Hi Everyone,
My name is Mike and I have already gotten so much great information from this forum, but now I could use some expert advice. My apologies in advance for a long first post but I figure more info is better.
A bit of background: I live in east central Florida and recently purchased an 18’ Wilbar steel pool from The Pool Factory. Generally good experience with them and I installed it myself over a couple of weekends, using a transit and taking my time to ensure it was level and round, which it is. Used a ground pad, masonry sand, and foam cove.
So everything came out really good, except for the installation of the swimways overlap liner that came with the pool. The instructions were minimal and I found all types of conflicting info online, so what I did was install the liner once the wall was up and being supported by stakes, getting it as centered and even as I could. Even then the weight of the liner seemed like it wanted to pull the wall down, so I got it as tight as I could, put about 3” of water in, getting all the wrinkles out of the floor, and then installed the top plates, stabilizer bars, and top ledges before continuing to fill.
As the water came up, things were looking good until numerous wrinkles and air pockets started appearing on one side. I tried the shop vac technique, but all it did was suck down a square foot around the hose until it looked like the liner would tear on the vac hose. I continued to fill thinking these imperfections would sort themselves out, but as you can see in the pics, they didn’t.
I talked to the company and they said don’t worry about it, but I got everything else right and my OCD can’t handle these wrinkles and bubbles. Add the fact that one side of the pool turned out nice but the side everyone sees is bad.
I have two questions:
1) My current plan is to drain the pool halfway, then remove 2-3 sections of top ledge and stabilizer bars at a time trying to straighten and pull the slack out. Will this be safe and/or cause damage? Anyone ever done this? I know that it won’t be perfect but is this the right approach to fixing this?
2) What did I do wrong and what can I do to avoid this next time? I felt like it was a catch 22 as I needed the structure of the pool to get the liner tight, but couldn’t tighten with the structure built. It also seemed as if there was "too much" liner to go around, causing it to bunch up. Would a unibead liner be better?
Thank you in advance to anyone that read all this and can offer any advice!
PS: The pictures don’t do the wrinkles justice. They are an eyesore.
My name is Mike and I have already gotten so much great information from this forum, but now I could use some expert advice. My apologies in advance for a long first post but I figure more info is better.
A bit of background: I live in east central Florida and recently purchased an 18’ Wilbar steel pool from The Pool Factory. Generally good experience with them and I installed it myself over a couple of weekends, using a transit and taking my time to ensure it was level and round, which it is. Used a ground pad, masonry sand, and foam cove.
So everything came out really good, except for the installation of the swimways overlap liner that came with the pool. The instructions were minimal and I found all types of conflicting info online, so what I did was install the liner once the wall was up and being supported by stakes, getting it as centered and even as I could. Even then the weight of the liner seemed like it wanted to pull the wall down, so I got it as tight as I could, put about 3” of water in, getting all the wrinkles out of the floor, and then installed the top plates, stabilizer bars, and top ledges before continuing to fill.
As the water came up, things were looking good until numerous wrinkles and air pockets started appearing on one side. I tried the shop vac technique, but all it did was suck down a square foot around the hose until it looked like the liner would tear on the vac hose. I continued to fill thinking these imperfections would sort themselves out, but as you can see in the pics, they didn’t.
I talked to the company and they said don’t worry about it, but I got everything else right and my OCD can’t handle these wrinkles and bubbles. Add the fact that one side of the pool turned out nice but the side everyone sees is bad.
I have two questions:
1) My current plan is to drain the pool halfway, then remove 2-3 sections of top ledge and stabilizer bars at a time trying to straighten and pull the slack out. Will this be safe and/or cause damage? Anyone ever done this? I know that it won’t be perfect but is this the right approach to fixing this?
2) What did I do wrong and what can I do to avoid this next time? I felt like it was a catch 22 as I needed the structure of the pool to get the liner tight, but couldn’t tighten with the structure built. It also seemed as if there was "too much" liner to go around, causing it to bunch up. Would a unibead liner be better?
Thank you in advance to anyone that read all this and can offer any advice!
PS: The pictures don’t do the wrinkles justice. They are an eyesore.
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