Re: DIY inground rehab, vinyl liner over poured cement walls
The liner arrived Friday, and we got a bunch of work done over the long weekend. I was hoping to get a little further along than this, but we had a washout Saturday and decided to spend the way sanding down the wood floors in the dining room instead. Once the weather cleared and we could get back to work on the pool, things moved a little more slowly than I would have liked.
The first few concrete blocks go down at the deep end of the pool. We cut four 2-foot lintels out of 1/8 aluminum stock to help support the block above the skimmer.
500+ pounds of mortar later, and we have the concrete block down. We coated the existing walls with a slurry of mortar and concrete adhesion additive to help the bond to the 30 year old concrete. It all seems pretty solid, thoug things could stand to be a little straigher and more level. If I were to do it over, I would probably just use thinset between the walls and block, that way things woudl have been a little more level.
Ive been looking for an excuse to finally put my mini drill press together, but I never had anything to drill. That changed this past week when I pre drilled each 8 foot section of liner track every 8 inches. This made installing the track so much faster, since metal drills dont like drilling through concrete, and masonry drills dont like drilling through metal.
The aluminum liner track starts going in. We used liquid nails between the track and the concrete block, then we sunk in masonry screws every 8 inches. Finally put that hammer drill to good use, and I'm proud to sya I didnt break a single bit this time.
All the liner track is in place. Its not very straight, both side to side, as well as vertically, thanks to my very poor job laying teh concrete block. I did my best to shim the track using miscelaneous pennies, nickles and dimes, but there is still a bit of visable runout. Im going to have to do a bangup job on the coping to try and redeem myself and make things look a little more straight.
I really wish things had turned out a little straighter than they are. I really didnt like the way the concrete block turned out. Whats more, in my haste, I put the block overlapping the wall by about 3/8 inch to try and replicate the location of the liner track when there was a wood beam instead (nailed to side of wood instead of top). Had I re-measured before laying the block, I would have refrained from adding any overhand to the side walls since the walls were exactly 16' which is how I ordered the liner. I got so caught up in recreating the location of the liner track, I simply didn't consider that the new liner is based off my wall measurements. I'm sure Ill be able to make up 3/8 on each side, especially since the stairs cutout will let me take in or let out liner bead as necessary. Live and learn.