Above ground pool bent upright

[josh1856]

Can someone help me understand what is happening? I recently purchased a above ground 25x52 saltwater 5000 from pool factory and finished the install and filled up. After about 24hrs one of the uprights buckled. I’m guessing I screwed up along the way and maybe leveling issue but not sure where? Pad prior to filling was level within 1/4” over 26ft round circle, uprights were level on outside side to side and inside pool wall in/out, top rails all level. There is a deck on that side so someone could have walked on the top rail. Would that cause this to buckle?

Not sure what to do now but at this point I’m thinking of supporting the top rail with 4x6 posts I have around here and waiting for summer to be over to drain enough to replace the upright.

 

[Texas Splash]

Welcome to TFP! That is a bit odd if the base remained level. Can't quite tell from the pic if it's just the vertical post that bent or if the wall also pushed outwards? You could always post a couple more pics a further back so we can see the ground and decking you are referring to. But I think you are right to try and support it as best as you can for the remainder of this season.

 

[nwardoh]

That is a TON of liner overlapped there. Are you sure you didn't drag the wall down with it being pulled too far over? Our 54" wall pool from them has like 3" max all the way around.

 

[Mdragger88]

I agree- we need more pics.
I can’t see the ground near the bottom of the upright.
It does kinda look like the wall bulged out.
As mentioned above- if the liner is pulled too tight this can force the wall down causing a bow. This can occur if you filled at night/in the cold & the liner didn’t stretch .
That upright definitely needs to be replaced. They will likely send u one.
You can try to remove the top rails in the area & get some slack in the liner there.

 

[josh1856]

I’ll see if I can get some additional pics later today.

The wall is not pushed outward or bent just the upright. The walls are all level both horizontally and vertically. The liner has a lot of extra material I'm thinking mostly because of it was expandable and can go up to 7ft deep we were originally going to dig out the center and make a bowl but ended up with a flat floor instead.

I crawled under the deck to look this morning and I think part of the top support got caught on one of the joists to the deck and when the pool filled everything expanded except that one upright stayed in place because it didn’t have enough room to expand at first. I am not sure how much these pools are supposed to expand and haven’t measured but that would be quite a bit of expansion if that was the case, maybe 2”. How much are above ground pools supposed to expand?

I contacted pool factory (Joe has been great) and they are sending a new upright.