So it finally begins!! Liner replacement..

[Strawberryshortcake]

I scheduled back in March but it wasn’t until today that we were able to get things moving. Every company in town is overbooked and we have over a month of constant downpour so everyone also got really behind. Which means i’m now finally getting my liner replaced in the middle of a heat wave! Not ideal I guess but it had to be done. I am surprised the liner was still kicking but I suspect multiple leaks were happening and I was having to top it off every 2 days recently. I also wasn’t wanting to dump a bunch of chemicals in when I knew it was going to be completely drained soon so it’s been barely staying clear with very minimal bleach additions and nothing else (though I made sure the ph wasn’t in damaging ranges).

It still has several more hours to drain.



Here is the liner we eventually picked. I also did see it in person and it looks nice. Much darker then my sun bleached, iron stained white liner currently so I hope it’s not too shocking a difference, lol.

 

[woodyp]

Looks like a winner!

 

[Mdragger88]

I love it! I’m a sucker for mosaic liners
Better late than never & your pool will be nice & refreshing in this heat wave! Mine has almost gotten too warm already so I’ve been running my fountain to cool things down for the past several days.

 

[YippeeSkippy]

What a pretty liner! Do they always show you how it will look at various depths? I've never seen that before.

 

[Strawberryshortcake]

What a pretty liner! Do they always show you how it will look at various depths? I've never seen that before.

You know it was just something I came across when I was searching for this particular liner. I saw it in a booklet but I was looking around for real photos of it. This site had the depth indicator... I do not know how accurate it is! I don't think I came across it anywhere else.

Sunburst With Oyster Bay- Pool Vinyl Liners- Pioneer Family Pools

We Know Pools, Patio and Hot Tubs! We sell, service and repair inground pools, onground pools, aboveground pools, hot tubs, spas and patio furniture.

www.pioneerfamilypools.ca

 

[Strawberryshortcake]

I love it! I’m a sucker for mosaic liners
Better late than never & your pool will be nice & refreshing in this heat wave! Mine has almost gotten too warm already so I’ve been running my fountain to cool things down for the past several days.

Seriously, it was honestly so frustrating, lol. The last few years we were able to swim comfortably by the end of May... my pool just reached "comfortable" last week, we had SO much rain and the temps were like 20 degrees below average. I was complaining about how the pool was too cold..
And within about 3 days of reaching "it feels good" temps, it just kept going and going and then it was very hot.

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Yeah, Mother Nature likes to mess with us at times, doesn't she?

Maddie

 

[drsipe]

I had my liner replaced last year, and the company I hired to do the replacement kept delaying due to cool temperatures, they wanted temps in the mid 70's and sunny, and I couldn't understand why, after all the original liner was installed on a cold October day. It turns out the company that installed the new liner knew their stuff, with the warmer weather, they got ALL the wrinkles out, and the liner is very smooth without any wrinkles at all. My original liner had a few wrinkles which the pool builder told me was normal.

Good luck and maybe with the warm weather it will help you get a smooth install.

 

[Strawberryshortcake]

Finally empty. And I have to say... that hole seems SO MUCH BIGGER when it's empty

I had my liner replaced last year, and the company I hired to do the replacement kept delaying due to cool temperatures, they wanted temps in the mid 70's and sunny, and I couldn't understand why, after all the original liner was installed on a cold October day. It turns out the company that installed the new liner knew their stuff, with the warmer weather, they got ALL the wrinkles out, and the liner is very smooth without any wrinkles at all. My original liner had a few wrinkles which the pool builder told me was normal.

Good luck and maybe with the warm weather it will help you get a smooth install.

I had always heard it was best for it to be warm out! But... I was wondering if it could be TOO WARM. 100+ degree indexes... well, actually, it's going to be cooling down a little bit. Still plenty hot, but also maybe not so unbearable for the guys that will be doing the work. There is hardly any shade/relief around my pool so I feel for them once they start in this heat...

I'm honestly so concerned about what we'll find behind that liner. The thing has got to be 15+ years old. The pool itself over 20. Who knows...

 

[Mdragger88]

Wow - that’s white! What color was it originally?
Also if u have one of those pop up canopies or something like that to put out for the workers i bet they would be extremely grateful. Happy installers might equal a nicer install.

 

[Strawberryshortcake]

Wow - that’s white! What color was it originally?
Also if u have one of those pop up canopies or something like that to put out for the workers i bet they would be extremely grateful. Happy installers might equal a nicer install.

I haven't got a clue what it was originally! The top edges still had a little print on them and it was greyish looking but that could have been sun damaged too. So I really have no idea lol. I had actually wondered if maybe it was just a white liner, because there is absolutely no trace of a print on the body of it.



Soooo....
There was definitely a leak happening somewhere!
The whole concrete area is covered in algae. It's got a ton of bleach sitting on it now.
Thankfully, and surprisingly to me, the walls look good.
The bottom is in real rough shape. The guys say it looks like whoever put the liner in before did so before the concrete (pool krete?) was fully dry. So, they need to skim coat the whole thing again to fix that, but they said it should only take about 2 hours and 3 bags.
Honestly, it's about what I expected. I knew something was wrong underneath because it always felt funny and looked bumpy in areas. All the algae was shocking though.

 

[Newdude]

All the algae was shocking though.

We will take algae over rust. Any. Dang. Day. Of. The. Week.

 

[Strawberryshortcake]

We will take algae over rust. Any. Dang. Day. Of. The. Week.

I was SO worried they'd tear this liner out and the walls would be pure rust. I was convinced that was where my iron was coming from. I think I actually had a nightmare about it. LOL But the walls seem pretty good.

Heres a few hours later after being doused several times throughout the day with straight bleach. Looking a lot less green. I offered to do another bleaching after the sun goes down, so I'm going to do that later tonight.
We also went ahead and had them paint the coping, which should look so much better now. They are going to do a second coat in the morning, then hopefully skimcoat the whole pool with pool krete. Hopefully I'll be filling it up by Friday!

I looked back at my Ring when they started pulling the liner up and you can just see chunks of pool krete coming off with it. Some areas it's just sand now. I don't know what whoever did this last time was thinking... they think it was either DIY done wrong, or pool installers did it when it was too cold and the krete didn't set...something obviously didn't go right...

Oh! The original liner. It was bright blue with some pattern on it. We got to see it on the bits that were protected behind the gaskets.

 

[Newdude]

How is your water table ? Is it anywhere near 8 ft down ? Even if it’s usually much lower all it takes is one really wet year and the liner could have floated or taken some water under it.

Or one of those 100 year storms that happen every 3 years now.

Either of those are completely plausible over the 15 year life of that liner.

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Ohmy! Well, it looks like that liner gave it all and then some. You are going to be soooo happy once the new liner is filled.

Maddie

 

[Strawberryshortcake]

How is your water table ? Is it anywhere near 8 ft down ? Even if it’s usually much lower all it takes is one really wet year and the liner could have floated or taken some water under it.

Or one of those 100 year storms that happen every 3 years now.

Either of those are completely plausible over the 15 year life of that liner.

Actually, when we had the freak 100-year winter storm earlier this year I had someone come out to emergency winterize the pool and he told me he'd been at this pool many years ago due to liner float! He said it was floating all up in the deep end. But, that was probably 10+ years ago. I am honestly not sure about the water table, but we did have a TON of rain this year!




I got some pictures of the old liner before they hauled it off. You can see what the original pattern looked like before it 100%, completely vanished, lol! Also, you can see how the pool krete just peeled off with the Dang thing...
And a final shot before they dropped the liner it. All the grey stuff is new pool krete...almost had to do the whole thing over.
I am surprised we reached filling today! I am excited! I think the liner is beautiful. Honestly, the photos aren't quite capturing it right, and it looks even brighter in the sun. It got cloudy as I went to take pics, of course.

 

[drsipe]

It looks great,,,,, it's kind of like getting a whole new pool.

 

[Newdude]

am surprised we reached filling today

So to answer you original question about how long it would take…….

It will take from Sunday to Wednesday, and a couple days to fill.

(also)

 

[milesvdustin]

It looks great,,,,, it's kind of like getting a whole new pool.

You aren't kidding. I did my own liner this spring and I also painted the coping and refinished the fiberglass steps. It does seem all brand new!

 

[Orion7319]

They wet hung it which is really good. Yes all that algae is normal. Our liner was that faded as well so we picked the one that the installer told us lasts the longest. Our liner has a blue base with a print on it so it’s blue though out. As apposed to a white base with a blue print on it. In theory if it fades it should just become solid blue. Also are you sure your walls are steel? Mine is a polymer of some sort. Here is a picture of mine when we had it replaced in January 2020.