24' Round Artesian Fuson New Liner - Not sure this is gonna work......

[TWG1572]

We purchased a house with an above ground pool about 4 years ago. The pool itself is probably 10 years old, and the liner has finally died. It has a J hook liner in it now, but after reading up I decided to go with a 25 mil overlap liner. I don't care about designs, so opted for straight blue. So far, so good.

The liner is coming today, so I figured I might as well get a start on tearing the pool down. Got the top rail off, then the top plates/rim. At that point the pool wall became extremely wobbly (expected) but also is leaning inwards in several sections. There is also a horizontal crease in the pool wall about three feel long, which was there when we got it. I'm guessing someone was standing on top of the pool and buckled it? That is one of the sections where there is an inward lean.

I started thinking about installing an overlap liner on a wall that is leaning and didn't really see how that would work. Won't the liner just pull the wall down as we try to get it spread out and arranged? Or is this normal? My plan is to use the vacuum method to get wrinkles out. I know I'll lose the lean when I get water in it, I'm just trying to think through the install process.

I'm a complete rookie here, so any thoughts are appreciated.

 

[kimkats]

Clamps on the top of the wall, stakes on the outside and rope to hold the wall up. That is the first thing I thought of.

Just thinking out loud.

Kim

 

[TWG1572]

That's what I was thinking too. Seems like that would make the most sense, we'll see how well it works!

Got the liner out last night. Bit of a mess on the bottom of the pool. Looks like the prior owners installed foam over the sand, but had not taken the old coping out. Which left a gap along the edge of the pool. That explains why we had a U shaped groove around the outside of the liner. The sand under the foam isn't level, so there are at least 3-4 depressions I need to fill. So, I've pulled all the foam and need to get to work on adding sand/leveling. Not sure I'm putting the foam back in.

 

[Casey]

I just did this tutitorial a few weeks ago.

How to install an over lap liner.

 

[TWG1572]

I just did this tutitorial a few weeks ago.

How to install an over lap liner.

Nice tutorial. Certainly makes it look easy. Fingers crossed!


My next concern - when the PO installed this pool, they sat the bottom rail on the sand. Then they built up with the foam. I'm either going to need to (1) reinstall the old foam, (2) splurge and buy new foam, or (3) get three tons of sand in to give me the base the manual calls for - which is 2" of sand above the bottom rail. Not sure what way I'm going. I'm almost leaning to the sand since it will allow me to smooth out my existing bottom that's full of holes and the old foam board is collapsed in spots.

 

[kimkats]

Does the manual say to use sand 2" up IF you do not have a cove? That is what I think they mean. YOU have cove so that takes the place of the 2" sand up the wall.

-The bottom track should be on top of the sand.

-cove sits on the sand and right up against the wall

I would LOVE to have foam on my pool bottom due to it being so smooth compared to how mine has dimpled and such over time. My sand bottom was purrrrfect when the liner was put down. Now..........not so much.

Kim

 

[TWG1572]

Does the manual say to use sand 2" up IF you do not have a cove? That is what I think they mean. YOU have cove so that takes the place of the 2" sand up the wall.

-The bottom track should be on top of the sand.

-cove sits on the sand and right up against the wall

I would LOVE to have foam on my pool bottom due to it being so smooth compared to how mine has dimpled and such over time. My sand bottom was purrrrfect when the liner was put down. Now..........not so much.

Kim

The manual itself only has an illustration (below). That's what I'm basing my thought process from. If I could get away with less sand, I'd be a happy camper! I still need to fill a little where leaks had washed out under the rails, etc.

This foam bottom was in for 5+ years. It was nice and smooth, except for areas where someone had landed hard with their heel or something like that. If I do re-use it, I may flip it and put the down side up. That is undamaged yet.

 

[TWG1572]

Now that I think about it, if I did put in 2 inches of sand above the rail than my pool liner measurements would be off too. Not a big deal with the overlap, but it seems like it would be if I had ordered a J hook like was on it. Maybe that drawing is just wrong.

 

[kimkats]

Wellllllllllll That does look like they want sand 2" up the wall BUT.................I did NOT do it for many reasons....My first pool rusted out on the bottom. I really feel it was from sand being up the wall and holding moisture which caused rust.

My pool now should not rust but I was NOT taking any chances.

-sand level all the way around the pool

-paver level with the top of the sand for the uprights to sit on

-bottom rail sitting ON TOP of the sand using care that NO sand got in or on the rail

-Cove sitting on sand and right against the wall

-outside the pool-white marble chips with careful looking for and placement of larger rocks to go right by the bottom rail BUT NOT touching the pool wall. (husband had quite a laugh at this one but he helped and likes how it looks and agrees it works keeping the sand off and away)

Now I am not an expert. Just a person that had a AGP rust out due to sand and now has an AGP that is doing great and should last forever!

I like your idea of turning the foam over.

Kim

- - - Updated - - -

ohhhhhhhhhh look "or other bottom material" hummmmmmmmmmmmmm foam???????

 

[Casey]

You don't need all of that sand in there. Put your cove in, fix the dimples n depressions and drop your liner.

 

[TWG1572]

Figured I'd give an update. I was able to fix the depressions with some mason sand, then I flipped the foam over and used the smooth underneath side as the top. That worked out well as it removed all the divots and the foam had started disintegrating a bit on the side that was up originally. If you tried taping the joints on that side, a thin layer of foam would just pull away with the tape. Flipping it solved that problem as the surface was solid and good.

The liner is in. Casey - your thread really helped. Wrinkle free (so far) - we've got about a foot of water in the pool now. We are on a well so will do a gradual fill.

Now the bad. Once we had the liner up, we noticed 3 tears. Each is about an inch long and halfway between the waterline and the top rail. I can't see where we would have caused those. Normally, I would have requested another liner but we had a bad storm rolling in last night w/70 mph winds predicted and I felt we had to get some water in the pool or it was going to blow away to Oz. We live on top of a hill in the country. It did hit about 4am and was everything that was advertised. The pool is still standing, thankfully.

I'm not happy about it, but I think my best option at this point is to patch the liner from the back side before the water level gets to the tears. That should be relatively invisible. I think. Best case was a new liner, but I felt like I was between a rock and hard place. I could probably still get one, but I'm not sure it's worth the effort. Depends on how permanent a patch can be.