Cutting larger holes in liner

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J

jben04

Well-known member
May 17, 2011
61
Beaufort SC
Pool Size
7600
Surface
Vinyl
Chlorine
Liquid Chlorine
I hope no one minds,im gonna jump on this band wagon also.....

We have a intex 12 x 30 pool,and have just upgraded the pump from the 500ghp,to the intex 1500ghp.
Now here's the problem,the standard intake holes in the vinyl are the 1",and the ones on the new pump are ( if i remember correctly) 2".
Now,we cut out the small 1" and made the hole big enough for the larger intakes and outtake valve to fit,but its still leaking slightly.
Could this due to the newly cut holes not being big enough? i didnt want to cut too much and basically worked the larger vales through the holes.
Any and all help would be appreciated,
Thanks
 
Yes, that could be the reason. My husband and I just enlarged the holes in our 15 X 48 Intex pool this afternoon and the first hole he cut was leaking a little and the fitting was very hard to get through the hole. When he made it a little bigger it sealed off and stopped leaking.
 
mapoolgirl said:
Hi
We are also going to upgrade our filter and I was wondering if it is better to use the adapters or make the holes bigger?
Click to expand...

This is the reason why we went forward with cutting bigger holes verse using the adapters,according to our local pool shop, if you use the adapters the flow of water will be lower so you wouldnt be getting the full HP of the pump.....( hope i explained it right ,,sounds viable though).
Granted using the adapters would be so much easier.
Personally id recommend going forward and cut the holes bigger,but be very careful not to cut them too big,,also if there cut too small and its a over snug fit the seals will leak( like in our case).
 
How did you cut the hole bigger? What did you use? We just ran into the same problem. My husband was trying to install the smallest Intex sand filter in our 12' round Intex pool, but the hole in the pool is too small. Did you have to buy anything additional, a rubber gasket or anything? Sorry if I sound a bit ignorant! Hubs is doing all the actual work, I'm just searching the forums :)
 
Another question: What size hole did you cut? DH thinks it should be 2-1/4". He has drill bits to cut metal for 2-1/2 (looks too big) and 2-1/8 (looks too small). Nothing in the written documentation indicates what size. We bought the 1600 GPH Intex sand filter.
 
dewdrop519 said:
How did you cut the hole bigger? What did you use? We just ran into the same problem. My husband was trying to install the smallest Intex sand filter in our 12' round Intex pool, but the hole in the pool is too small. Did you have to buy anything additional, a rubber gasket or anything? Sorry if I sound a bit ignorant! Hubs is doing all the actual work, I'm just searching the forums :)
Click to expand...


To cut the holes bigger we just used an exacto knife.
We also just bought 2 extra rubber gaskets to go on the outside of the pool where the holes would be.
What we did was took the rubber gasket from the pump inlet and basically drew around the inner part of the gasket,then very carefully cut it out with the exacto knife.

To be honest ,it was a bit nerve racking but dont rush it,remember rather cut too little out than too much.
 
jben04 said:
To cut the holes bigger we just used an exacto knife.....To be honest ,it was a bit nerve racking but dont rush it,remember rather cut too little out than too much.
Click to expand...


Nerve wracking is the right word. I did this last year on a 13'x36" simple set while it was full. It was a fiasco. I let out enough water to get below the original hole, and then used a combination of an exacto and a small pair of fiskers paper scissors. The hole opened easily and fit just right, however as I finished up I swung my arm behind me and sliced a clean 4" gash right in the liner, about 6" to the left of the hole. :hammer: Believe it or not I fixed that up with gorilla tape and it held. Two weeks later the pool split itself right along a seam (it was the second season and got a lot of use) so it wasn't long for this world anyway.

And I can't remember exactly why, but I didn't like the adapters though I did order them. I think seeing all that plastic hanging off the sides was annoying.
Jeez though, you should have seen the 2500 gph on that little pool. It practically turned it into a jacuzzi!
 
Just my experience...and sorry I'm typing on a tiny phone so please excuse any spelling errors and such :)

I bought an intex 12 foot frame pool. The filter was severely lacking. I saw Tue sand filter on walmart online, and it was bundled with the saltwater system and a$50 gift card.the cost was $169...so really only 119 after gift card. Good deal so I got them.

Spent some time setting up everything..and when I go to connect to pool I realize that I have 1 inch holes on my pool and 1 1/2 on my hoses. So I looked online and got adapters. Pump flow was very low and I was worried about ruining the pump. Not sure it would but still paranoid. So I decided to cut the holes bigger. I drained the pool to below the in hole and marked a circle using the gasket. It was only slightly bigger than the black surround already there. The first one I did went smooth. Outlet fit perfect didn't force it at all. The in hole I accidentally sliced a little to far. I put on nozzle and filled pool up a bit and sure enough it leaked. Crud!

I read some more on this forum and saw the blurb about the hole leaking it'd it wasn't big enough. So I went out and looked and sure enough that was the case. Where I thought I had city to far was just perfect. I put the nozzle in from inside the pool and Phaedra all the liner past the last thread. Where it overlapped I just trimmed off with my knife. Flipped it to the other side hooked of up filled it up...no leak!

The pump on the other hand didn't seem to be building up pressure. Turns out the lady at customer service told me to unscrew the clear le jet a bit. And that would help. Sure enough...the pool is a jet bath now.

A word about their customer service....long winded prompts..was on hold initially for about ten minutes. But the lady was knowledgeable. I know they have a million products but she answered my questions like she knew another the product in her head not from looking it up. Pretty impressed. She had now solution other then that. I told her I couldn't check at the moment so she started a replacement claim which o got in my email within minutes. Now if it doesn't stay working I can just submit the claim and get a Jew one. She did that so I didn't have to call back. If I have no problem I just ignore it. That is some pretty good customer servicemen very impressed.

I haven't hooked up the saltwater system yet but ill post when I do. If anyone has any questions about the cutting ill answer wit my experience. But it doesn't seem to have affected pool integrity and no leaks. So it seems so far like the right move. If you do it ist he very careful.

Enjoy the weather. I'm outside of Pittsburgh and its been 95ish all week!
Thank goodness for the pool!
 

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I just recently upgrade my pump and ran into similar problems. What I did was take the gasket off the new larger intake/outlet and used a Sharpie to trace the circle of the inside of the gasket. I cut along the inside of the sharpie line and I noticed little (very tiny) drips after I reattached everything. The connectors were very snug pushing through the liner and I suspect that too much liner was preventing a good seal (bunching up creating crevices when the connectors were tightened.) I drained and disconnected the attachments and re-cut the lines to the outside edges of the Sharpie markings and reattached everything. Drips gone. The liner cannot be too snug against the connector. You want contact but not too much or it bunches together when the connectors are tightened leaving crevices for water to sneak out.
 
Thanks for all of the help from u guys on here. I have successfully added a Hayward thru wall skimmer and Hayward 1.5 inch return. (I'm not an adaptor kind of guy) I wanted the intex plumbing gone so have been lurking on here for awhile now im happy with my pool. BTW, I found if your an RC guy like myself a curved short blade pair of lexan sissors works wonders. There is no way you can mess up as the scissors will not cut a straight line. :whoot:
 
auntlavender said:
Nerve wracking is the right word. I did this last year on a 13'x36" simple set while it was full. It was a fiasco. I let out enough water to get below the original hole, and then used a combination of an exacto and a small pair of fiskers paper scissors. The hole opened easily and fit just right, however as I finished up I swung my arm behind me and sliced a clean 4" gash right in the liner, about 6" to the left of the hole. :hammer: Believe it or not I fixed that up with gorilla tape and it held. Two weeks later the pool split itself right along a seam (it was the second season and got a lot of use) so it wasn't long for this world anyway.

And I can't remember exactly why, but I didn't like the adapters though I did order them. I think seeing all that plastic hanging off the sides was annoying.
Jeez though, you should have seen the 2500 gph on that little pool. It practically turned it into a jacuzzi!
Click to expand...
This hurts to read. I like your attitude though. I hope you now have another pool to pour your experience into;)
 
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