Opened the pool late this year, heres what we found:
Several other smaller spots too. Liner was 8 ish years old, no company would come out to pull up the liner and the ones I spoke to said when it pulls away from the corners there isnt much choice but to replace. Eight years not that long and the liner didnt feel brittle at all but I didn't feel adventurous to do it myself and we shopped for a liner company. between 3200 and 3800 bucks where I live (18x36). I went with one estimate in the middle, they seemed competent (the salesmen) and were the local distributor for Kayden liners (I wanted to have this companies liners) so i went with them.
NOTE TO ALL: The people who sell you the liner are NOT the ones doing the install so pay no attention to the manners of the salesmen, that is not who will come do the install.
Anyway, end of the season time to change liner, the company didn't warn me when they were coming as they said they would do. They came late in the afternoon, which means they needed to work into the night, not to mention the threat of heavy rain overnight. These made this seem like not a good idea to me, (my wife was horrified) but I deferred to them since they have done many liners. We were pleased with the look of the liner, and it seemed to go smooth despite the darkness. See here
We start to fill overnight, and indeed the heavy rain hits. Heres what I see in the morning:
(I highlighted the channel that formed in the sand bed underneath the liner with red marks)
I called the company, they told me to shut down the vac and stop filling. They came one day later, the fellow pulled down the liner and get in behind to retrowel the sand. He said there was a lot of water that came down through the decking and got under the liner, washing the sand out because there was no water in the liner to keep the sand bed in place. I also thought it possible that water came in by the steps (the fill water was running over the steps, and it seemed some sand i front of the steps was also channeling) they put the liner back up and started fillling again. The problem is that it just looks bad. Unfortunately the new liner (which I love) is so uniform in color that there is not enough contrast in the pictures to see how rough the repair job was, but here is how it looks:
(I highligted the line where the transition from shallow end to deep end begins, and where this transition smooshed out where the channel was repaired)
I called the company again, they said shut it down (Saturday morning) they could come Monday. I figured it was time to come to TFP for support/advice to ease my mind. Here's whats on my mind:
They started with a nice smooth even sand bed, their poor judgment in timing resulted in this problem in the sand. Am I reasonable to expect they will be able to get it back smooth and even? The liner is in (and stuck to the stairs and main drain), so they can't pull it out completely, and I'm afraid they will play the "its too late do fix that right, and we can't control the weather" game and leave me stuck with this clearly bad spot. Unfortunately The contract specified to complete payment when the water goes into the liner, and everything looked fine at that point so I've paid already. I don't think these guys have incentive to make it look good anymore and they'll tell me their job is done. What are the chances they will make this right? If not my only recourse will be to hire someone to come in and fix it, and try to sue them to get that money back. I'll try to update this when it sorts out, but I'd sure love to get some other opinions on what's going on here, and I know TFP is usually full of good opinions.
UPDATE MONDAY morning
They came (same guy) and retroweled again, but i wasn't satisfied that they got it smooth yet. This time the salesman (and I believe he also told me orginally he was the company's owner too) was there. I explained what I wasn't happy about, and he had his crew pop the liner out from the steps to halfway down the right side, and he grabbed a trowel and jumped down there himself and started troweling. I wish I'd take a picture of that but imagine smoothing your bedsheets out while kneeling on the bed underneath the comforter, except the comforter is a giant piece of 28mil virgin vinyl. They set the liner back, and set the vacuum and I was satisfied. Heres what it looked like
(same pic with and without a line showing the transition from shallow to deep)
Ok, I came in to update the post and after 5-10 min heard some salty language out by the pool. I went out and was greeted by this
As pool guy explained, the foam padding layer between the liner and the concrete sidewalls had collapsed around a good bit of the pool. (Backkground: The foam padding was nailed into the upper rim of the pool, a wooden layer sitting on top of the concrete walls). The foam was old but mostly in decent shape when they put this liner in, but it was clear that the foam around the nails was a weakpoint. The foam spends most of its life squeezed by the water pressure from the pool up against the concrete sidewall and its not going anywhere when the water is filled. But it had now been hanging by these same nails mostly for three days while the pool was unfilled. I guess that was plenty of time for that foam to tear away from those nails and crumple down behind the liner to where the water was. They popped open the liner all around and pulled out all the sagged foam and sealed it back up and and resumed filling.
The salesman told me that there isn't anything they can do about the foam layer at this point, and that the pool will just have to go without a foam layer between the liner and concrete wall. This does not make me happy, and I am not sure what I can do at this point since same salesman suggested that replacing the foam seems to require an entirely new liner; it seems if they have to pull out the old liner it won't be able to seal properly again. The implication being they weren't willing to make good on an entirely new liner.
YIKES. I am not sure a foam layer is truly needed for structural integrity, but I know it feels way better than a hard concrete wall along the side of the pool. I am going to have to figure out whether or not it is going to be useful to fight it out about the foam layer or not.
Uugggh!
Several other smaller spots too. Liner was 8 ish years old, no company would come out to pull up the liner and the ones I spoke to said when it pulls away from the corners there isnt much choice but to replace. Eight years not that long and the liner didnt feel brittle at all but I didn't feel adventurous to do it myself and we shopped for a liner company. between 3200 and 3800 bucks where I live (18x36). I went with one estimate in the middle, they seemed competent (the salesmen) and were the local distributor for Kayden liners (I wanted to have this companies liners) so i went with them.
NOTE TO ALL: The people who sell you the liner are NOT the ones doing the install so pay no attention to the manners of the salesmen, that is not who will come do the install.
Anyway, end of the season time to change liner, the company didn't warn me when they were coming as they said they would do. They came late in the afternoon, which means they needed to work into the night, not to mention the threat of heavy rain overnight. These made this seem like not a good idea to me, (my wife was horrified) but I deferred to them since they have done many liners. We were pleased with the look of the liner, and it seemed to go smooth despite the darkness. See here
We start to fill overnight, and indeed the heavy rain hits. Heres what I see in the morning:
(I highlighted the channel that formed in the sand bed underneath the liner with red marks)
I called the company, they told me to shut down the vac and stop filling. They came one day later, the fellow pulled down the liner and get in behind to retrowel the sand. He said there was a lot of water that came down through the decking and got under the liner, washing the sand out because there was no water in the liner to keep the sand bed in place. I also thought it possible that water came in by the steps (the fill water was running over the steps, and it seemed some sand i front of the steps was also channeling) they put the liner back up and started fillling again. The problem is that it just looks bad. Unfortunately the new liner (which I love) is so uniform in color that there is not enough contrast in the pictures to see how rough the repair job was, but here is how it looks:
(I highligted the line where the transition from shallow end to deep end begins, and where this transition smooshed out where the channel was repaired)
I called the company again, they said shut it down (Saturday morning) they could come Monday. I figured it was time to come to TFP for support/advice to ease my mind. Here's whats on my mind:
They started with a nice smooth even sand bed, their poor judgment in timing resulted in this problem in the sand. Am I reasonable to expect they will be able to get it back smooth and even? The liner is in (and stuck to the stairs and main drain), so they can't pull it out completely, and I'm afraid they will play the "its too late do fix that right, and we can't control the weather" game and leave me stuck with this clearly bad spot. Unfortunately The contract specified to complete payment when the water goes into the liner, and everything looked fine at that point so I've paid already. I don't think these guys have incentive to make it look good anymore and they'll tell me their job is done. What are the chances they will make this right? If not my only recourse will be to hire someone to come in and fix it, and try to sue them to get that money back. I'll try to update this when it sorts out, but I'd sure love to get some other opinions on what's going on here, and I know TFP is usually full of good opinions.
UPDATE MONDAY morning
They came (same guy) and retroweled again, but i wasn't satisfied that they got it smooth yet. This time the salesman (and I believe he also told me orginally he was the company's owner too) was there. I explained what I wasn't happy about, and he had his crew pop the liner out from the steps to halfway down the right side, and he grabbed a trowel and jumped down there himself and started troweling. I wish I'd take a picture of that but imagine smoothing your bedsheets out while kneeling on the bed underneath the comforter, except the comforter is a giant piece of 28mil virgin vinyl. They set the liner back, and set the vacuum and I was satisfied. Heres what it looked like
(same pic with and without a line showing the transition from shallow to deep)
Ok, I came in to update the post and after 5-10 min heard some salty language out by the pool. I went out and was greeted by this
As pool guy explained, the foam padding layer between the liner and the concrete sidewalls had collapsed around a good bit of the pool. (Backkground: The foam padding was nailed into the upper rim of the pool, a wooden layer sitting on top of the concrete walls). The foam was old but mostly in decent shape when they put this liner in, but it was clear that the foam around the nails was a weakpoint. The foam spends most of its life squeezed by the water pressure from the pool up against the concrete sidewall and its not going anywhere when the water is filled. But it had now been hanging by these same nails mostly for three days while the pool was unfilled. I guess that was plenty of time for that foam to tear away from those nails and crumple down behind the liner to where the water was. They popped open the liner all around and pulled out all the sagged foam and sealed it back up and and resumed filling.
The salesman told me that there isn't anything they can do about the foam layer at this point, and that the pool will just have to go without a foam layer between the liner and concrete wall. This does not make me happy, and I am not sure what I can do at this point since same salesman suggested that replacing the foam seems to require an entirely new liner; it seems if they have to pull out the old liner it won't be able to seal properly again. The implication being they weren't willing to make good on an entirely new liner.
YIKES. I am not sure a foam layer is truly needed for structural integrity, but I know it feels way better than a hard concrete wall along the side of the pool. I am going to have to figure out whether or not it is going to be useful to fight it out about the foam layer or not.
Uugggh!
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