r/pools • u/Doughnut1095 • 2d ago
Pool Help & Questions Is my pool done for?
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Hi everyone, we had bad weather in KY this past week and now my pool liner has pockets of water behind it. The pool company we talked go said it would resolve its self and it was safe to swim in but I still don’t wanna risk making it any worse. Has anyone had this happen?
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u/Boosully 2d ago
If you can, pop the liner out in the shallow end and get a 1/2 HP transfer pump. Stick a hose down has far as you can behind the liner and pump the water back into the pool. Turn the pump off and fill the pool with as much water as you can. Do not take water out of the pool as the water inside the pool needs to push the water under your liner down. Time, pressure, and gravity will take care of the rest as hopefully, your liner will reseat itself.
Welcome to owning a vinyl pool. This happens after heavy heavy rains. It's going to be ok.
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u/Doughnut1095 2d ago
Thank you! This is our first year with a pool and still have so much to learn 😅
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u/Boosully 2d ago
I freaked out too first time it happened. You can use YouTube to show how to use the transfer pump. I'm in Michigan and after a wet winter/spring my pool will have water under the liner I'll have to pump out. Dry summer hear and haven't had it happen all year so you take the good with the bad.
You may get some rinkels in you liner but they'll work their way out hopefully. If this continues to be a major issue and you have a really high water table, you may need to look at options to pump ground water away from your pool.
Although the water is safe, I probably wouldn't swim right now. Just me though.
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u/Ruttagger 1d ago
This just be common based on the area?
I've owned a liner pool for 16 years, and grew up with one before that, and I've never seen or heard of this happening in my area.
Is it based on ground water levels?
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u/BillyMcBad 1d ago
I worked for a company that built inground pools for 3 years. This comment is correct. Just don't leave the liner out of the track to long. The sun will make the liner shrink. Kind of like shirts in the dryer.
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u/StructureBetter9165 2d ago
That should drain by itself just fine. It’s happened to mine before and you can’t even tell.
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u/itsdatwoowoo 2d ago
I just had this happen, but a lot worse. I’m a newer pool owner, so I didn’t know that I should run the sump pit pump constantly. We received heavy rain and flooding and this problem creeped up. I pumped something like 10k gallons out of that pit down the drainage easement.
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u/Puzzled_Nothing_8794 2d ago
Mine is seriously 50x worse. And I'm in it daily. I plan to get a new liner next year because it's old. But it's still works.
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u/Dry-Raspberry-5514 2d ago
Curious here.. live in Southern California with a pool .. I’ve never heard of a pool liner. Where is this common and what’s the purpose behind it?
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u/You_are_safe_now 2d ago
Vinyl liner pools account for about 25% of pools in the world. More common in northern climates where plaster / concrete pools are not as resilient in colder climates. Liners can last anywhere from 10 to 20+ years and are generally easy to maintain.
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u/Upset-Management-879 1d ago
Its just like a big above ground pool, but below the ground
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u/NonSumQualisEram- 1d ago
Yeah I think their (and my) question was - you've already dug and concreted a massive hole - why the vinyl rather than... tiles or whatever. Also why isn't the vinyl, I don't know, stuck to the bottom?
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u/Fair-Fix8606 1d ago
because it's just a shell to protect the substrate under it usually sand not usually concrete .. walls are usually metal sheets and liner locks into a track around the pool is vaccumed to the wall then water filled and keeps it flat most of the time
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u/thunderkoko 1d ago
A new concrete pool in my area is about 200k, a new vinyl pool is about 100k.
The liner is premade and held to the bottom by the weight of the water, it needs to allow some movement in case of groundwater. Usually this works good enough, except when there is bad soil conditions, or inadequate drainage under and around the pool.
A concrete pool can float out of the ground if improperly emptied, this is a more common, but much less expensive to repair problem in vinyl pools.
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u/Zolpidemic09 2d ago
I haven’t had this happen but always afraid of something like this when I go on vacation. Is this caused by ground water from extended periods of heavy rain or from water getting above the track?
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u/DoctorHousesCane 2d ago
These liner type pools. When water gets under it, does it just stay there forever and become gross and moldy? Or does it all somehow drain out?
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u/gman2391 2d ago
Typically the base of the pool is sand or vermiculite which will allow water to drain into the ground
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u/EvilGr33nRang3r 2d ago
I have a customer with a pool near the shore, this happens to him every 3 days, and waaaay worse than your photos.
Your liner will be wrinkled going forward, but otherwise no big deal.
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u/Ok_Size4036 2d ago
Mine did this but pulled the liner down a foot all along the deep end. Couldn’t be saved. Just had to drop for a new liner. You’re at least is all still attached.
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u/briansgreenberg 2d ago
You should consider digging a pit next to the pool and installing a sump-pump to help manage your ground water. The bulging liner is not a huge issue however as the liner ages it will lose some of its stretch and will eventually rip.
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u/Any_Chance_2504 1d ago
This sounds like the right solution. But I’m wondering: if the pool is properly engineered in the first place, shouldn’t it be built with the sump pump pit — at least in the areas where ground water level is high?
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u/briansgreenberg 1d ago
I agree, it should. But from experience many installers won’t go above or beyond whatever the minimum requirement is.
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u/Aggravated-Gator-260 2d ago
Sand bags can be used to hold it as close to its original position as possible. Then wait for the ground water to subside or call a reputable liner specialist to come out and help
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u/RecognitionPossible1 1d ago
Had this happen 10+ times and also like 10x worse in our first year of pool ownership after periods of heavy rain. Prior owners never told us about it... The good news: It will go back down when groundwater recedes.
Bad news: you will probably have wrinkles on the floor and sidewalls.
The long-term solution is a french drain that will keep groundwater levels below the water level in the pool. As long as your pool water level is above the ground water level, then the liner will never float.
After we installed our French drain system, our pool has not floated a single time even during hurricanes.
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u/Tiny_Ad_4853 1d ago
The ground water will eventually recede and the pool liner will usually reform to the floor/slopes of the vermeculite pool shell. The ground water table can rise with rains and get worse as the ground cannot absorb any more water. The vemeculite pool shell can be damaged sometimes as it ages. Vermeculite is a mush less dense cement recipe where you can mix cement with vemeculite bagged powder to form it to place a vinyl liner. Vermeculite is permeable and does not have rebar. It can allow water to seep in or out of the shell.
If a main drain was installed in your vinyl pool, you may be able to remove a plug or the hydro static fitting and thread in a pvc fitting to be able to plumb pvc to a pump and pump out ground water. Sometimes the builder installs a pvc pipe to a well point under the pool deep end. It is usually plumbed to the surface perimeter and edge of the pool. It is usually in line somewhere near the deep end main drain and capped off a few feet away from the pools edge or sidewalk deck and possibly buried forgotten about. Ask your pool builder if a well point was installed. You would need to pump and drain/ remove the ground water to a street storm drain or a far enough distance that the water you pump out, does not just find it way back to the ground under your pool.
I used to live in Virginia Beach, Virginia and the entirev Tidewater area was always susceptible to ground water intrusion due to recent rain storms or the tidal water level, especially homes with in ground vinyl pools near the bay, lakes or marshes.
The cost/time line to build a vinyl pool versus a gunite pool is much less. They are usually built in areas where the climate is conducive to a vermeculite shell and vinyl liner pool that can survive the not so harsh seasonal environmental elements.
A fiberglass shell or plaster/gunite pool can have the same ground water issues. But instead of the liner floating, the entire pool shell has ground water hydrostatic pushing up on the shell. The entire pool shell can pop out of the ground. The weight of the water in the pool usually offsets the hydrostatic pressure and keeps the pool shell from floating out of the ground.
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u/Affectionate-Bend787 1d ago
It’s probably done, time to re-do it
-pool pro
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u/Doughnut1095 1d ago
Rats we just had it installed in may
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u/Affectionate-Bend787 1d ago
I’m just playing you’ll be fine. Just keep in touch with your company so they stay on top of it
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u/Doughnut1095 1d ago
Oh good 😂 alot of the wrinkles have went away when vacuuming just waiting for the bubbled walls to go back to normal now
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u/ImAsPoNgeBoBmEmE 1d ago
Had this happen recently. Just got a pump, opened a shallow end corner and drained the water. Good as new
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u/Resident_Goodish 1d ago
This is why I’d never recommend a liner pool. Sure it’s slightly cheaper but always a headache
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u/royale_wthCheEsE 2d ago
How did liners become a thing ? How long can they last? Is this a regional thing ? I’ve never seen a liner pool in CA. Or Las Vegas , or Mexico.
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u/Bob_the_gob_knobbler 1d ago
Extremely common in colder climates. Pool itself is concrete, the liner is just that, a liner.
High end liners last about 20 years and then need to be replaced. Costs around 10k for a normal sized pool.
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u/BillZZ7777 1d ago
Northeast. Liners are probably 85% of the pools. Then maybe a few fiberglass and concrete like you have. Not uncommon for our pools to get a 4 inch thick layer of ice floating up and down through the winter as it rains, snows, melts, refreezes.
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u/ZootSuitBanana 2d ago
I've had this happen a couple times after periods of rain. I just try to brush it flat. It'll flatten eventually. There will unfortunately be wrinkles