High water table-can I save my pool?

[swamplady]

I have a 5 year old 10 x 40 ft steel sided vinyl liner lap pool which is 4 1/2 feet deep with a vermiculite bottom. The liner floated last summer and tore. When we took out the liner, the vermiculite was "punky" and broke up. The pool sits on a lawn that borders onto a swamp and it has been a very damp year in Michigan so the water table is extremely high. I put in two sump crocks which have been pumping continuously since installed over the past 3 weeks (I think they are trying to drain the swamp). We've pumped the pool bed dry twice now but the pool bed accumulates 18-24 inches of water within 5 days, too shallow for a reasonable lap pool. Short of digging out the pool completely and raising it an additional 2-3 feet, is there any way to save this pool?

The pool was originally built up 1-2 above the water table 5 years ago and a "well point" was put in. Two years ago, the liner started to wrinkle, some of which may have been from the winterizing company dropping the water level to below the skimmers in the winter. Last year was the "perfect storm" which led to the pool draining down most of the way. But there is clearly a water problem under the vermiculite.

I have had one company decide that they don't want to get involved in trying to remedy the situation and another company that would raise the bottom of the pool by 6-8 inches and put in a thicker vermiculite bottom then replace the liner. I don't know if this will work or if water will win. One of the threads on this blog talked about using a pressure relief valve at the drain. Will this work or is there a reasonably priced solution to this problem ?

[PoolDoc]

I think you've got a hard problem, that's only going to be solved by local expertise.

Trying to 'fix' this sort of problem, from a distance is not smart on our part, and if you do get advice from here, you should take it with a grain of salt. After all, none of us have seen it.

My personal reaction is that I'd probably be doing what your first company did, unless I could see that you had a LOT of spare cash lying around, and wear willing to throw it at the pool. Companies go bankrupt on pool situations like yours.

There are techniques, mostly used in Florida, for installing pools in swamp situations like yours. But they depend on sandy soil to work. And even then, a builder needs to have experience with them, which I do not have.

I'm going to go ahead and put this thread out there -- but I'd caution you to evaluate the responses you get carefully.

Ben

PS: pool "pressure relief valves" -- really, "hydrostatic valves" work on rigid bottom (ie concrete) pools and are useless on vinyl pool. . . . not that that prevents some liner pool builders from using them. They wouldn't help much in your case, anyhow.