Apparently he does not empty pool for customers, but that's okay, a slower drain precluded massive property flooding!

The Liner IS IN! He didn't know how much patching of floor and lower walls would be necessary - as it turned out, he needed to trowel all entirely (a vermiculite mixture that looks like cement but is soft) for which he charged $450 extra. When my mouth fell open, he said he usually charges $1250 for it, and I respectfully said "two guys, two or three hours, $1250???" Even the $450 seemed a bit out of line to me, but he said go google it and you'll find $450 is a good deal...I can't believe the product cost that much? The floor and lower walls were just bare concrete with HUGE divits everywhere. Of course they were all fixed and he also gave the various lines more definition (like that ridge in the shallow end before it transitions down).

As soon as they finished the troweling, the winds kicked up and it looked like rain any moment. I said that if the winds got brutal as they often do tons of pine straw and other debris would be dumped onto their work and he said it would undo it, so he and his helper quickly put the new liner in. I swear, it took less than 10 minutes! Amazing! Then the rains came, what a close call that was. He duct-taped a big vacuum hose to the inside of the new liner, put my two garden hoses in and said when it reached a point where he put a sticker on the wall, to stop the water (only a foot or so in the shallow end) until he came back yesterday, and told me that if my circuit breaker were to cut off power to the vac, we'd have to drain and start over. It quickly took care of all the wrinkles and I must say, I was relieved when he came back yesterday morning and turned the thing off -- it was loud! He also fixed all the piping at the pump yesterday - which only took about 15 minutes.

I estimated that about midnight last night the water would be to the skimmer so I set my alarm, and I was right on target. With the excitement of a child I stood out at the pump and flipped the switch but alas, the pump motor was seized up. I returned to bed very disappointed. Fortunately, he's out there right now seeing if he can unseize it. As he said, it worked fine a couple of weeks ago, he probably just needs to take the band off and get it going...

I must say, I'm not in love with the liner -- and I'm so glad I didn't go even darker. It's much darker than the online Tara sample -- it's a true blue. I actually miss the aqua color. I wonder why none of the Tara samples had the aqua color? Frankly, I wouldn't mind having a pattern-less liner that was light blue. At night, even with my pool perimeter lights on as well as my floods, I can't see the water it's so dark. Also, all the seams are quite visible. Oh well, it's a new liner and I didn't pay for it!

He also scolded me for using the bleach method -- long story, but I defended it. I do now know though that I was keeping my bleach way too high. He insisted I should keep it between 1-3 ppm, but if I'm losing 3 ppm each full sun day, that means it would have zero chlorine at some point in the day. I'm thinking I should thus keep it at 5 ppm? I'll aim for a CYA of 50. This liner has a 20-year warranty (limited or pro-rated I believe) and I'd sure like it to last 15 years. He also said that the bleaching of a liner DOES compromise the integrity of it -- he said the vinyl has lots of pores just like our skin, and if you're bleaching the liner out then it's also irreversibly wearing it.

I know one thing, I'm not going to shock and cover this weekend. Algae won't grow with a cover on it, so I'll cover it with a low ppm and just check it occasionally over the next 8 months...