getting a head start on liner replacement

[donnaspool]

Liner is on the way 24ft 52" round AG pool. Since my husband will be tackling this alone

Can he pull off the old liner and start leveling and resetting sand etc before new liner arrives can that cause a problem?

If it rains before new liner is installed can that be a problem?

Donnapool

[waste]

Welcome to The Forum!

Depending on how long it will be before the new liner arrives, I'd do as much as possible without defeating the rework.

If you retrowel the floor and leave it uncovered for a week of thunderstorms, you've wasted your time. Please let me know your schedule on liner arrival and placement and I'll try to give you a workable list of things you can work on, prior to receiving and installing the liner.

Knowing your location would help so I can see if you're expecting storms.

[donnaspool]

Thanks for your help, I am expecting it by Sunday but will not be able to do full install until following weekend so I have now and most of next week to chip away at it. I am in zip code 18360 , stroudsburg pa.
If I start working the sand can I put the old liner over it to protect it. meaning I would cut the sidewalls off and just have the circle at the bottom.

[waste]

You are on the exact same page as what I'd suggest:)

I'd cut the side wall ~ 2' up all around and remove the wall part of the liner. Then I'd fold the liner back on itself to expose 1/2 the floor (some of the sand will stick to the bottom of the liner, just sweep it off). Retrowel that 1/2 then recover the freshly troweled sand with the liner and peel back the other 1/2 and do the same.

When you pull out the old liner, you'll have to touch up a fair amount of the floor and cove. However, most of the work has already been done, so it should be a lot less work to get the bottom ready for the new liner.

Also, when you expose the walls, you can check to see if they need any attention, and take care of anything well before you are ready to drop the liner.

If, as the bottom is being retroweled, you need any tips & tricks on troweling sand for a pool, let me know and I'll try to explain how I've always done sand bottoms.

Please make sure you get replacement sand that is OK for pool bottoms (the 50 lb bags of kid's sandbox sand isn't - and you can get a better price at the local 'Contractor's Supply'.)

Well wishes for a successful liner drop and great pool season!

[donnaspool]

would love any tips or tricks you have to offer, I have been watching a bunch of you tube vids of liner replacement, many different methods out there
How much sand do I need? and is it just called pool sand? I am thinking of going to a masonary supply or landscaping stone supply or do you think home depot/lowes carries it?
I am going to cut and fold back half the cover today and take some pics so you can see what I am up against. thanks again for all your help!

[donnaspool]

Ok I found a source for sand, local masonary supply $15 ton and he said it was for pools.

I cut liner as mentioned above and pulled back. Not sure what I am looking for. Sand is hard as a rock. I tried to level out a bit but needed to first strafe it with a metal rake to loosen it then move it around with a push broom.

The other side had a big puddle underneath and bottom rail was exposed in a few spots. I used shop vac to vacuum out excessive water. Looks lime rain today so I rolled back the cover as best I could to protect sand. some of the edges are exposed in spots hope that is okay.

I attached a few pics ., welcome any comments or suggestions. expect to have liner by Saturday, oops looks like there is no way to attach a photo , sorry.

[Watermom]

You can either use Photobucket, Flickr, Picasa or the like or email the pictures to poolforum@gmail.com.

[waste]

Always happy to share my experience with the members of this forum :)

Does your husband have any troweling experience?

Regardless, you'll want a wood float and a pool trowel (the pool trowel is oval rather than rectangular). Use a garden rake to move the sand to 'roughly' level and at the desired height (if you don't have a transit, you can just run a string across the the pool and measure down from that to find the desired grade). Wet the sand with a garden hose ('mist' and 'shower' settings work best), you want the sand moist but not soaking. Use the wood float to first smooth and then tamp the sand and the trowel to put the finishing smooth on the sand. Work from the walls into the pool and leave an aisle back to the ladder (i.e. don't trowel yourself into a 'corner' with no way out of the pool)

To get the bevel at the bottom of the wall right, I've both measure down from the top of the wall and made a magic marker line on my wood float. I like the marking of the float because that way I can sink the float down to the bottom of the wall, to check how high the sand is on the wall and then, put the float against the wall and sight down to see how far out from the wall I am and adjust accordingly. (I like to play it safe and, if the liner calls for a 6" bevel, I mark the float at ~ 5 1/2" -it's better to be a little low on the floor of a liner pool).

There's the first installment on the tips & tricks. If you need clarification on anything or want a little more, just let me know.



The previous 2 posts weren't there when I started my response - I'm a poor and S-L-O-W typist.

You got the right sand 8)

[Watermom]

Ted,
This will be so helpful for this member. Actually, I was thinking that when you have time, you should write a liner replacement guide and we'll stick it at the top of the forum. That will save you from repeating over and over and it will be a great resource for a lot of our members. Whatcha think?

(I know right now is busy season for you so maybe this could be a fall project for you if there is no time to do it now?)

[donnaspool]

Heres the thing. The sand is more like cement. My husband had to use a metal rake to scratch the surface manytimes to get loose enough sand to fill in a couple of grapefruit sized holes.
Should he wet it down first?

[waste]

Nope, the water is only to help compact fresh sand.

If the floor is already to grade, leave it be and fill the holes/ dips with new sand. It sounds like your floor is 100% compacted, don't mess with any areas that aren't too high, but fill in any low spots. Don't do any more work than you need to do!


I'm following this thread, so feel free to ask any questions you have.

[donnaspool]

Hopefully you will not regret that last sentance, here the first question?

What am I leveling the bottom of the floor to?

should I try to make it even with the top of the bottom rail? or maybel level with highest point {which may reduce the size of the wedge of dirt that buts up against the side wall)?

Sorry for asking so many questions about what is probably a very simple task to someone who knows what they are doing?

thanks

[donnaspool]

HELP HELP HELP

Sand and cove went great and looks fine. Liner is beaded new liner was called a uni-bead and should have fit. After a few attempts figured out how to get bead to drop in track fairly easily but when we reached the starting point we still had about 10 inches of extra material. Unhooked everything and second time we triedhooking bead in a star pattern going back and forth accross pool. When we got to the last few sections we still had the same problem only now instead of one larg e piece of extra material we have several sections with just an inch or two extra. not sure what to do. Iam going to post this under a new heading as well. Trying to get set for daughters bday party in 1 week , help.

[Watermom]

Hopefully, Waste is still monitoring this thread, but I'll send a reminder email to him just in case he hasn't seen it.

[donnaspool]

Well after moving the extra material back and forth accross the liner my son made a good suggestion. He said to oonly pull half the material otherwise I would just be moving the problem. Then after splitting it bewtween 2 sections we halved it again and kept doing that until we spread the excess out enough to hook it in all the way around. Hopefuly it holds. So far it is as tight as a drum thanks to all the info I rcvd here. will keep all that posted hopefully a happy ending is near.

[donnaspool]

One final thank you to all who helped. Pool is done , water is in, and chems are good now if it would just stop raining hahaha gotta love it.

One caution to others, I had the shop vac behind the liner. Since I was filling with well for first day it took hours to get a few inches in the pool. Next day water truck arrived and I pulled vac hose out as he started to fill. To my surprise vac was 1/2 filled with sand. Not sure how as hose was at least a foot above sand. I have not been in pool yet but I guess there is going to be a dip somewhere. Not sure what I did wrong. Liner is tight as a drum not a single wrinkle

[PoolDoc]

Glad it worked out for you!