to TFP with the exception of FC. The pool store wanted me to run at 1-3 ppm. Often I was near 5 ppm so I was closer to TFP than their numbers. The main difference was the method to lower pH and the method to add CYA. The pool store sold me pH down and said to dump in the deep end. To add CYA, again just dump in the deep end. Now that I use the sock method for CYA and use muriatic acid, longevity of the liner should increase. I won't know since I'm selling the house.
Interesting, FC used to be around 3 PPM with a CYA of around 30. As the CYA went up so did the chlorine level. Once we actually get a pool I'll have to brush up on the latest methods.

Sock method? I never did that, I just stuck the granules in the skimmer basket and let the filter do all the work. Putting them in a sock will save the impeller on the pump!

I never used muriatic acid, I just used pool PH down whenever the need was there although I was mostly adding borax to bring up the PH. Lock it in with Baking Soda and everything was great!
 
If you are looking at getting a SWG you will need to switch to muriatic acid to lower pH. The sulphites in pH down will shorten the life of the titanium plates in the SWG. The SWG tends to cause pH to drift up over time, and if you add any features like a fountain or anything that adds lots of splash that also help drive up pH.
 

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