Does vinyl bleaching hurt the integrity of the liner?

[tokmom]

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.

[PoolDoc]

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

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.

[BigDave]

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

[AnnaK]

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.

[PoolDoc]

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

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.

[AnnaK]

Ah! Thanks much for the link and the clarification.

[tokmom]

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?

[PoolDoc]

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!

[tokmom]

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.

[PoolDoc]

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.