Pool liner not holding water anymore - replace?

[Don2222]

Hello
It's very bad timing since lots of people are doing staycations, pool workers and supplies are in short supply!
If I can get the right parts, then it is DIY or no pool!
With Father’s Day this weekend and July 4th almost here time is running out fast
All the water drained out of the 18’ round above ground pool this spring! I have never seen that happen before!
I looked carefully and there was a big tear in the center of the bottom! I carefully patched the tear and found another hole and filled it too a little above the bottom. It all leaked out. I found a few more holes and patched them using some special vinyl patch and vinyl glue and filled the pool again to a little above the bottom. Still no luck. The water seemed to stay in the very bottom but leaked to below the cove around the bottom edge. I could not see anymore holes but the liner being approx 15 years old, is it just maybe KAPUT??
Just by chance the local pool store had 3 Latham Niagara with Prism overlap liners coming in and they also had a bottom pad, coping strips and skimmers coming in! I had received them all in only a week!
The ground and sand under the old liner was good and packed down nicely.
Is it possible for an old liner just croak like that and just not hold water at all anymore?
Just this past Tuesday, after we picked up the liner we got installed it the very next day. There were some rust spots on the inner wall of the pool, I wire brushed them down and cleaned all the rest of the rust off with Acetone. Then I sprayed with Rust-Oleum to protect. The aluminum screws for the caps were hard to crack and get off and others were rusty and pretty well stripped out. Luckily I had a couple boxes of self tapper Stainless Steel 10 x 1/2” and some SS washers where the plastic holes in the top caps were really worn!
The pool is perfectly positioned in the yard for maximum sun during the day and very little leaves. However it made for a really Hot Days work
The Latham Niagara Liner is a good quality 2o guage liner. I was hoping to get a 3o guage liner but no such luck in this COVID crisis. I did get the rhino bottom pad so I hope in some way it makes up the difference. It seems if I had a bottom pad on the old liner which I did not, it would have lasted even longer.
There were a couple of the original Phillip head screws in the metal top caps that just would not come off, but by bending them slightly we could get the metal top wall ring off and all the coping strips off. The pool guy was right about the coping strips being broken and beat. The liner came off easily and we cut it up to get it out of the pool without wrecking the side walls.

The new bottom pad is bigger than the bottom but that is good because you need that protection over the sand cove. We did not do the foam cove and wall padding but I did re-tape the side wall seams to protect the liner.
The new screws went in with the speed socket and drill driver quite nicely. We put half the coping strips on initially and then removed 2 at a time and stretched the liner down another 2 inches and then put all the new coping strips back on. That method seemed to work well and stretched the liner appropriately because after water was added the liner stretched out more and there were few if any wrinkles over all.
Just waiting for the water to get up to just under the skimmer so we can install it. Rule of thumb being if the skimmer is more than 5 years old which it certainly is, the screws will not be able to pull the skimmer tight enough in the old plastic threads to get it tight enough not to leak!
The new skimmer and old filter return with new gaskets is our next step, Hopefully we can be ready for a HOT weekend!

Pic 1-4 -- Trying to patch the old liner and still would not hold approx 4 inches of water as shown on the stick!
Pic 5 -- Removing old liner
Pic 6 - 9 -- Wire brushing rust, cleaning with acetone, and painting over steel for protection against more rusting
Pic 10 -- Installing bottom pad
Pic 11- 12 -- Installing liner
Pic 13 -- Liner has been replaced.
Pic 14 - old aluminum screws, rusty, stripped and some missing.
Pic 15 -- Shinny new stronger stainless steel hex head screws
Pic 16 -- new self tapping screws installed

 

[festerw]

To answer your question about liners, yes they do just fail and once they're empty of water they'll shrink slightly and adding water will stretch it again and cause new tears.

 

[Don2222]

Thanks for the info.
The skimmer was the trickiest last part. Just do the pre-assembly on the bench. Screw in the bottom hose adapter using the Teflon tape and screw on the front wide mouth to the skimmer body with the rubber gasket and 4 pan head screws. The pool must be full up to at least 2 inches under the skimmer so the liner will be in the right place.
It is definitely a 4 hand job. The first thing to do is smooth up the liner and put the inner pool skimmer mouth frame with the gasket on the liner and punch the 2 bottom corner holes through the liner in the middle of the frame holes. Then have a helper hold the skimmer and gasket on the outside of the pool while you screw in the bottom 2 corner screws. Then do the same to the top 2 holes. After that just hop in the pool for best leverage and screw in all the other screws. Then take a knife and trim out the liner inside the skimmer frame.
The filter return is easy, just cut a hole in the liner and screw in the filter return. Connect the filter hoses and bingo. All done!

 

[festerw]

Fortunately I don't have to deal with these problems. The one I take care of is a little bigger

We've got it drained for maintenance over our Covid break.

 

[Don2222]

I filled out the registration for the warranty and mailed it in. The Latham Pool Products Inc. manufacturer’s 25 year warranty is actually pretty good!
Percent you have to pay for a replacement liner
Year 1 — N/C
Year 2-5 -- 30%
Year 6-12 -- 50%
Year 13 - 20 — 75%
Year 21 - 25 — 90%

 

[gzecc]

Try flex tape. Look at the commercial. It does everything!

 

[Don2222]

I started a new thread on the leaking skimmer since it is a different issue.

Brand new above ground wide mouth skimmer leaks?

Hello It seams like an above ground pool leaky skimmer is a common problem, but there does it seem to be a sure fire common fix? We had to replace the 15 y/o liner and that worked out well. See that story here. :)...

www.hearth.com