Liner Damaged Post Closing...Plan for winter

[bmrobinson]

I have a 24ft round above ground pool that I closed a few weeks ago. Last night, a deer decided to go for a swim and jumped in damaging both the winter cover and liner in the process. It swam in circles and kicked against the wall for probably an hour or two before the noise woke me up and we were able to get the deer out.

The liner is probably 6 years old and had been repaired in a few places recently, so I've been sort of waiting for a 'major' event to come along that warrants replacement. I'm having trouble identifying exactly where the leak in the liner is, but the water level in the pool is definitely slowly going down as time goes on. So, based on these events I'm definitely going to have to replace the liner next spring/summer. My question is, what should I do over the winter? Does it make sense to just leave the thing uncovered knowing that the liner is trash come spring? Should I fully drain it and try to patch the leak so that I can keep a small amount of water in it over the winter and put a new cover on?

I guess my goal right now is to make sure that the walls don't get damaged by snow and ice over the next 5-6 months. Any advice is appreciated!

 

[ajw22]

I think you need water int he pool to give structural support for the walls. You need to patch the liner and get water int he pool over the winter.

 

[bmrobinson]

Thanks. I'll have to see where the water finally stops draining and try to find the leak. It must be small, because I couldn't find any visible tears or gashes where the deer was trying to escape.

 

[Casey]

Definitely patch the liner. The pool n.v needs water to make it through gusty high winds.

 

[Pv2]

did you get pix or video???!!!