My pool has been very trouble free for the last 8 years, when I bought the house. The only hiccup I had was that the pool was Baquacil when I bought the house, I didn't even know what Baquacil was at the time, so I had quite the surprise when I added chlorine to the pool since I thought the water smelled "off", as the pool almost instantly changed colors when chlorine was added.
Howerver, this year, the liner tore on the pool floor. The liner always had wrinkles in the floor ever since I owned the pool, and it tore on a wrinkle, making it very difficult to patch, and was installed by a local pool builder in 2013 at a cost of about $6000. I had the liner serial number, so called Findlay Vinyl, who bought out Tri-City Vinyl who made the last liner, but they would not provide measurements for the existing liner unless the pool builder who installed it gave them permission, as "the measurements belong to the contractor not the homeowner". The gentleman I spoke to was very nice, gave me some pointers, but still does business with the pool builder and wouldn't want to jeopardize the business relationship that he had. I also wasn't super happy with the old liner's fit anyways, so I measured it myself. No easy task when the liner is bubbling and pulling away from the walls and corners, but I spend a few hours measuring, cross-checking my measurements, and getting the measure sheets filled out.
After filling out several measure sheets and getting quotes from Pool Warehouse, Dohenys, In The Swim, and perhaps a few others that I am forgetting about, I went with a GLI liner from National Discount Pool Supplies. It seems like most of the vendors were selling GLI liners, and I couldn't really find any information on brands, so I went with GLI. National Discount Pool Supplies had the lowest price on the liner, and gave me a link of all the patterns I could pick from for each price point.
I put in the order on September 4, a Wednesday, and on Monday, September 9 the liner was delivered to my house on a liftgate truck. I sourced all the gaskets I needed and started my install on Thursday September 12.
I started at 6am draining the pool. In total it took about an hour and a half to drain the pool using a trash pump. While the pool drained I removed the skimmer face plates, the pool light, the return faceplates, and anything else I could until I could start cutting up the liner on the shallow end.
Peeling the liner back revealed the nastiness under and behind the liner. I know free chlorine won't really exist behind the liner, but I'm amazed that algae can grow even with the liner blocking most of the sunlight. Also, the 37 year old pool walls are definitely showing their age, but should hopefully last the life of the new liner
We just worked our way towards the deep end, cutting up the liner as we went.
The pool floor was in good shape on the shallow end and on the slope, but one we hit the deep end the pool floor was in pretty bad shape, with huge amounts of clay visible through the floor.
I dug out any pool floor that was crumbling and we recoated it with a mixture of portland cement and sand. We also pressure washed the walls and the floor of the pool.
In addition, we also painted the bottom of the walls where they were rusting and we glued all of the gaskets in place on the pool wall with a silicone based sealant. I re-installed all the faceplates while the sealant cured to ensure that the gaskets were flat, and before hanging the new liner we removed all the faceplates and installed 2 screws in each pool fitting, so that the screw holes would be easier to locate.
We also duct taped all the seams in the pool wall for good measure. Also, while the shell was empty we re-measured it, and all of our measurements that the liner was made to were good to within an inch.
We hung the new liner at 1:30 PM. I was a little worried as it seemed to be undersized, but the bead fit well and all the corners, which were marked with stickers on the new liner, all lined up perfectly.
Using 2 shop-vacs helped pull it in a little, and helped us center the liner, but got nowhere close to pulling it to the walls. So I just started filling the pool. Once the water was about 6 inches deep I installed the main drain.
I filled the pool with a piece of pex running directly from the house, and a garden hose. I am on a well so was somewhat worried about drawing that much water, but didn't run into any issues.
As the water level rose, I installed the light ring the next morning. It was a cool morning and the water was cold, but I was able to do most of the screws from the pool deck. I did not cut out the liner behind the ring, I decided I would do that when I re-install the pool light. Once there was about an inch of water in the shallow end, I worked any remaining wrinkles in the pool floor to the pool walls.
Around noon, the water level was up to the bottom step, so I installed the liner strips and cut out the pool steps. It filled the rest of the day and was full the next morning, when I cut out the skimmer and the return faceplates.
Obligatory deep end liner photo
A few floating pieces of junk in the pool, but overall went very well, 48 hours total from the time I started draining the pool to the time that I turned the fill water off. I ran at least half of my fill water through my water softener and whole-house filter, so not a ton of iron in the water. I can tell a slight hue to the water looking at the main drain, but it did not change color at all upon the addition of chlorine. I started up with adding 4.5lb CYA and a gallon of liquid chlorine, hoping to maybe get a few swim days out of it before swim season ends here.
Overall, I had about $2000 in the new liner, a bag of cement and a bag of sand, new gaskets, and a liner. Although I didn't get any quotes from pool builders to do the work, I saved over $4000 compared to the 2013 quote, so I think I probably saved somewhere between $5000-$6000 doing it myself. I did have 3 helpers for about half the day of the liner install. I also got a completely wrinkle-free install, which was a surprise for me being a first-time liner install and not having a professional liner vac.
Howerver, this year, the liner tore on the pool floor. The liner always had wrinkles in the floor ever since I owned the pool, and it tore on a wrinkle, making it very difficult to patch, and was installed by a local pool builder in 2013 at a cost of about $6000. I had the liner serial number, so called Findlay Vinyl, who bought out Tri-City Vinyl who made the last liner, but they would not provide measurements for the existing liner unless the pool builder who installed it gave them permission, as "the measurements belong to the contractor not the homeowner". The gentleman I spoke to was very nice, gave me some pointers, but still does business with the pool builder and wouldn't want to jeopardize the business relationship that he had. I also wasn't super happy with the old liner's fit anyways, so I measured it myself. No easy task when the liner is bubbling and pulling away from the walls and corners, but I spend a few hours measuring, cross-checking my measurements, and getting the measure sheets filled out.
After filling out several measure sheets and getting quotes from Pool Warehouse, Dohenys, In The Swim, and perhaps a few others that I am forgetting about, I went with a GLI liner from National Discount Pool Supplies. It seems like most of the vendors were selling GLI liners, and I couldn't really find any information on brands, so I went with GLI. National Discount Pool Supplies had the lowest price on the liner, and gave me a link of all the patterns I could pick from for each price point.
I put in the order on September 4, a Wednesday, and on Monday, September 9 the liner was delivered to my house on a liftgate truck. I sourced all the gaskets I needed and started my install on Thursday September 12.
I started at 6am draining the pool. In total it took about an hour and a half to drain the pool using a trash pump. While the pool drained I removed the skimmer face plates, the pool light, the return faceplates, and anything else I could until I could start cutting up the liner on the shallow end.
Peeling the liner back revealed the nastiness under and behind the liner. I know free chlorine won't really exist behind the liner, but I'm amazed that algae can grow even with the liner blocking most of the sunlight. Also, the 37 year old pool walls are definitely showing their age, but should hopefully last the life of the new liner
We just worked our way towards the deep end, cutting up the liner as we went.
The pool floor was in good shape on the shallow end and on the slope, but one we hit the deep end the pool floor was in pretty bad shape, with huge amounts of clay visible through the floor.
I dug out any pool floor that was crumbling and we recoated it with a mixture of portland cement and sand. We also pressure washed the walls and the floor of the pool.
In addition, we also painted the bottom of the walls where they were rusting and we glued all of the gaskets in place on the pool wall with a silicone based sealant. I re-installed all the faceplates while the sealant cured to ensure that the gaskets were flat, and before hanging the new liner we removed all the faceplates and installed 2 screws in each pool fitting, so that the screw holes would be easier to locate.
We also duct taped all the seams in the pool wall for good measure. Also, while the shell was empty we re-measured it, and all of our measurements that the liner was made to were good to within an inch.
We hung the new liner at 1:30 PM. I was a little worried as it seemed to be undersized, but the bead fit well and all the corners, which were marked with stickers on the new liner, all lined up perfectly.
Using 2 shop-vacs helped pull it in a little, and helped us center the liner, but got nowhere close to pulling it to the walls. So I just started filling the pool. Once the water was about 6 inches deep I installed the main drain.
I filled the pool with a piece of pex running directly from the house, and a garden hose. I am on a well so was somewhat worried about drawing that much water, but didn't run into any issues.
As the water level rose, I installed the light ring the next morning. It was a cool morning and the water was cold, but I was able to do most of the screws from the pool deck. I did not cut out the liner behind the ring, I decided I would do that when I re-install the pool light. Once there was about an inch of water in the shallow end, I worked any remaining wrinkles in the pool floor to the pool walls.
Around noon, the water level was up to the bottom step, so I installed the liner strips and cut out the pool steps. It filled the rest of the day and was full the next morning, when I cut out the skimmer and the return faceplates.
Obligatory deep end liner photo
A few floating pieces of junk in the pool, but overall went very well, 48 hours total from the time I started draining the pool to the time that I turned the fill water off. I ran at least half of my fill water through my water softener and whole-house filter, so not a ton of iron in the water. I can tell a slight hue to the water looking at the main drain, but it did not change color at all upon the addition of chlorine. I started up with adding 4.5lb CYA and a gallon of liquid chlorine, hoping to maybe get a few swim days out of it before swim season ends here.
Overall, I had about $2000 in the new liner, a bag of cement and a bag of sand, new gaskets, and a liner. Although I didn't get any quotes from pool builders to do the work, I saved over $4000 compared to the 2013 quote, so I think I probably saved somewhere between $5000-$6000 doing it myself. I did have 3 helpers for about half the day of the liner install. I also got a completely wrinkle-free install, which was a surprise for me being a first-time liner install and not having a professional liner vac.
. Congrats on the liner install, impressive. Might be referring to this thread when my liner is due for replacement.