Wood pool wall repair

[deanbrew]

The IG pool at my house is about 40 years old. According to those who are familiar with the house, the pool walls are constructed of wood, and the floor is sand, with a vinyl liner. I haven't seen the pool with the liner out, but the walls are described as having wood planks or sheeting of some sort (nobody remembers all that well).

The walls are starting to push back in a couple of places. Otherwise, they seem pretty solid and stable. I called several local pool companies and they wanted nothing to do with any sort of repair. Most said to replace the pool (with one with steel walls) at a cost of +/- $25,000, and said they would likely need to dig up the existing concrete and lines and basically make a heck of a mess.

Does anyone have any suggestions regarding repairing the pool rather than replacing it, or how to go about finding someone to do the work? I REALLY don't want to sink $25k into a new pool.

[waste]

Dean, I've seen 1 (ONE) of these in the past ~20 years! If the supports behind the failing walls are in good shape, you can just re-sheath them with pressure treated 1/2 - 3/4" plywood. The biggest thing is that you won't know the condition of the original supports and plywood until you drain the pool, peel out the liner and take a look There are a lot of great new products out there that just weren't around when your pool was (probably) installed. If you are sure you want to redo the pool, the first thing to do is find out how bad the 'rot/ damage' is. I'm thinking that you can probably redo the pool for a lot less than 1/2 the price they quoted you (and they probably weren't even taking into account the deck and coping), but, as I said, I've only dealt with one wooden pool.

I hope someone else here has more experience with them and can give you more details. Good luck with the pool, if I can be of any help - please feel free to contact me

[deanbrew]

Thanks, Waste. I guess my next step is to drain the sucker and pull the liner out (it's about 15 years old, so it's about due for replacement anyway) and see what I'm dealing with. I'll have my brother (he's a carpenter) come look at it for his expert opinion, and see if I can get a pool installer or two to come out, too.

Any suggestions on what to look for or to ask?

One problem I see is what to do about rain while I have the liner out. I don't want anything that's still good to be ruined by water.

[aquarium]

Boy, I'd not -even- open that can of worms until you absolutely have to.

[Chardonnay]

Do not spend $25k. Chances are that the wood is pressure treated and should not be in too bad of shape. Like the earlier suggestion, you can just slap some new sheeting on top of the old. You could even do it all the way around the pool (if it's real bad) which would likely mean that you'd want to put some new bead receiver at the top of the wall, too. You may have to deal with some new fittings for your returns and skimmer but that shouldn't be too hard. Just don't let some Joe Blow pool guy come in and tell you that you have to do this or that. He'll just be looking to make a quick buck.

[waste]

Dean, If you're worried about the walls that may still be good, once the pool is drained to ~ 1' below the break, you can cut the liner a few inches below the wall seam to be able to pull up the liner to inspect while still having the liner there to protect from weather damage This will also protect most of the floor from weather damage, just make sure that the water doesn't overflow onto the bottom. With duct tape and some plastic sheeting and a pump, you can keep the walls and bottom almost completely weatherproof.

What you want to look for is rot - your brother could tell you better than I, which which pieces of wood stand a good chance of surviving another ~15 years - in a potentially wet environment.

I agree with Tom about not doing it unless failure is imminent, but it sounded like some spots on the panels were about to give way. I'd have your brother sound the supports, perhaps you could just resheath the pool with the existing walls as they are?

[matt4x4]

Protection from weather damage once drained? I don't think you have to worry about that too much - there's ALWAYS water in the ground that's surrounding the pool, therefore, those walls more than likely have had water on them for the majority of the 40 years they've been there, a couple of days/weeks of exposure shouldn't do any more harm than what 40 years have done.

With the length of time this pool has lasted, I'd say you may just discover some things that are going to turn you off repairing it anyways - that's an awfully long time for wood to be under ground - and those supports behind it may well be on their last legs all around and not just in the weak spot - the only way to tell that is to remove all the walls......

[waste]

Hey Matt, just to clarify, I meant protecting the bottom from the weather - it probably needs some retouching, but yanking the liner out and having a big rain could cause it to become more of a project