Crater in corner of pool

Burkyspool said:

View attachment 438605
Newbie pool owner, first post here, had it for about a month. Two days ago one of the hoses popped off the filter and water gushed out. Luckily I spotted the lower water level in the pool and got out to turn off the pump. Unfortunately, what looks like happened is that the water washed out the sand underneath the pool as the filter/pump is right next to this indentation, and caused the vinyl to drop and cause this “crater.” I’m now worried that pressure on this could cause collapse or a hole. I have searched this site and it looks like the only fix is to drain the approximately 15k gallons and shore up the sand underneath and try as best I can to raise the liner, but it will probably never be taught again.

Click to expand...

kimkats said:

Hi and so sorry we are meeting like this

While I am waiting on your pic I will share we had the same thing happen to us! I will share how we "fixed" it and then made sure it did not happen again.

Fix:
Two people-one outside and on inside. Outside person GENTLY pushes the sand back under the liner. Have them push it as far in as they can a bit at a time. The person inside the pool will use their foot to help smooth it down where needed. The person outside may make a mound with the sand as they push it in. It will be the inside persons job to even it out. It will NOT be perfect but it will be okay and not cause any problems.

Keeping it from happening again:
-hard PVC sch 40 pipe for everything. Unions on either side of everything so you can work on the equipment when needed.
-Valves under the return and skimmer-this allows you to close the flow of water when needed.
-Get some pavers to put all under the return/skimmer area. We dug down a big in that area and put gravel in the hole. I made sure there was a light slope from the pool wall away from it. I put the pavers on that so when the skimmer overflows it will hit the pavers and go away from the pool.

Click to expand...

kimkats said:

Hi and so sorry we are meeting like this

While I am waiting on your pic I will share we had the same thing happen to us! I will share how we "fixed" it and then made sure it did not happen again.

Fix:
Two people-one outside and on inside. Outside person GENTLY pushes the sand back under the liner. Have them push it as far in as they can a bit at a time. The person inside the pool will use their foot to help smooth it down where needed. The person outside may make a mound with the sand as they push it in. It will be the inside persons job to even it out. It will NOT be perfect but it will be okay and not cause any problems.

Keeping it from happening again:
-hard PVC sch 40 pipe for everything. Unions on either side of everything so you can work on the equipment when needed.
-Valves under the return and skimmer-this allows you to close the flow of water when needed.
-Get some pavers to put all under the return/skimmer area. We dug down a big in that area and put gravel in the hole. I made sure there was a light slope from the pool wall away from it. I put the pavers on that so when the skimmer overflows it will hit the pavers and go away from the pool.

Click to expand...