Mothballing 28K IG, vinyl liner pool

nhpoolguy2 · Sep 9, 2012

Has anyone successfully mothballed an IG vinyl lined pool?

I'm trying to determine my options for a pool that I can't afford at this time, but really don't want to fill in either. Wife and kids would be devastated, and (somewhat less importantly) I'd have more grass to mow :wink:

. Hopefully a few years from now circumstances will be different and it can be brought back to life.

The situation is that the liner is only three years old but is leaking like a sieve (as much as 1" per day). After plugging the main drain -- burst pipe due to chronic procrastination when winterizing -- we found a 1" gash near a seam that was causing substantial erosion of the diagonal wall nearby. Despite patching this gash, the drainage continues unabated.

After spending $4K for the liner and $1K+ for water replacement and chemicals since then, I just can't come up with the cash to get another liner. This one is such a nightmare, and I have no way to know if the next will be the same as well. How does a gash like this appear in 8' of water? It's not like anyone is down there with a razor blade...

Barring miracle repairs of some sort, the liner is a total loss either way, so saving the liner is not in my mental calculus here. Here's what I would have as a basic plan:

1) Drain (duh!)

2) Antifreeze (fill pipes 100% -- top off each fall)

3) Leave liner in place to help protect walls and floor -- or will it just fall out of the channel due to shrinkage? A foot or so let go last winter when it drained about halfway. I think the leaves at the bottom plugged up all the holes for us, stopping it from draining completely

4) Cut large gashes in bottom of liner for drainage

5) Pump standing water as needed (don't want mosquitoes!)

6) Cover w/ LoopLoc

Does this have any shot of working, or is it inevitable that the pool will be completely destroyed without water in it?

I do not know the depth of the water table, but I am only 1 mile from the ocean and I know of other spots in my town with a shallow water table. I assume this means it is at least a risk.

My deep end is ~8 feet deep. The floor of my basement is ~5ft below grade and it has only flooded twice in 10 years, both of which were "100 year storms" :hammer:

I don't recall groundwater being a big issue when installing the liner either. Who knows what sits in those unknown 3ft, but it sounds somewhat promising?

Has anyone successfully pulled off a mothballing and re-start of an IG vinyl lined pool?

rhaas12321 · Sep 9, 2012

Hi nhpoolguy2,

I'm no expert, just got my pool up and running on BBB after the previous owner mothballed the pool for a couple years and it took me a couple more years to save up and get it fixed.

Draining the pool caused the liner to shrink and dry out. Once it was brittle enough, it just started breaking, like safety glass, millions of pieces, when I climbed in to drain the green water that pooled in the deep end.

Then the pool krete started to decay. It turned to dust. All in all it ended up costing me an extra grand to repair because it was drained for an extended period of time.

If it was left filled, it would have been green (it was anyway, just from rain water, irrigation, etc.) but the cost to get it operational again would have been a lot less.

Just dump some bleach in it and cover it if possible to keep it from growing/smelling.

Just me 2 cents. YMMV :|

Robert

nhpoolguy2 · Sep 9, 2012

rhaas12321 said:
Draining the pool caused the liner to shrink and dry out. Once it was brittle enough, it just started breaking, like safety glass, millions of pieces, when I climbed in to drain the green water that pooled in the deep end.

Then the pool krete started to decay. It turned to dust. All in all it ended up costing me an extra grand to repair because it was drained for an extended period of time.

Thanks -- this is really helpful info to have a first hand account of what the aftermath of this might look like. Was the "extra grand" the additional cost to rehab the surface below the liner? I'm assuming the liner would be more than $1K unless it is a very small pool (or things in general are much cheaper in your neck of the woods

)

rhaas12321 said:
Just dump some bleach in it and cover it if possible to keep it from growing/smelling.

Unfortunately that will not work... it will not hold water.

As far as I know my only options are:

1) Mothball it
2) Fill it in
3) Continue to chug along pouring massive amounts of water into it on a continuous basis, praying that the liner doesn't shrink too much during the winter when (at least last year) it drains down halfway whether I want it to or not. Based on the accelerated leaking this summer, I'm not hopeful that we'll be as well off this winter.

rhaas12321 · Sep 10, 2012

nhpoolguy2 said:
Was the "extra grand" the additional cost to rehab the surface below the liner? I'm assuming the liner would be more than $1K unless it is a very small pool (or things in general are much cheaper in your neck of the woods )

Yeah, that was just the extra work needed because the liner was gone. The liner and install was about 3200.

nhpoolguy2 said:
Unfortunately that will not work... it will not hold water.

As far as I know my only options are:

1) Mothball it
2) Fill it in
3) Continue to chug along pouring massive amounts of water into it on a continuous basis, praying that the liner doesn't shrink too much during the winter when (at least last year) it drains down halfway whether I want it to or not. Based on the accelerated leaking this summer, I'm not hopeful that we'll be as well off this winter.

If you have a loop-loc, maybe yours won't get the sun to dry it out. Mine was exposed

for several summers.
I would let it find it's own level and feed it enough bleach to kill the smell and mosquitos.

And D@mn, it sure is pretty with a new liner, crystal clear TFP water and grand children swimming, so avoid #2 unless you are really sure!

Best of luck!
Robert