Doughboy Liner Damaged by Chlorine?

[rajung]

Well I thought all was good and I know this is an older post but just received this email.

[Related to: http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php/22676 - PoolDoc]

I trust you are finding opportunity to enjoy your pool this summer in spite of the cooler temperatures. I’m writing to let you know that although we are honoring the warranty discount you were given on your liner, Doughboy has denied the claim internally. This has no affect on our transaction with you as I’m choosing to maintain our position.



The reason for their denial is that the liner has evidence of over-chlorination. Oils inherent to the vinyl are pulled from the material when over-chlorination is present. What remains is a brittle material that in this case cracked at the seam. A warranty liner replacement defective from manufacture would actually separate at the seam.



I write this to encourage you in proper maintenance of your pool. We suggest you maintain chlorine levels of 1-3 ppm and immediately brush up any powder residue after shocking your pool. This will help maintain the color and the life of your liner.



Please note that any claims in the future which are indicative of over-chlorination will not be honored by Doughboy or by Pool ####. I trust you will understand this position and please let me know if you have any questions.



We are very grateful for your business!

I was using 2 bioguard sticks in the skimmer per week as instructed by my pool store salesman, and it did fade the liner around the return after 9 months which I thought was normal since it was coming out a short distance away from skimmer.
At the time my CYA levels were at 90 and I was keeping my FC at 8-9ppm.
This year in March after liner replacement I had and have had a stabilizer level around 50ppm and have been keeping the FC around 5-6ppm.
Should I dump a bunch of water out water to get the CYA level down to 20ppm as to get the FC level to 3ppm as they say, or is this a bunch of you know what as to get out of warranty?
Totally confused now as to stabilizer/FC relationship.
I thought the higher CYA the higher FC had to be and lower CYA the lower FC?
Also, after liner was put in I tossed the bioguard stuff and have been using bleach,not adding into the skimmer but about a foot out in front of the return stream to avoid any fading ad the return area of liner.
I am thinking since the liner was faded around the return about 2 inches around it they were quick to assume to much biocrap and not knowing what the stabilizer levels were and why FC level was at the level it was due to that.

[Watermom]

I have asked Ben to read your post.

[CarlD]

Yes. I see nothing wrong in what you did, and now see this as an attempt by DoughBoy to cheat on their warranty. Let Ben advise you but I'd be prepared for a fight.

[PoolDoc]

@CarlD: What D-boy apparently said was, "We'll honor the warranty this time, even though we don't think we're obligated. But we won't do it again."

@rajung: Extremely high chlorine will damage some liners. Unfortunately, low chlorine will damage other liners. And there's no way I've been able to find that allows you to tell -- in ADVANCE -- whether you have a liner that will be damaged by extremely high chlorine, or one that will be damaged by even low chlorine.

Perhaps more importantly, even pool manufacturers like D-boy can't tell the difference. Vinyl sheet varies greatly in quality, but a low-grade sheeting may LOOK and FEEL identical to a high-grade sheeting, at least when new.

My guess is one of two things happened:

1. You inadvertently raised the chlorine VERY high while the stabilizer was very low.

OR

2. D-boy got a batch of liners made from low-grade, possibly Chinese, sheeting.

And from where we're sitting, there's no way to even guess which one it was!


You report that D-boy wrote:
I write this to encourage you in proper maintenance of your pool. We suggest you maintain chlorine levels of 1-3 ppm and immediately brush up any powder residue after shocking your pool. This will help maintain the color and the life of your liner.

The problem is that FC=3 ppm -- a level approved by D-boy -- will damage a LOT of liners, if the CYA is less than 10 ppm. But FC=10 ppm is unlikely to damage any liners if CYA is > 150 ppm.

American conventional AG pool makers are under a LOT of price pressure from soft-side pool sales. The temptation to use imported custom-pattern Chinese liners is HUGE. If you look at these Alibaba listings:
http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/vinyl-pool-liners.html
you'll see vinyl pool sheeting offered for as low as $1/sq meter. That translates to a manufacturing cost for sheeting for a 27' round pool of $100 vs $1,000 for US or Canadian goods!

In contrast to the Japanese market ethics, the Chinese market places NO value on product quality or integrity in business dealings. Where Japanese might feel justified in ripping off "gaijin", Chinese companies rip off local customers with even more eagerness than they do the "gwai lo" or (gweilo). A close friend of my son's has been training for a number of years to work in international marketing, focusing on the Chinese ex-im market with the US. He's confided to my son that virtually all the Chinese he has met value ONLY high profits. The ONLY concern they have with quality is, "Can we get away with it?"

US companies that successfully import Chinese made goods have Chinese dialect fluent engineering and product TEAMS whose sole job is to make sure that Chinese makers deliver the product quality they've agreed to deliver.

Companies like Doughboy are probably NOT likely to be big enough to have a qualified and dedicated import product quality team . . . and without one, they WILL get ripped off.

Over the past 5 years, I've seen more and more evidence of this happening with plumbing goods, with equipment, and with pools. Intex US enforces moderately good product quality on the cluster of makers that supply their products, but the company supplying Walmart's "Pro Series" has delivered intermittently TERRIBLE product quality, coupled with even worse product support.

I don't know if they'll tell you, but ask D-boy who made the sheeting used in your liner. If the answer is in Chinese, I think you've found the problem!

[PoolDoc]

Examples of *serious* Chinese product quality problems:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_drywall

Melamine (related to CYA) in Chinese made baby formula:
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/m/melamine/index.html

And, in dog food:
http://www.fda.gov/animalveterinary/safetyhealth/recallswithdrawals/ucm129575.htm

Chinese expired meat sold to McDonalds, etc (2014!)
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/07/21/mcdonalds-kfc-china-scandal/12929885/

Smithfield Hams now Chinese
http://www.dailyprogress.com/opinion/editorials/scandal-in-china-has-global-implications/article_bc2719b2-1654-11e4-880e-001a4bcf6878.html

Chinese pharma fakes are killers
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/04/30/counterfeit-sites-dark-web-series/6374451/

Chinese tires are risky:
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/32899266/ns/business-autos/t/chinese-tires-its-buyer-beware/

Chinese construction and electrical counterfeits:
http://research.ufl.edu/publications/exploremagazine/spring-2012/buyer-beware.html?mobile

[CarlD]

Ben, from my reading, I believe the letter was written by the pool dealer not Doughboy, "Pool ####".

[PoolDoc]

Could be. But either way, it doesn't affect my evaluation (that EITHER the liner was subjected to high FC + low CYA OR that the liner was made from a low-grade, possibly Chinese, liner sheet material.)

This is a VERY frustrating situation, since the liner sheeting material is not necessarily the same, even on "identical" liners (same liner company, same print, same specs) are not necessarily made from the same vinyl sheeting. In a conversation I had with a Canadian General product engineer some years ago (http://www.cgtower.com/), he told me that even he couldn't always tell 'good' sheeting from the junk, without lab testing.

This means that there's NO way for the pool dealer or pool consumer to tell. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any way to test or confirm liner durability in advance! It's a product tailor made for Chinese market sharks, since they can cut quality without getting caught for years.

[rajung]

yes the email was from the pool store service dept.
I left out the last half of business name.
At the time of replacement,the C.S rep said they " the store" would also cover a 2 year labor warranty if it happened again, bought that was verbally over the phone, nothing in writing.
So it now appears I have no warranty.
It also to me is a good indicator that the reason they may have such a low failure rate is that many claims are denied.
I have no way to prove my side and dont think there could have been then and now.
One thing I have been doing for the last 5 months is keeping a daily record on what chemicals I have been adding and why and what rainfall we have had and if fresh water was added.
I cant possibly know of anything else I can do differently?
I also had my sand filter replaced by the same store last week after it split at the bottom seam and I was losing a lot of water ,it was on back order for 3 weeks so I had to keep adding fresh water every 2 days and now my TA is at 200.My tap water is at 350PPM Ta.
So I had a big battle at the start of this new liner lowering it with MA.
I always stored filter in a garage?
currently my readings
PH 7.4
CC 0 one day-- 0.2 sometimes
FC 6
TA 200
CH 150, don't check very often
stabilizer 50
borate 30
should I just stay the course and am I safe with the 200ppm TA? or add acid and aerate again to get it back to 130ppm TA?
Pretty bummed thinking I had the process nailed down just to find out it they don't think so.
Before I switched to the BBB method, I talked to quite a few people what they use to maintain chemical levels.
Most said , just throw in some pucks, some said if it smells like a pond I throw in some chlorine,others say I check the chlorine level and ph and that's all and we never had a problem in 5 years.They look at me like i am nuts when they see the M acid and my Taylor kit
I don't get it!

[CarlD]

Could be. But either way, it doesn't affect my evaluation (that EITHER the liner was subjected to high FC + low CYA OR that the liner was made from a low-grade, possibly Chinese, liner sheet material.).

Nor should it.

[CarlD]

rajung:
You are not nuts.

Since this is a vinyl pool and your CH is fairly low, while your T/A is high, I don't think you have a big risk. The two risks of high T/A are: pH continually trending up; and of cloudy water and scaling if CH gets high as well (400ppm or greater).

You MAY want to go through our T/A lowering process, but never let your pH go below 7.0, and don't pour a giant slug of Muriatic Acid into your pool as that can damage your liner. Instead, either mix M-A into a 5 gallon bucket of pool water and add THAT to the return stream (always add the acid to the water, not the other way around), or you can add M-A directly into the return stream so it cannot settle. In either case, I wouldn't add more than 1 cup at a time and work pH down slowly, which brings T/A down with it.

You can use dry acid instead, but I STILL like to dissolve it in 5 gallons of pool water first.

Then aerate your water with splashing kids, a sprayer, etc, to raise pH without raising T/A. Lower pH again as above to bring T/A down again, and aerate to raise pH. Repeat to "ratchet" T/A down without putting your pool in danger by too low pH, or by a slug of M-A settling on the liner and weakening it.

[rajung]

thanks
when the liner was replaced, my TA was in the mid 300 range.
I slowly added the acid in front of the return stream,usually no more than 32oz. at a time,around 4 hours apart if I remember without looking at my log sheet I now have
Then I would brush the area where added and use 2 pond pumps attached to the steps and shoot a jet stream across the pool surface for what seemed like a week, never letting the ph drop below7.2.
My return diffuser just doesn't seem to do enough alone and I cant turn it up to the surface due to a light in it without getting under the deck and loosening the whole unit to turn it.
took about 7-10 days to go from 380 to 110 and somewhere around 5 gal of acid? on 13,700 gal pool.
I guess I will slowly go back to work on the TA issue,and continue with the chemical balance I have been doing lately and assume my 50ppm stabilizer with 6ppm FC is fine and adding bleach or 12.5% chlorinator in front of return stream.The PH always for the most part stays at 7.4,maybe 7.2 after 3 weeks with totally clear water.
I do brush the pool once week but rarely vacuum,every 2 weeks,no real trees, just fake palms.
So I guess I am getting ripped and have no recourse after doing more than anyone else other than the folks on this board and others like this one that do proper down to the bones maintenance.And if I go back to my very first post on this, what I thought would happen actually did
thanks all for your suggestions and input.

[PoolDoc]

1. Any solid chlorine or acid compound that comes into DIRECT contact with the liner can damage it.

2. Question: were the liner and the filter Doughboy OEM products?

[CarlD]

rajung:

It sure sounds like you did very little, if anything, wrong. I know it's depressing but you STILL want to have a pool so you have to do it.

FantaSea sold me their "Space Age Lifetime Walls". What I didn't know was it was the "lifetime" would turn out to be 12 years--a dog's life. Even with discounts the regular water walls would cost me $2000 with shipping. I'm expecting it to cost me less than half that, but with a lot of extra sweat equity. I'm using underlayment grade P/T 3/4" ply, priming it with Kilz premium outdoor primer, then I'm going to let it sit for 3 months before I try painting it. The inside, facing the liner, will be covered with wall foam to protect the liner, but I wasn't planning on painting over the primer. The outside will be painted.

They did give me a deep discount on a discontinued pattern for the liner in heavier gauge.

[rajung]

Yes
the sand filter is a Aquaview sold by them " Doughboy" and the liner is the thickest mil liner they have, made for stretching into a deep end type of pool.
So between Doughcrap and Biocrap, you don't always get what you pay for.

[PoolDoc]

Rajung;

I'm not sure what happened. Obviously, you've had some bad luck. Every company occasionally ships some bad product, and that may have happened to you.

But unlike BioLab, Doughboy has a long and well established reputation for quality -- if pricey -- product. And, contrary to my suspicions, I was able to confirm today that Doughboy's equipment is almost exclusively US made. So, my China info doesn't apply.

I'm going to have to mark these problems as indeterminate in cause; I'm not willing to assign Doughboy the "Doughcrap" label based on a single unfortunate episode.

Again, I'm sorry that you've had bad luck; I wish I knew why.

Sincerely,

Ben Powell

[rajung]

Thanks for the info on where made,I was starting to get a little worried and was going to make a phone call to find out.
Only thing I can think of,if the over chlorination was in fact the problem,or just a quick way out for them since the liner was bleached out around the return fitting about 2-3 inches after a combined 8 useage months, they assumed that and went no further.
The pool store is one of only 2 Authorized dealers in the state that I can find,and with Doughboy being almost impossible to buy parts or anything else without going through a dealer,I thought they knew what products are fine with Doughboy liner.
A little background on what the salesman instructed me to do when he was on site after install on Aug 2012.
I was instructed ,after he added stabilizer,to add 2 bioguard silk sticks to the skimmer each week,add proper amount of Algea preventer each week and shock pool with a pound of the bioguard product ea. week.And use the test strips I was provided.
No problem, new pool owner,I got this
So Aug -Sept.2012 did all that,then winterized and covered filter,heater and pool.Was told filter could stay outdoors.
April 2013 -Sept 2013,repeated the above process every week,except bring sand filter into the garage in the fall.I did have my Taylor kit in July and it was testing stabilizer level around 90-100 ppm by then thanks to the silk sticks so I was keeping FC around 8 or 9ppm
Nov- through the winter,found the pool calc.and a FC to CYA level chart and other reference items.
March 2014,after winter thaw, major seam leak.
Maybe what I was sold and told to do,in fact done me in.
Looking back at the silk sticks, what an un regulated way to sanitize,ea day it could go anywhere.
Also, was told by the end of week most of the sticks would be dissolved, and if not some may still be left but just toss 2 more in there.
So, I guess ea week I was pounding the pool into the ground and thinking I was on top of my maintenence.
Pool was only used by 2 of us a couple times a week most of the time,ocassional pool party.
I have been useing the bleach,8% and chlorine 12%-Muriatic acid-Borax since new liner install, never needed baking soda since my tap water is 380 TA.
In your opinion,would TA at 130ppm and CYA at 50 with FC at 6 be fine?
or should I go lower on both?
Just a little nervouse on what next spring will be like.
Also ,I was adding the bleach/chlorine into the skimmer for a couple months this year but got worried about the possible liner fade at the return, so I started to add that in front of the return water stream.
Thanks again for all the help.

[CarlD]

So they get US-made sheet vinyl?
I think it's pretty cool you could confirm that, Ben. How did you do it?

As I pointed out, FantaSea, also a very good company, would only offer me a limited discount on their so-called "lifetime warranty" water walls, so I guess that's the standard, the best you get in the industry.

When you "winterized" your pool, did you drain your filter? I suspect your filter split from ice damage. I've left my filter outside every winter with no problem for the last 11 winters--and we get cold ones in NJ! I take off the multi valve and store THAT in the basement, remove and store the drain cap, and tip the filter ever so slightly so that the drain is now the absolute lowest point. After it drains for a day, I then cover it with a Contractor's trash bag and use duct tape to make the bag tight. But I never let the duct tape touch the filter, just the bag. So there's not enough water in the tank to form enough ice to damage it.

[PoolDoc]

Running with un-controlled chlorine levels (no testing) can DEFINITELY get you in trouble. Sounds like you may have ID'd the problem.

@Carl: I called Hoffinger, and talked to several people there. Apparently, they even do their own molding for the plastics in the pumps and filters. They do buy the resins and raw PVC, but in rail cars. At that level of ops, I would assume they do QC analysis on the incoming raw materials.

[CarlD]

Thank, Ben.
Still seems iffy to me, however, that the liner should fail under those conditions.

[rajung]

As far as the filter goes,I always vacuum out all lines of water including the heater.
I removed the sand filter drain plug on the lower side and left it off.
Last year,I removed plug,let it drain a day then moved it to one of my insulated garages,though I didn't keep it heated,so I have to guess any water at the lowest part of drain remained in there other than what may have evaporated out.I never did tip over to drain more out the top since I left the multi selection valve attached.
Still wondering though, after all I have done,this shouldn't of happened this quick if at the extend it did.

[CarlD]

I don't know, but it sounds like freeze damage--at a guess.

[rajung]

I do tend to agree as far as freezing may be the cause since it split at its weakest point,the seam.
But I did do what the manual said as far as winterizing.Just a little confused,if I drained it and left the cap off all fall and winter there would be maybe 2 inches of water below the drain,when that freezes,wouldn't there be plenty of room for expansion?
Maybe I will leave outdoors again this year and do what you have been doing.
Moving to indoors in garage with a 2 wheel cart my have been a little to much force on the bottom side of sand filled tank at 150lbs putting pressure on the very bottom bolt that holds inner parts in place, that bolt is also right in line with the seam.
Thanks again for the info.

[CarlD]

Of course, any water you can get out of the tank is water that cannot cause freeze damage. Moving the tank, full of sand, especially if it was cold out (cold stiffens plastic) could also have weakened the tank.

But I'm just guessing.