Other Intex XTR Owners…Liner Help/Opinion?

[Jennyrob]

New pool owner. Have been lurking a while. First post! We purchased an Intex 18x52” round XRT pool. We are having a hard time with our set up, mostly getting the bottom of the liner to lay in a circle & smooth bottom wrinkles out. My son noticed the stitching in the seam of top sleeve support was off and changes at a point . I attached a picture of the stitching and one of the pool set up where the fabric near the far left pole looks “short” like there isn’t enough in that area, same area close to where the seam changes.

Do I have a defective liner? Or is the uneven seam common and it will most likely straighten out with the water? We’ve only put a little in it so far, at the wrinkle smoothing stage (twice!) Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Rancho Cost-a-Lotta]

Welcome to TFP (belated)!

Sorry you haven't received any responses. Do you still need help? Hopefully you've sorted out your problem and got the pool filled.

Pool Care Basics Archives

Your one-stop shop for all things TFP to include: ABCs of Water Chemistry, Recommended Chemicals/Levels, Test Kits, Troubleshooting, and much more!

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[Southern_IN763]

I helped set one of these up a few weeks ago and I think it really depends on how level the ground is underneath and what you have under the liner, along with how level the frame posts are. The person I helped had it installed incorrectly the previous years, and the persons helping setup previously used sand to try and fill in instead of digging out the ground to level. The sand washed away and there was over a 3 inch difference between one side to the other. I fixed the frame issues, but didn't have time to disassemble the entire pool to completely level the bottom better. I used a laser level to better level each leg, though all I ended up doing was adding 1" pavers to most of the post that were lower to get everything within under an inch difference between highest and lowest frame posts. For this type of pool if the bottom is uneven and if the post are not leveled properly, you're going to get wrinkles that you just can't get out due to the liner being pulled in a direction, even if slightly. Many people in this forum will have pics of them putting 4x8 ft insulation panels under their pools too. I did this and then added 1/2" Thick Flooring Puzzle Exercise Mat on top of that to have a nice soft flat (as possible) bottom after leveling the ground with dirt and adding minimum level of sand. This helped make the liner not wrinkle up, IMO. can you tell us what you did to level the frame and floor and what material if any you added under the liner?

 

[heikejohn]

Looks like it was seamed together sloppy, but it's perfectly OK the way it is.
Cosmetics only. You only notice it, because of the pattern.

 

[Jennyrob]

Thanks so much for the reassurance. It really is an eyesore but if the pool is stable that’s what counts. We realized a few pavers weren't set right. We used the top frame as a guide when we set them but it’s kinda fluid and I think we ended up with a slight egg shape . We fixed the pavers and started filling. We are about halfway right now. That area still looks a little funny from the outside to me but could be in my head. Still watching it…

To answer the other questions… we spent so much time on this site learning so much from awesome member posts that we did basically everything described in the comment above. Dug down to solid ground, used a laser level to get the ground and pavers level. Dug our pavers down to sit flush with 3/4 xps foam triple taped at the seam, no sand! The only variable we had that we couldn’t find too much info on was our slopped yard. We have about a 18” drop. I think my husband is doing a great job so far solving that issue with a retaining wall and drain pipe. He found a way to “back fill” the high side without putting any pressure on the walls or any fill material directly touching the liner.

This was a real challenge, to make it look nice without comprising the pool. I’m pretty confident the more I see that his creative solution will work well. If so, I look forward to posting our build to help others solve this issue down the road!

 

[Hatman52]

Our new Intex XTR has the same slight mismatch at the seam. Didn’t cause any issues, wrinkles, etc, after filling.

 

[Jennyrob]

Our new Intex XTR has the same slight mismatch at the seam. Didn’t cause any issues, wrinkles, etc, after filling. View attachment 420188

Thanks for sharing! Feel better to see another imperfect liner! My grey part on top where the liner hangs is a little worse off :/ kinda worried about the strength. Hoping it’s only cosmetic like yours and I just got the extra sloppy one lol.