New Vinyl IG Liner Failed after First Winter

I live in Central Illinois, where the winters can get quite cold - and this past winter had some very cold spells. We also had a period of time when a great deal of rain fell in a fairly short period of time. My pool is an IG 20K gallon Lazy-L, with a vinyl liner. It is about 50 years old, and last year it became necessary to have a great deal of work done on it. The pool was closed all summer, and a new liner was finally installed and filled on August 26. After that, the water never warmed enough for us to swim in it. The water level was later lowered just below the inlet ports, the lines were blown out and capped, and antifreeze was added to the skimmers. Finally, a new high-density mesh winter cover was installed.

When I uncovered the pool this spring, I found that the liner bead had almost completely pulled out along an 8-foot stretch - at the location of the "inside curve" of the Lazy-L. Near the middle of this stretch, the bead was still attached, but the liner had torn. The bottom in the shallow end has several wrinkles or folds, which were not there last fall. I cannot get the water deep enough to flow into the skimmers, so I am using the main drain only in circulating water. After adding liquid chlorine, I have been cleaning the bottom with a robot cleaner - without the skimmers, I am unable to vacuum directly to waste.

[Note: I am still attempting to attach the images into this post.]

I called the installer, who said he had never seen this sort of thing happen before (nor have I, in the 25 years I have resided here), and he suggested that I send pictures and a description to the distributor. These were then forwarded on to the manufacturer, who quickly got back with the following message:

"[Our] warranty is for seam/bead separations this is a tear, now how this happened I cant tell you but it is a tear represented by the rigid places on the liner and the bead still being attached to the vinyl. We will not cover this under warranty."

I will add that the manufacturer did offer to help by discounting the cost of a replacement liner.

Discussions with the installer and the distributor mentioned the possibility of a high water table sometime during the winter, lifting and pushing the liner away from the wall. It was also mentioned that lowering the water level too much at the time the pool was closed could have increased the chances of this happening. One added thought: after 50 years, the track for the bead may have weakened or widened - an effect that (I suspect) would have most effected the liner along the inside curve. Should this possibility have been anticipated by the installer, and should he have installed some channel lock in this area?

[Note: if “inside curve” is not clear, consider that a portion of the side of an IG pool appears, as you look down toward the water’s surface, to be in the shape of a right parenthesis “)”. If the water is on the left side of this curve, I consider that an “inside curve” of the lining.]

I would appreciate the opinions of anyone on this forum who may have had relevant experience with a happening like this.

My questions:
1. Do you agree with the manufacturer's assessment?

2. Should the installer bear any responsibility for the liner damage?

3. Is there any hope for repairing this damage, or must I replace the liner again?

4. What reasonable steps should be taken to assure this doesn't happen with a new liner?

[ Upgraded membership; moved thread to IG pool construction section => you may need to log in and log out to gain access! ]

Unfortunately, occurrences like you describe aren't rate and usually have as single cause: defective installation.

Liner manufacturers are somewhat complicit, but don't cause the problems but rather 'overlook' the causes since acting otherwise would cost them THEIR customers, who are the installers, not pool owners.

To understand what may have happened, you have to understand that pool liners, in order to fit without wrinkles are 'stretched' into place, by installing them on warm sunny days, and 'sucking' them into position using several shop vacs or pool liner vacs. There are -- roughly speaking -- two ways to do this:

1. Purchase a liner that is only slightly small for the pool.

Installing liners like this almost always requires a BUNCH of finagling and shifting the liner around, to get it to fit without wrinkles. It's a lot of work, even for skilled installers, and takes unskilled installers FOREVER. But, you end up with a liner that is NOT over-tensioned and that WILL (usually) last a lot longer.

2. Purchase a liner that is the correct shape and edge length, but substantially too 'shallow' for the pool.

When you over-stretch a liner into place, wrinkles are rarely a problem, and installations go faster and require less skill. One marker of this happening is a liner that does not fit snugly into the corners and angles of the pool until it is COMPLETELY full.

One problem with this approach is that the material is inevitably overstretched in places, and thus thin and weak. Additionally, unacceptably high levels of stress occur at the skimmers and inlets, and at the bead. Finally, the high elastic tension means the liner will instantly come out of place as soon as the water is a bit low . . . and often will NOT go back in correctly with the pool is refilled.

Of course, it's hard to prove that this is what happened, especially since the liner maker is not 'on your side' so to speak. Also there are a few uncommon OTHER possible reasons for such a failure.

So, to answer your questions:

1. The things mentioned are possible contributing factors. However, the NORMAL failure with liner lift from water is just some wrinkles.

2. My guess is that the installer is 90% or more responsible . . . but that you can't prove it. However, if you have a way to check past installations by him over the previous 2 years, I'd bet you find similar failures, maybe 1 in 10 or even 1 in 5.

3. Nope, no hope. Sorry.

4. Get a better installer and a decent liner (which yours may have been).

Sorry!

PS. If the liner material is brittle or stiff . . . then it might NOT be the installer's fault.