Got the pool up, beaded liner installed, wrinkles out of the floor, filling and...

[Watermom]

I have asked Ben to email this thread to another 'Dennis' who is a liner installer to see if he can offer you an opinion or advice. Not sure if he is still around here or not but worth a try.

[DennisP]

Thanks Watermom, greatly appreciated!

[J_Palmer_Cass]

Pictures are always good so we can see what you mean.

Are you sure that the liner being used was designed to use with the cove installed? My pool liner was sized to be used with no bottom cove.

Just wondering why you installed the drains on the bottom of the pool? My drain is installed on the wall of the pool. The bottom drain sure makes life complicated.

[DennisP]

Actually, the main drains were not a big deal at all... I was a bit nervous about the foam funneling correctly to the drains, as I installed the drains to about half the depth of the foam bottom to achieve that effect. In the end it worked exactly as I expected it to and the main drains are golden. Even setting them with concrete and everything else associated was a non-issue in the end.

About the only thing the main drains do is not allow me to adjust the liner once the holes for them are cut. But I was concerned about the water pressure pushing the liner into the drain holes too agressively, thus causing wrinkles if I filled it too far before cutting them in... So I waited until the water was about 4-5" deep and then mounted the trim rings, cut out the centers and put the covers on.

As I am filling already today I am noticing the liner on the walls looking good 70-80% around the pool, the one side that has the seam an extra inch or so up the cove compared to the other side is the "problem area". If I can get it set smooth everywhere but there I may just have to live with it folded a bit near the bottom, if that is even doable without totally messing it up. I would just hate to have to fill, then drain, then fill again to get this all figured out.

I have three hoses going into the pool to fill it up at the moment. There is still plenty of water pressure in the house, so I may just get a faucet adapter and use the mudroom sinks faucet to aid it even more...

I hope everything works out, just that it seems like everything about this project has been "against me" in regards to time and things going right the first time without having to constantly rework things. For me that is a big deal since I am meticulous about designing/engineering/planning and execution so that stuff usually just "falls into place". And some of the stuff has, just that a bunch of stuff has just been a major PITA.

[DennisP]

As a side note, should I have filled the pool overnight instead of during the day?

I know people say to fill while the sun is out to help it make the liner soft and stretchy, but in my case is that a bad thing?

I was just concerned with there being too much tension on the sides that seem to have "too little" material and them pulling from the bead receiver at those locations.

I am getting sun on 3/4s+ of the pool. One of the "short" sides is in shade and I can't do much about that, but the rest of the liner is all in the sunlight.

[DennisP]

Ok, it has about a foot and a half (maybe a little more) of water in it. Pics of the "offending" areas:




The seam is at the bottom of the cove, to about 3/4" away from the cove at worst on the shorter sides. On the long ends it is smack dab in the middle of the cove on one end and on the other end it is at the top of the cove.

So, do I continue to let it fill and see how bad it is when it is done?

Or, do I get in with it partially full and pull down on the "long ends" and pull the "extra" material down to the cove area if possible?

I would rather not let it totally fill to just have to drain it to accomplish that.

Oh, I also did not use a shop vac to suck the air out behind the liner. Like I mentioned I have it set pretty darn well already and expected it to just tighten up, but I don't think it is possible on the "long ends"... What sucks is about 15-20 degrees away from the worst area on both ends I have the skimmer/return on the better of the two ends, and the worst of the two has a single return. Am I correct that if I don't get those areas tight it will just be a nightmare to get those in without issues now or in the future? That is why I was thinking of just pull the extra material down to near the cove if possible to allow it to get tight up top.

[J_Palmer_Cass]

I installed a rectangular liner last year, and I had to rework it a bit to get the side seams even all the way around and all of the corners in the corner.

I used the vacuum method to get out most of the air out from behind the liner, then did a shallow water fill. I did have to drain the pool down to even out the side seams so they were plus or minus one inch.

After I got the liner in the final position and all the floor wrinkles out of the bottom, I filled to about 6 inches and cut in the lower side wall drain. I then filled the pool and adjusted the liner and coping connections as needed (off by a bit in the corners). The last thing I did when everything was straight was to cut in the upper return connector and skimmer.

Is your skimmer and return outlet cut into the liner yet?

Anyhow, I would probably drain and rework the liner a bit if at all possible to get the sidewall seams close to even (but not perfect).

[DennisP]

Well I contacted the vendor I purchased the pool liner from and sent them the pics they needed. It is obvious that there is about 3 inches extra material on the one side and there is 2 extra inches on the other side. It continues in an arc around both sides and tapers off to where it is basically perfect.

I am waiting to hear back from them, so hopefully they can do something here. Their website states all liners are made in North America from virgin vinyl, yet the box I received said it was made in China and had a Chinese QC sticker on the front and back sides of the liner itself.

I am hoping something can be worked out, but it is obvious that the liner is defectively manufactured.

For the meantime I was going to be damned if my kids aren't going to have at least a few dips in the pool this year, so I ended up pulling the liner down mid-way to tighten up the top section, got the returns and skimmer cut in, finished off the piping and fired up the pump and heater...

I need to refresh on the chemical startup stuff for a full size pool and will probably get a few socks with CYA hung tonight as well as some chlorine added. I will pickup a HTH 6-way test kit tomorrow on the quick and order a proper test kit for next spring. We have darn near perfect water out of the tap here, so I have very little adjustments to make outside of adding chlorine and CYA.

I still need to get the upper rails and upper covers and lower cuffs mounted, but the kids should be able to swim tomorrow for a bit. Since their entire summer was "stolen" by delays in the pool and patio project, it is the least I can do to bust my hump getting things "usable" for them. The kids understand, but the guilt was just killing me. They all try really hard at everything (a few of them have autistic spectrum disorders) and I just want them to have some sort of "highlight" as a bright point for this summer.