Liner Wrinkle in Old Pool

[jimingreen]

So here is the newest problem this year.

We had a Noah's Ark kind of rain yesterday and the teenagers decided to swim in the rain. I went out to do my daily pool work and to my horror found a huge wrinkle that is about 8 feet long in the shallow end. I'm almost certain the liner floated for a bit and their feet moved it.

As some background, part of this wrinkle was already there when we bought the house last summer. I had two pool inspectors look at the pool before we purchased. The general consensus at that time was to leave that wrinkle alone. This was because the previous owners had lived there two years and said the wrinkle was already there and no one could tell us how old the liner was. The pool guys guessed it to have maybe 5-7 years before we would need a new liner. Plus the pool is a Buster Crabbe wood walled pool installed in 1980. As both pool guys said, a wood pool this age is a serious cave in risk whenever drained for liner work.

So now the wrinkle was gone from about 2 foot long to 8 feet long in a day. I'm not sure if I should just leave it alone or if I risk making a worse situation by messing with it. What is the downside to leaving a wrinkle? I have read about the plunger method to try and work it out. Is that advisable with a liner that maybe has 5-7 years of life left? Also, I doubt I will risk a cave in by draining the pool to fix this unless a long term wrinkle is a potential problem in itself.

 

[Casey]

There is no risk to the pool with a wrinkle that big or long. It's just ugly and will collect dirt. I would not blame this on teenagers even though it's simple to do. Wrinkles and ground water and empty pools could do the same thing. Ground water is vicious. You can prevent this by installing well points in several locations around the pool and pumping them when the ground water is high. If you are interested in using the plunger, you could try it with a full pool and if that doesn't work, lower the water and leave 1 ft of water in the shallow end and maneuver the liner. Do NOT drain the pool unless you are going to drop a new liner!

 

[Granny]

I had a leak in a return line along with heavy rains and ground water and got a LOT of water behind and under my liner. An old pool lover told me that to get rid of the wrinkles I should brush the length of the wrinkle, and toward the wall. So, we brushed the wrinkles while we pumped out water, and pumped out water while we brushed the wrinkles and I ended up with a beautifully smooth liner with no water under it.

I'm not sure you'll ever get the old wrinkle out, but I'll bet you can keep it from getting bigger if you keep brushing while the water dissipates.

Good luck!

 

[jimingreen]

Thanks for the advice although I still have the wrinkles. After work yesterday I attempted to broom these out and also use the plunger method. Neither worked for me. The underground water must have drained because the wrinkles are tight to the bottom. If I didn't know better, I would swear it was glued down. Maybe the next time it dumps down rain it will float again and give me a chance to fix it. Otherwise I'll be looking at this for a while.