So I need some advice. We have a 40'x20' doughboy agp, came with the house when we bought it 3 years ago, near Omaha Nebraska. Huge deck around it. It's an acreage, so water is our own well. Past two winters went fine, but this winter something went wrong, and the pool has been precipitously dropping the past week, as the weather has thawed. I think the culprit is probably the drain in the deep end - the pipe comes up from under the pool, to the pump equipment. In the past two years I pumped air in that pipe till it was coming out the drain at the bottom, closed the valve - trapping the air in theory - and that worked fine. But judging from the faint ripples coming up around that pipe, I think the valve must have leaked air, letting water up where it could freeze, busting the pipe, or something. Guess I should have piled hay or something around it, and wrapped it in heat tape, but that's in the past now. There's about 4 inches of water in the shallow end as I write this, and probably in the morning there will be none, aside from the slow melt of the 18+ inch thick slab of ice now sitting on the floor of the pool.
I come here asking for advice on how best to salvage the situation. Running our well overtime to keep water in it is not an option, it drops at about 1/4" an hour now I think, and it's not worth burning out our motor or damaging the well itself. In talking with local pool people I was told there is a chance that if the liner shrinks, it could damage the structure of the pool. I'd like to avoid that, at least. Is there a chance that lining the bottom edge of the liner where it meets the wall with sandbags might help keep the liner under control? If I leave the pool cover in place to keep the sun off the liner, might that help delay shrinkage? Would hanging sheets against the sides and spraying them with water once a day possibly help delay the drying out of the liner? Is it better to just cut loose the liner now and not risk the structural damage? Just trying to figure out how to make the best of a bad situation.
I come here asking for advice on how best to salvage the situation. Running our well overtime to keep water in it is not an option, it drops at about 1/4" an hour now I think, and it's not worth burning out our motor or damaging the well itself. In talking with local pool people I was told there is a chance that if the liner shrinks, it could damage the structure of the pool. I'd like to avoid that, at least. Is there a chance that lining the bottom edge of the liner where it meets the wall with sandbags might help keep the liner under control? If I leave the pool cover in place to keep the sun off the liner, might that help delay shrinkage? Would hanging sheets against the sides and spraying them with water once a day possibly help delay the drying out of the liner? Is it better to just cut loose the liner now and not risk the structural damage? Just trying to figure out how to make the best of a bad situation.