AG Freeze Damage

[ElleM]

Elle,
If you can resize the pics I'm sure those on dialup would appreciate it. Up until a few months ago I was one of those stuck with a slow connection. Anyhow...on the damage. Am I right in assuming the crinkling was just around the skimmer? I can't explain why it would happen but it looks like the water froze and was at or above skimmer level, then the water level and thus the ice block dropped and the ice chunk in the skimmer, attached to the massive ice block in the pool, pulled the skimmer and wall down. On my IG pool I routinely leave the water about halfway up the skimmer throat but I do ram a rectangular block of foam into the skimmer throat so no ice chunk protrudes into the skimmer. Your case sure doesn't look like what I would expect from ice expansion.
Al

Hi Poconos,

Are you in the Poconos area? I'm in the Pittsburgh area.

Anyhoo, yes, the crinkling was just around the skimmer. When we winterized, we lowered the water to 6" below the skimmer like our manual said to do, and which we always do. Whenever rain would fill it up we'd syphon off the excess. Then all this cold weather and snow came. The water was still lower but when it froze, the sides seem to have frozen first and that ice raised considerably around the sides of the pool and leaving a depression in the center. The pics show it but not so well. It's bowl shaped. I suspect that the freezing rain we had filled up the skimmer and then slowly overflowed into the pool through the skimmer. It was so cold the water probably froze down the side of the pool before it even hit the bottom water level. I think the ice in the pool and the ice in the skimmer are now linked because of that accumulation and the weight of it is pulling down the wall. Amazing what force that must be on the steel sides. How many times do people stand on the upper rails and nothing happens? Plus, we haven't had this kind of cold weather in several years, so I didn't even suspect I'd have a problem.

My problem now is that I can't drain it because it's all solid ice. I'm concerned that the wall is going to let go and a huge iceberg is going to come blowing out of there. I hope it drops straight down and doesn't slide off into the neighborhood.

You said that you pack the skimmer with Styrofoam? Is that in addition to a plug or instead of a plug? I never thought of that but it sounds like a really good way to prevent this from happening again.

Like I said, the pool is 10 years old, so I'm not too upset. I would be if it were brand new, though. I'm trying to convince my husband to replace it with an inground, lol. We're in the process of putting on a huge addition so it would be a good time.