Wrinkled Liner and Water Behind Liner

First I want to thank you for this forum. We moved into a new home with an existing pool (small, vinyl, 13K+ gallons) in 2005. Pool needed a new liner. Having no experience we had a company install (30 mil) - very expensive. If we every need a new one I will self-install. I'm a big do-it-your-selfer. No sense in paying someone for something you can do on your own.

Anyway I struggled through the chemical learning process with help from reading the forums. Many thanks. Saved me lots of $ and helped me through some self-induced issues. I was cleaning manually the first 2 years then we purchased an Aquabot automatic cleaner. Great product. Found one for a good price on the internet.

Last year I developed a few wrinkles in the liner. This year its much worse. Also experiencing water behind the liner. My guess is the only way to fix is drain and refit at night or on a dreary day - or will I need the sun to tighten it up? Corners and edges are all still properly aligned. It's like the bottom stretched. Getting ready to close and now would be a good time.

Hi again:)

The corners and edges being still in line is a good sign. With a 4 year old liner you'll want some sun to help keep the stretch in the liner as you adjust it and an air temp of 65*+. You also want there to be no water under the liner when you drain it!

Here's the new 'wrinkle' (:p ) to my advice - if you're doing this prior to closing the pool, take the water down to the wrinkles (they CAN be moved with up to 2" of water on them) and then blow out the lines, add antifreeze and plug them with the water down - then fill the pool up to operational level or higher so that you have as much pool water as you can to keep the ground water from pushing the liner around! In the future, you'll do better to leave the pool water up when closing or refill the pool after the lines are cleared. If you need tips on closing a pool with the water is still up, they can be found by searching or, I'll just tell you (if you ask real nice:D )

What you really want to do is find a way to keep the ground water at bay so you don't have this problem every year! I'll be more than happy to suggest options, and I'm sure others here can and will help, but I'd need some details about your yard and topography,

I'm here most every day, so if you need some advice on the wrinkle removal, doing a 'no drain' closing or ground water control - all you need do is ask :cool:

Thank you for the reply.

We had no trouble with water behind the liner the first 2 years. The property is slightly sloped above the pool but I have good drainage all around.

So I drain and then let the sun shrink the liner - it's that simple?

I am inerested in the process for fixing the wrinkles without draining. Also, any thoughts on removing the water behind the liner without draining.

v/r

There are ways to get the water out from under the liner without removing too much from the pool. The easiest is to untuck the liner in the deep end and feed a suction hose behind the liner and hook a pump up to it, with the discharge being sent down the hill from the pool. Probably a better approach is to dig a 'well point' near the deep end and be able to put a pump in that (I can tell you more about them, but basically, it's a hole a couple of feet deeper than your pool bottom in which you put ~ 1' gravel and keep the hole open so you can install the pump and drain the water out from under your pool)

Unfortunately, it's not as simple as just removing the ground water:( The liner needs to have the wrinkles pushed out as the water under the liner goes down. Sometimes all you need do is aggressively brush the liner as the water lowers - most times, you need to lower the pool water and manually force the wrinkles out:mad:

If you go the route of slowly draining the water from behind the liner and are diligent about brushing the wrinkles away - it'll probably be a daylong process - the other way is much more labor intensive, but much quicker for fixing the wrinkles;)

I can tell you what and how to do what needs be done - whichever way you want to approach this problem and am more than willing to help you:cool:

Let me know what you are prepared to do and which way you want to fix this, and I'll be here for you every step of the way:)