Pool Liner Assistance?

I recently purchased a home with an IGP 18 x 36 T shape design. This pool has not been opened in over 3 years and the overall condition is poor. After trying to clean all of the old dirt and dried silicone from the filter and pump unions, I opened the pool yesterday. I've been opening and closing our family pool for 30 years and have never seen anything quite like this. First off, there is a major amount of air getting into the system, but the pump is running and I am chlorinating the water. The big problem I have is the liner.... It looks there are two. The second liner is hooked near the pool coping and cover the old one. In many areas this hanging down quite low, not quite to the water line, but low. There were also a couple gashes in the liner which I tried to patch as best I could. My questions:

- Is there anyway of raising the liner that is sagging down from the coping?
- Does anyone have a recommendation on pool adhesive for vinyl liners? Any suggestions?
- There is probably an 1/2 of mud on the bottom of the entire pool ... I'm considering backwashing, adding extra DE, and vacuuming, and repeating until it's out .... Any thoughts on this?

Sorry for the long post ... Any thoughts suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Sounds like you have quite a mess on your hands! Hopefully, some of our installer members may have some suggestions to help you. So, sit tight for now until they come around. Welcome to the Pool Forum, by the way!

Liners aren't my thing. We've got some pool biz members with more experience. But you'll get MUCH better advice, if you can give them better information!

In this case, that means pictures: lots of big pictures. I can select and trim them as needed, but send them to poolforum@gmail.com.

Welcome to the Forum!

Pics would certainly help!

I've have lots of experience with liner pools and a few pics would help me narrow down what your problm is and allow me to proffer some suggestions.

There are posts that are stickied telling how to patch a liner, get a liner back into it's track and using (and caring) for a DE filter. You can use the search function or just look through the forums and check out the stickies. :)

I'm around here on a quasi-regular basis and will gladly share any ideas that I have.

I apologize if this is a duplicate post, I'm not sure if my previous reply is being moderated, or whether it got lost. I appreciate the response and apologize about the late reply. I hadn't realized anyone had responded to this thread. I emailed a few pictures to poolforum@gmail.com. These pictures show some of the damage, but are poor quality. I will make a point to get higher quality images tomorrow.

I'll provide a quick update to my original post. I managed to reduce the amount of air entering the system, it's not completely tight, but it's much better. I'm using a mesh leaf rake to remove some of the sludge from the bottom of the pool and started vacuuming directly to waste. It's a very slow process as I can't add water quick enough to vacuum for more than 10 or 15 minutes. From what I've read, using a heat gun or boiling water one can stretch the liner back into the track. I'm not sure whether i'm going to tackle this myself.

Thanks for the replies and I welcome any comments, suggestions, or advice. Thank you!

Don't sweat a few days delay in getting back to us. :)

The boiling water and heatgun methods are 'high risk' ways to make the liner more cooperative (you can melt a hole in the liner with a heatgun and soften the liner so much that you poke your finger through it with boiling water!!).

If you haven't already, check out this post for the 'tips and tricks' of getting the liner back into it's track.

I still want to see the pics, so I can get a grip on the double liner thing.

Sorry. I emailed pictures to poolforum@gmail.com on 4-8-12, not sure where they ended up. Received a response from the pool doc that he would try to locate them and attach them to this thread. I'll try posting them again. Those pictures no longer reflect the current condition of the pool, but they do illustrate the liner sag.

Thanks

You can email them again to the same address as above--just make sure to include a link to the thread so he knows which thread they belong to.

Your pics:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-o...-%2520pool.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-m...er%2520rip.jpg

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-i...2520corner.jpg

Just an FYI on those pictures ... The pool is now clean & clear and the rip has been patched. I still need to fix the sagging liner. I've read about using blow dryers, hot water, and heat guns. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks