Does vinyl bleaching hurt the integrity of the liner?

Last evening my son was putting in new tabs in the dispenser when a small chunk of a left over tab fell out of the dispenser. As he picked it up, it broke. He thought he picked up most of the pieces, but parts of them were left behind or were swept away and then settled in one spot. Now we have 4 or 5 dime sized bleached areas on the floor of the pool. Will this hurt the integrity?
This probably wouldn't have been a problem otherwise, but we turned of the pump because a lightening storm was approaching and I didn't want anything fried. I'm thinking had we left it on, it would circulated until dissolved.

For the record, said child/son is 24, so I wasn't letting a small kid play with chemicals. ;)

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Originally Posted by tokmom

Now we have 4 or 5 dime sized bleached areas on the floor of the pool. Will this hurt the integrity?

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Acidity damages vinyl liners; chlorine bleaches them. Trichlor tabs are a highly acidic form of chlorine. So, yes, it both bleached and damaged your liner. Will it be enough damage to cause problems?

That, I don't know. Usually liners fail at stress points or seams, not in unstressed flat areas.

But, it would be a good idea to keep a liner patch kit on hand. That way, if you do get a hole in the liner -- where ever it shows up -- you're ready to go.

And the bleached out spots give you a good first place to look if you do start losing water!

It's my understanding that cyanuric acid is a 'weak' acid, not like sulfuric or hydrochloric, so its ability to damage vinyl may be minimal.

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Originally Posted by AnnaK

It's my understanding that cyanuric acid is a 'weak' acid.

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True. And, dumping cyanuric acid on a liner probably won't do any damage. John A. Wojtowicz reports that the pH of a saturated solution of CYA is 4.5 - 5.0 -- not good for a liner, but not panic time, either.

However, various sources (for example, here) report that the pH of a saturated solution of tri-chlor is around 3.0, which is definitely worse. But, it's worse than that. The zone under a trichlor tablet not only contains dissolved trichlor (pH 3), but the trichlor releases chlorine, which at that pH forms a mixture of dissolved chlorine with other things. And chlorine in water at pH 3.0 is VERY corrosive.

Ah! Thanks much for the link and the clarification.

Oh great, I think I'm going to be sick or cry. Maybe both. :( This is a brand new pool/liner, approx 2 months old.

Any thoughts on what kind of patch kit to buy? Should we contact Doughboy to get one of theirs or are they pretty much all the same?

Should we patch over the spots to help strengthen the areas? Would that help? Or should we leave well enough alone?

I'd leave it alone. I've seen a lot of white spots on liners go quite awhile without causing a problem. Just because the liner is somewhat damaged in that area, it doesn't mean that it will fail right there.

And, as far as the 'all new pool' thing . . . ALL new pools have things wrong with them. Pool builders live in dread of new pool owners getting upset about this or that, and as a result, shifting into what I've always called the "toothbrush and flashlight" mode. Once pool owners get their teeth on edge, they tend to go around with a toothbrush and flashlight -- even literally, in some cases -- HUNTING for things that are wrong. And, they ALWAYS find them.

Once a new pool owner has gone into 'toothbrush' mode, a pool builder has to expect to spend his summer doing little 'do-overs' for that customer. Smart builders try VERY hard to keep their customers from ever getting into that mode.

But, the point is, there are ZERO perfectly built and installed pools out there. You didn't know that your pool was imperfect before; now you do. But, it was imperfect BEFORE you knew it, and even BEFORE you dropped the TC tabs.

It's just the way the world is. Don't cry or get sick, just because you've found out how things really are!

Yes my pool was perfect before now, lol.
I know you don't have a crystal ball, but are we looking at years or days of possible failure? I won't hold it against you I promise. ;) just trying to pick your brain.

My guess would be, it won't impact the life of your liner. Like I said, I've seen liners with bleached out spots that were several years old. You asked if it damaged your liner; it did. But damaged doesn't mean unusable.

I cut my thumb about 15 years ago, and severed one of the nerves, 'damaging' my sense of feel on one side of the thumb. But, I continued to use the thumb, and it works quite well for most thumb-purposes. (At this point, most of the feeling has returned.)

Your liner is damaged, but not unusable.

Hey tokmom, as the resident 'liner expert' I fully agree with Ben's assessment (and also BigDave's).

To go a little further, the real sign that your liner was 'severely damaged' by the trichlor bits is if you see 'puckering' (a bleached out area with radial lines coming out of the middle). Even when they first appear, it's not necessarily a sign of imminent failure, just a reminder to start saving up for a replacement liner.

I honestly think that you'll get the standard 8 - 10 years out of your new liner :)

If you have any questions, please feel free to pick our brains.

Thanks, Ted.

My take is that, as was said, if you don't see puckering, you are mainly dealing with cosmetic issues. I actually had my liner fail 10 days after it was installed in my new (then) pool! But that was a seam failure. As for ugly? Well, the guys who installed the replacement didn't know how to do a sand bottom properly and I've had footprints in the bottom of my pool that REALLY show up at night when the lights are on for 10 years now. Part of me wants the liner to fail so I can do a complete overhaul on the pool, but part wants to get another 5 years or so out of the liner.

But it's like that first ding on your new car...it's never the same!

(as a useless aside, mine came as I watched an elderly lady turn into my still new car. She then tried to offer me forty bucks for what turned out be about $500. When I asked for her proof of insurance she handed me her Medicare card. Then when the police sergeant came to make the report, it turned out she was his lieutenant's mother-in-law! I was worried until he said he was going to razz the LT like crazy about this...The car was fixed and it's still a great car.)

I have to be honest...if those few spots weakened that fast and caused trouble due to the pucks sitting and bleaching or eating through, I'd be calling the liner manufacturer. Surely these liners are not so weak that they can't handle those sort of everyday mishaps. Especially the thicker liners. Perhaps you just caused a cosmetic 'blurp', is all.