In-ground pool liners can last up to 20 years or more. The average pool owner will replace a liner once or maybe twice. You need to have a “good installation” in order to get the full life out of your liner. To handle any problems that may arise during your installation, make sure you find an experienced installer.
The real difference in an installation is what gets done behind the liner!
Choosing A Liner
Your installer should be able to supply you with samples from a few quality manufacturers. You should choose a liner made from virgin vinyl, not one that uses any recycled materials. These liners have a higher cold crack point and make the vinyl less pliable, affecting the durability of the liner.
Before you order a new liner, you will want to decide on any changes to the pool shape. These include: The addition of stairs; change in the slop angle, or pool depth.
Liners come in a variety of exciting new colors and patterns. There are textured materials that can be embossed on steps for better traction. You will find all manufacturers offer thicker mils for the walls, pool bottom, or steps, depending on your needs. A 27 or 28 mil side wall is the most common upgrade.
Pool Liner Warranties
Most people misunderstand the pool liner warranty. It is pro-rated, which means you get less and pay more the longer the liner is in before a problem occurs. I would like to point out that in my personal experience with 7 or 8 major manufacturers, and at least 2000 liner installations over 40 years, 1 out of 70 liners has a potential problem during the initial installation, 1 out of 700 liners will have a failure in the second year, and 1 out of 2000 will have a failure in the third year.
Few if any liners are credited with a manufacturers warranty after the fourth year, so don’t purchase a liner based on a warranty gimmick. I would love to hear from pool owners that have actually used a warranty from a manufacturer.
Draining Pool Water
When the liner arrives it is time to take the water out of the pool. You may choose to store the water on site or discard it. If you pump to waste, be sure not to raise your ground water table, flood your neighbor or pump into a street or basin not allowed by your town, make good decisions.
Our big concern when we pump out a pool is the ground water table level. If it is higher than the pool bottom, it can cause some damage and extra work.
If you do have ground water and the pool was installed at a time of the year when the excavator hit water, then you probably have a ground water pipe going into crushed stone under your pool. If this pipe can be located, the water can be pumped down and the potential problem eliminated. If not, there are a few other options, we will cover those in another section of this website.
Pool Walls Collapsing Potential
We have all heard stories of pool walls collapsing when a pool is drained. I have only had this happen on a wood walled pool, but have seen steel walled pools move. If your walls are not perfectly straight to begin with, then you may not have a cement collar around the outside of your pool walls, and braces. If this is a possibility, I would wait till a dry period to relieve the weight of the back-fill on your pool walls, I would prepare well and do the job as quickly as possible, and avoid any extended rain forecasts.
Pool Bottom
I always hope that your pool bottom will be vermiculite. This is a cement product that can be easily cleaned and patched. If the vermiculite was installed thin or has been exposed to ground water for extended periods, then additional repairs maybe necessary.
Older pools may have a sand bottom. This will be displaced when the liner is removed, and will need to be re-troweled at an additional cost. The other option is to cover it with vermiculite, making a permanent bottom.
My least favorite pool bottom to work with is stone dust. It works well for the initial installation, but the small pieces of stone that make up stone dust, lift out of the bottom and adhere to the liner as it’s being pulled out. this causes a residual of sharp stone chips that will always cause a premature failure of the pool liner.
The only option is to skim coat the pool bottom with vermiculite. If anyone tells you otherwise, you tell them you are going to inspect the bottom for stone particles before you let them put in the new pool liner. Too many people have learned this lesson the hard way.
The next most common pool bottom is grout. This is a sand and cement mix that is formed dry, then carefully moistened and allowed to harden into porous cement. These bottoms normally need some work, and may need a skim coat so as to lock down the coarse grains of sand that are used as the aggregate or bond for the cement.
Unless you are positive of your pool bottom, you need to be aware of the options, and know what to expect for possible additional charges. Nobody likes surprises, and I hate to give bad news, but quite often we are not given enough clues to guarantee what your pool bottom is, until the pool is drained.
Now Let’s Get To Work
The liner is here and the pool is empty. We cut the old liner into strips and fold it for removal. the ground water is taken care of and it’s time to prepare the pool for relining.
- We remove all the face plates and gaskets and pull the light from the deck box connection, and remove it.
- We inspect the walls for damage, or rust through. We can install steel or aluminum plates to repair rotted skimmers and returns.
- We test each underground pipe to identify any buried plumbing failures.
- We visually inspect the light niche, skimmer box, main drain, and stairs sections to find any cracks, gasket failures, or needed repairs.
- The fiberglass or plastic stair section is cleaned with our special 2 step process, and the step section is covered with our stair plate to prevent damage.
- Steel or aluminum staircase rods are cut out and the holes are calked.
- The liner track is cleaned and sized to insure the new liner will stay in place. extra care is given to the stair corners.
- The entire pool wall is scraped to remove loose dirt, rust, and burs.
- The liner track and the pool walls are washed down with a high pressure nozzle.
- The liner track is blown out and the coping is calked to the pool wall. any wall seam or stair seam is also calked. This seals all cracks and gives us a good vacuum when we set the liner. It also helps keep out moisture which causes corrosion.
- We apply rust restore to any badly rusted spots, and then put a rust inhibition paint.
- The pool bottom is carefully washed and vacuumed to remove all debris. this step is repeated as necessary.
- The gaskets are replaced where ever needed.
- The wall foam is installed.
- The liner is set into place and vacuum formed to remove wrinkles.
- New stair rods are installed when needed.
- A set of new face-plates and gaskets are installed. We carry an extensive supply of stainless steel screws, so we make sure that all old stripped screws are replaced with the proper stainless screws.
- The pool is refilled with water and the filter is started and inspected.
- We pick up and remove all trash
