How to stretch a liner that's fallen out of track and has shrunken badly.

[Zeeks]

In a nutshell, the screws holding my liner in place rusted out on 2 sides of my pool and the liner caved into the pool. It also shrank badly and you couldn't stretch it by hand enough - even with boiling water.

The pool techs who installed the liner took one look and just walked away saying I needed a new liner.

Not true. I got all of the tracking back on using stainless steel screws (which the original installers didn't appear to do).

Then I made the jig in the attached photo. Basically I sandwiched the end of the liner with 2 pieces of wood and clamped it down using some heavy duty C clamps. I ran a 2x4 through the "C" sections and used a lever and some rocks to gradually stretch it. It took me a week to get it all back in place (total of 8 feet of liner on one side, and 11 feet on the other). Good as new.

Anyway, just wanted to share what I did. Saved myself a bundle on a new liner also.


Z

 

[waterl0gged]

Hey thats awesome !
Got any "after" pics ?
Any wrinkles when you were done it is all back in place and is it tight again ? How much water did you need to drain out , as in, how far down was the water level under the repair , and was this in the deep end or the shallow end.


Nice job !

 

[Zeeks]

After stretching, the liner is very flappy. But I used small clothes pins to just hold it in place. THe liner stretches back to normal in a day. It looks pristine. Water was still in the "winterized" level - just below the jets. Reason it stayed that low is that water was escaping down the collapsed liner. Didn't need to drain anymore. Hard part is working on your knees for extended periods - and having to look down on stuff from above for screwing track back in.

I was surprised how much you could stretch the liner without tearing it - provided you go slowly and carefully.

 

[Zeeks]

Before and after pics. btw - the liner is 10 years old but could still take a serious stretching and shrink back into place later. To the left of the skimmer is the deep end (8 feet) - to the right is shallow/wading. It bears mentioning that I had to be very careful around the skimmer. I got a local pool shop to give me some liner remnants. I glued on large patch over the entire skimmer hole on the face side + 2 more inches around it. Then I glued another patch behind it, and clamped them together with two 8 x 8 boards so that they would get nice and pressed overnight. I took great care not to stretch the liner over the skimmer. Instead, I stretched to the right and left of it, tucked those sides into the track, and then used the boiling water method on the skimmer section itself. You can barely notice the patching. Note: the screw holes for the skimmer did not fall into the same place they used to be located in the liner. They're 1 inch further to the right. Pool has held water at the same mark for three days straight. No leaks in my patch. Also, I had to re-anchor the wooden 1x2 boards that held the liner track in a couple of places where the screws holding those in place had also rusted off (like to the right of the skimmer. It doesn't look bad in the before photo but it was.) It's a pain having to drill into concrete from above while pulling the drill toward you. Ran out of upload file space so I couldn't post an after pic of the "grill side".

 

[Nectarologist]

Wow! This is so great. Thanks for sharing. While I hope to not need this it's good to know it can be done. You saved A LOT of money. From the pictures the liner looks to be in good shape & not too old (no fading etc). Too bad for the pool company they weren't as clever as you.

 

[alexgzbro]

When you clamped your liner to the wood , did you drain the water out of your pool first then attach it. Cause right now I'm having that issue on the deep and shallow end about the same size Gap too that's falling off the tracks. I drained the pool recently put the liner in the tracks, as soon as it got about 3/4 full the liner started to pull off just in two sections tho