Doughboy Liner Damaged by Chlorine?

[CarlD]

Ben, from my reading, I believe the letter was written by the pool dealer not Doughboy, "Pool ####".

[PoolDoc]

Could be. But either way, it doesn't affect my evaluation (that EITHER the liner was subjected to high FC + low CYA OR that the liner was made from a low-grade, possibly Chinese, liner sheet material.)

This is a VERY frustrating situation, since the liner sheeting material is not necessarily the same, even on "identical" liners (same liner company, same print, same specs) are not necessarily made from the same vinyl sheeting. In a conversation I had with a Canadian General product engineer some years ago (http://www.cgtower.com/), he told me that even he couldn't always tell 'good' sheeting from the junk, without lab testing.

This means that there's NO way for the pool dealer or pool consumer to tell. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any way to test or confirm liner durability in advance! It's a product tailor made for Chinese market sharks, since they can cut quality without getting caught for years.

[CarlD]

Could be. But either way, it doesn't affect my evaluation (that EITHER the liner was subjected to high FC + low CYA OR that the liner was made from a low-grade, possibly Chinese, liner sheet material.).

Nor should it.

[CarlD]

rajung:
You are not nuts.

Since this is a vinyl pool and your CH is fairly low, while your T/A is high, I don't think you have a big risk. The two risks of high T/A are: pH continually trending up; and of cloudy water and scaling if CH gets high as well (400ppm or greater).

You MAY want to go through our T/A lowering process, but never let your pH go below 7.0, and don't pour a giant slug of Muriatic Acid into your pool as that can damage your liner. Instead, either mix M-A into a 5 gallon bucket of pool water and add THAT to the return stream (always add the acid to the water, not the other way around), or you can add M-A directly into the return stream so it cannot settle. In either case, I wouldn't add more than 1 cup at a time and work pH down slowly, which brings T/A down with it.

You can use dry acid instead, but I STILL like to dissolve it in 5 gallons of pool water first.

Then aerate your water with splashing kids, a sprayer, etc, to raise pH without raising T/A. Lower pH again as above to bring T/A down again, and aerate to raise pH. Repeat to "ratchet" T/A down without putting your pool in danger by too low pH, or by a slug of M-A settling on the liner and weakening it.

[rajung]

thanks
when the liner was replaced, my TA was in the mid 300 range.
I slowly added the acid in front of the return stream,usually no more than 32oz. at a time,around 4 hours apart if I remember without looking at my log sheet I now have
Then I would brush the area where added and use 2 pond pumps attached to the steps and shoot a jet stream across the pool surface for what seemed like a week, never letting the ph drop below7.2.
My return diffuser just doesn't seem to do enough alone and I cant turn it up to the surface due to a light in it without getting under the deck and loosening the whole unit to turn it.
took about 7-10 days to go from 380 to 110 and somewhere around 5 gal of acid? on 13,700 gal pool.
I guess I will slowly go back to work on the TA issue,and continue with the chemical balance I have been doing lately and assume my 50ppm stabilizer with 6ppm FC is fine and adding bleach or 12.5% chlorinator in front of return stream.The PH always for the most part stays at 7.4,maybe 7.2 after 3 weeks with totally clear water.
I do brush the pool once week but rarely vacuum,every 2 weeks,no real trees, just fake palms.
So I guess I am getting ripped and have no recourse after doing more than anyone else other than the folks on this board and others like this one that do proper down to the bones maintenance.And if I go back to my very first post on this, what I thought would happen actually did
thanks all for your suggestions and input.

[PoolDoc]

1. Any solid chlorine or acid compound that comes into DIRECT contact with the liner can damage it.

2. Question: were the liner and the filter Doughboy OEM products?

[CarlD]

rajung:

It sure sounds like you did very little, if anything, wrong. I know it's depressing but you STILL want to have a pool so you have to do it.

FantaSea sold me their "Space Age Lifetime Walls". What I didn't know was it was the "lifetime" would turn out to be 12 years--a dog's life. Even with discounts the regular water walls would cost me $2000 with shipping. I'm expecting it to cost me less than half that, but with a lot of extra sweat equity. I'm using underlayment grade P/T 3/4" ply, priming it with Kilz premium outdoor primer, then I'm going to let it sit for 3 months before I try painting it. The inside, facing the liner, will be covered with wall foam to protect the liner, but I wasn't planning on painting over the primer. The outside will be painted.

They did give me a deep discount on a discontinued pattern for the liner in heavier gauge.

[rajung]

Yes
the sand filter is a Aquaview sold by them " Doughboy" and the liner is the thickest mil liner they have, made for stretching into a deep end type of pool.
So between Doughcrap and Biocrap, you don't always get what you pay for.

[PoolDoc]

Rajung;

I'm not sure what happened. Obviously, you've had some bad luck. Every company occasionally ships some bad product, and that may have happened to you.

But unlike BioLab, Doughboy has a long and well established reputation for quality -- if pricey -- product. And, contrary to my suspicions, I was able to confirm today that Doughboy's equipment is almost exclusively US made. So, my China info doesn't apply.

I'm going to have to mark these problems as indeterminate in cause; I'm not willing to assign Doughboy the "Doughcrap" label based on a single unfortunate episode.

Again, I'm sorry that you've had bad luck; I wish I knew why.

Sincerely,

Ben Powell

[rajung]

yes the email was from the pool store service dept.
I left out the last half of business name.
At the time of replacement,the C.S rep said they " the store" would also cover a 2 year labor warranty if it happened again, bought that was verbally over the phone, nothing in writing.
So it now appears I have no warranty.
It also to me is a good indicator that the reason they may have such a low failure rate is that many claims are denied.
I have no way to prove my side and dont think there could have been then and now.
One thing I have been doing for the last 5 months is keeping a daily record on what chemicals I have been adding and why and what rainfall we have had and if fresh water was added.
I cant possibly know of anything else I can do differently?
I also had my sand filter replaced by the same store last week after it split at the bottom seam and I was losing a lot of water ,it was on back order for 3 weeks so I had to keep adding fresh water every 2 days and now my TA is at 200.My tap water is at 350PPM Ta.
So I had a big battle at the start of this new liner lowering it with MA.
I always stored filter in a garage?
currently my readings
PH 7.4
CC 0 one day-- 0.2 sometimes
FC 6
TA 200
CH 150, don't check very often
stabilizer 50
borate 30
should I just stay the course and am I safe with the 200ppm TA? or add acid and aerate again to get it back to 130ppm TA?
Pretty bummed thinking I had the process nailed down just to find out it they don't think so.
Before I switched to the BBB method, I talked to quite a few people what they use to maintain chemical levels.
Most said , just throw in some pucks, some said if it smells like a pond I throw in some chlorine,others say I check the chlorine level and ph and that's all and we never had a problem in 5 years.They look at me like i am nuts when they see the M acid and my Taylor kit
I don't get it!