LINER ISSUES

[NYCPOOL]

I just recently finished self installing my own steel wall vinyl Ig. I have noticed now that the water is at a constant 82 degrees ,that the liner has softened up and is very rough in many spots. Also some sharp tiny stones are pointing up through the floor also.The pool has been filled for 2 months now.The floor is a portland/sand mix ,seeing this now i wish i had chosen a different base. My question is what are my choices ,should i pull up the liner now and deal with the issues or can it hold off till the end of the season? Is there anything that can be put over the cement floor to cover the imperfections (foam , rubber?)or maybe a thin coating of a different cement to smooth out the rough spots.
Thanks....

 

[Casey]

I think, if you do pull the liner, since it's held water, you will have a very difficult time with resetting it i.e. the skimmer, return cut outs and it may even shrink all together ruining it.

Someone else will be along shortly to agree or disagree with me.

 

[waste]

Welcome to TFP!!

Waiting til the end of the season is a very good option With a liner as new as yours, it should be a simple matter to drain the pool and make any fixes you'd like to do.

While you could pull the entire liner out, Casey has a VERY GOOD POINT that it may not be possible to match up the already cut holes - so just don't remove any faceplates you don't have to to make the fix

You don't want to wait too long after the season to do this - you'll want AT LEAST 60 degrees air temp (and at that temp ~ full Sun) to be able to reset the liner!!!

Doing it this way will preclude fully padding the floor but at least you won't need to replace the liner 8)

I'll certainly help with what and how to do the floor repairs to keep the liner viable for it's expected life - please post some pics with the problem spots and where the liner is already cut out.

It's not very comfortable to go under the liner to remove and patch some rough spots - but it's easy enough

Casey isn't far off base on what she said (Hi Casey ) but with a first season liner, it should be a ~ easy fix as long as you have the vacs to reset the liner :-D

We can talk about how to do this over the rest of the summer and I'll tell you all the tricks I've learned over the years :handshake:

 

[NYCPOOL]

Thanks for the help guys.
So Ted what do you think the best method is to patch up these spots ? Do they make some kind of padding for floors?

 

[waste]

There are things you can use to pad floors under liners. I've never seen one that didn't have wrinkles or obvious seams - they improve the feel of a rough floor but look horrible and lead to wrinkles and other issues. (of course, maybe I just don't have the right technique ) They would also require fully removing the liner to install - which, as Casey and I said, can result in the liner not fitting back in properly

I would recommend making your own 'padding' by applying a skim coat of vermiculite and cement to the more offensive areas. As I alluded to last night, this can be done with the pool empty but the liner still in place 8) It's the way I have done similar repairs/ patches and leaves very little risk of the liner not resetting properly

Also, all you may have to do is go under the liner and scrape down or sweep up any offending pebbles/ bumps

Pics sure would be nice

As I said, we've still got a little time to figure out the best way to handle this 8) (we've just got to make sure we're both 'on the same page' as to what needs to be done and how to tackle it :-D )

 

[Casey]

Pics would be nice. 8)

 

[NYCPOOL]

Don't know if you would be able to see much with pics,its more of a "feel" issue that I know is there because i did it.I could live with the rough spots just dont know if its going to wear out the liner (this is the first pool i ever owned/installed)the sharp pebbles are scaring me though

 

[reallytiredteacher]

I agree with being able to redo a first year liner. We just installed IG vinyl lined pool ourselves and had step trim issues that resulted in draining down shallow end (actually most of it just leaked out on it's own!). While waiting for part kit our liner just hung there for a week. Just make sure the liner stays in it's track wherever your not working on that area. We purchased some Liner Bead Lock that keeps it in the track. It costs $25 for 120ft, but we got it directly at our pool guys price...so check around) After a week of hanging there in the heat we had no problems at all after we refilled it. Didn't even need to vacuum it again (of course you would have to in your situation!). The liner was slightly stretch/sagged in corners and a few places, but it pulled back nicely when we got the water back in it...not one wrinkle.

Matching the step faceplate, skimmer faceplate, and light niche cam be tricky but my husband did it careful not to overtighten screws and strip out holes. Screwing into plastic will easily strip out the holes in these pools.

One last thing I'd watch for is not to build up the problem areas too much because it's easy for a liner to stretch when the concrete/vermiculite mix is slightly lower than required for the exact finished measurements, but if your bottom concrete is higher than the finished measument the liner will have no where to go and it could wrinkle and bunch on the bottom.

Hang in there...You'll save a ton of $$$ doing it yourself!!!