IG vinyl liner bead - design change?

[vanubee]

Hey all, I feel like I'm going crazy. I had a local company replace the vinyl liner for my in-ground pool. This time around, the liner seems to sit flush with the coping. I definitely did not change the coping (which I assume, also serves as the track for the bead of the liner). I pointed this out to the pool company and they said that's just the way the liner is supposed to be. So then I asked if that means previous installations were incorrect - I got a non-response. So did the design of vinyl liner beads or industry practices change or something over the years? Hope someone can help me make sense of this.

The liner with diamonds is my older liner and you can see an additional "track" above the liner. The liner with the rocks is what was most recently installed, and this time there is no longer a "track" above the liner (and I wonder why the liner wasn't more flushed with the skimmer faceplate).

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[PoolStored]

Both are kinda' odd with the downward arc of the liner. Seems like the skimmer was installed incorrectly...penetrating the bead line. It is more typical to have 3-4" between the skimmer plate and the bead line/coping. The only difference in your case, the second installation didn't continue the bead into the track all the way to the skimmer face plate. My *guess* is the skill of the installer and their ability to deal with an incorrectly place skimmer.

 

[Newdude]

Some copings are dual track. It doesn't matter which one you use AFAIK, so long as it's tight.