Liner repair

[goldstar38133]

During a recent storm pretty much everything I owned was blown into my pool taking the cover and leaf cover along with it to the bottom. Due to the heavy amount of debris and dirt now in the water I decided to drain. Now my liner is sagging all over. Because my liner is about 7 or 8 years old I know anyone I call to fix it is going to try and convince me to buy a new liner which I'm unable to buy right now. Is there anyway to fix it myself? I know when they installed it they used a vacuum to draw out the air between the liner and the backing .Is this done while the pool is drained or full of water? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Poconos]

Welcome to the forum.
With a liner as old as yours I'd bet you destroyed it by draining. You should have just removed all the crap you can then deal with the water issues. The vacuum is used before and during the initial fill. It sucks the liner against the walls until there is enough water to keep it there. Older liners lose flexibility and that's why I think you have a problem. However...you have nothing to lose by trying to refill. If the thing isn't ripped then give it a try. Refill slowly and see what happens.
Good Luck,
Al

[hsdancer]

Just a receommdation -- try to follow the initial liner installation procedureas closely as possible -- that is, try to seal up the openings and vacuum the air out as much as possible before refilling. If the seals are still good around the main drain, skimmers, stairs, ladders, etc. you should be okay -- with getting the air out from behind the liner. If any of those seals aren't water tight, you'd have to fix those first. BTW, we used three wet-dry vacs and lots of duct tape when we installed our own liner, and they worked fine.

My husband smoothed out wrinkles with a pool brush for the first refill, and with an older liner, I'm not sure how that will work. Good luck. Let us know how it goes.

Joie