How To Repair Inground Pool Walls

You've probably never sabbatum past your beautiful pool, sipping a cool potable, wondering how to patch a pool liner. It's far more likely you'll exist all set to jump in for a refreshing swim, but stop expressionless in your tracks when you lot notice the yard by your inground pool feels swampy. Maybe you'll glance out the back window just before your kickoff sip of coffee in the morning, and see a growing waterfall has sprung from the side of your above ground pool.

If yous're reading this, you may have only discovered the demand to patch your vinyl pool liner, and that's never a fun discovery. You may even exist freaking out a little. Take a breath. Unless yous take a very former liner, a massive tear, or a tree fell on your pool, you tin probably patch it.

Why Should You Learn How to Patch a Puddle Liner?

Depending on the size and location of a leak, yous could confront serious harm if it isn't addressed quickly.

Above Ground Pool Dangers

If an to a higher place ground pool springs a leak, the water will drain until information technology reaches the level of the hole. If the leak is near the top rail, the h2o might only go down a couple of inches. Just if it'due south nearly the bottom of the wall or the floor of the pool, the extensive water loss could collapse the pool and plow your yard into a muddied mess.

Inground Pool Dangers

A leak in your inground pool liner can likewise crusade a lot of damage. The water can create a pocket of liquid under your pool deck or crusade soil erosion, leading to instability and deck cave-ins. It can also cause rust on steel pools, or erosion of physical ones.

While those bug can exist repaired, you lot can only find them if you completely remove and supervene upon your inground puddle liner. The best course of action is to cease the leak as chop-chop as you tin.

Tip: If you've but found a leak and you lot're trying to figure out what to do: Grab a ringlet of duct record, and cut a piece a bit larger than the pigsty. Y'all tin can stick information technology right under water and rub it onto your liner. Information technology won't last forever, merely information technology'll help keep the water in your pool until you can properly patch it.

Note: If your pool is concrete and develops cracks (which it will over fourth dimension) that demand to be patched, pool plaster repair is a whole other task with its own tools and precautions.

The Practicalities of Pool Liner Patching

So your puddle is losing water, which means your liner has sprung a leak. Or does it? That information is key before you start patching anything.

Leak or Merely Evaporation?

Most pools lose an average of near ¼ to ½ an inch of water every day to evaporation. Simply if you notice you're losing an inch or more per day? That sounds like a leak. Maybe.

Ostend the Leak

Use the bucket exam to be sure your suspected puddle leak isn't just evaporation.

Locate the Leak

When you're sure y'all've got a leak, use the ink method to find the exact spot you need to patch. Make up one's mind whether the hole is modest enough to patch, then whether you demand to patch it wet or dry.

How Large is Too Big?

Patches are temporary. Some volition concluding for years, but they're not likely to final 15 years. And the bigger a tear is, the more than likely the edges of the patch will get snagged, scroll upward, or pull abroad.

When the patch comes upwardly on its ain, you may be able to repair it. We'll refrain from examining how meta it is to repair a repair. But if the patch gets caught on something and pulled off, it could further rip the liner, and so you lot'll accept a bigger problem than yous started with.

No hard and fast rules apply to the size of leaks that can exist successfully patched. You lot could take a two-inch patch fall off later on a mean solar day or a ten-inch patch stay in place for five years. The more important factor to consider is whether your liner is worth trying to patch.

If your liner is 2 years former and in great shape except for an 8-inch tear on the back wall, information technology's certainly worth trying a patch. The tear is big, but the vinyl is otherwise strong and in a spot that won't become much traffic.

If your liner 15 years old with a ii-inch tear next to the stairs, you definitely demand to patch it to control water loss and prevent harm. But you too need to offset shopping for a new liner.

An older liner is thinner, more decumbent to pinholes and weak spots, and more probable to spring more than leaks. Patching may extend the life of your liner, only know that this leak is likely a symptom that the liner is nearing the end of its life.

Note: Areas of the liner close to the stairs, bead, or any of the fittings have the weight of the pool water pulling on them. They're under more stress than other areas, so patches there may be less probable to concur upwards long term.

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Instantly Stop Leaks

Quick fixes come in three flavors. All iii tin be practical underwater or dry out.

Waterproof Tape

Not specifically a vinyl pool patching product, waterproof tapes are marketed for all sorts of quick repairs. It'southward similar to duct tape, but clear, waterproof, and UV resistant. The record can exist overlapped to create larger sections for patching.

It's depression cost, durable, and easy to re-do if necessary. Information technology's best for smaller patch jobs considering information technology tends to peel.

Pare-and-Stick Patches

As like shooting fish in a barrel every bit waterproof tape, but made from real vinyl and designed for utilize in pools and on inflatable pool items. Some pare-and-stick patches are fifty-fifty pre-cutting in perfect, bully circles. The circular shape makes them less probable to pare up around the edges.

Just remove the paper backing, and press it over the leak. These are also inexpensive and best used on small punctures and tears.

Vinyl Patch Kit

If you need to seal a slightly larger hole or y'all're hoping for a longer-term fix, you tin can grab a patch kit. Kits include large chunks of liner and special vinyl adhesive that works underwater. Some come with blue and clear vinyl.

Patch kits for soft-sided above ground pools besides include a piece of special laminated polyvinyl chloride (PVC) material, so you lot tin properly patch the outside of the pool walls.

Wet or Dry Patch?

If the pool's water level has dropped to the level of a wall leak, it'southward okay to patch it dry. You don't demand to bleed your puddle to use a patch to any leak, though.

How to Patch a Pool Liner Underwater

Letting all the water out tin cause to a higher place footing puddle walls to collapse. Elimination any puddle with a vinyl liner dries it out and exposes it to damaging ultraviolet (UV) rays, which tin can brand the liner brittle. And draining an inground pool can crusade it to literally popular out of the ground if you're non careful. It'due south all-time to patch the liner underwater, unless the leak exposed it.

Of import: Never bleed an inground pool unless it's absolutely necessary—not even before a hurricane—because it can further weaken your liner and even cause structural damage. If it'southward necessary, and yous're not certain how to bleed a pool, larn the process before you get-go, or hire a professional to exercise it for you.

Yous'll demand:

Scissors
Non-abrasive scouring pad
Weight (pool cleaner head or brick wrapped in plastic wrap)
Swimming goggles (if needed)
Vinyl patch kit or vinyl agglutinative
Dauber applicator or arts and crafts stick (to spread agglutinative)
Patching vinyl

i. Clean the Area

Whatsoever debris, algae, sunscreen or other stuff stuck to your pool walls makes it harder for a patch or adhesive to adhere. Use a non-abrasive scouring pad to gently clean the vinyl around the hole. Do not scrub. You don't want to make the hole whatever bigger.

two. Trim the Patch

If yous're not using pare-and-stick patches, cut the patching vinyl into a circle. Be certain it's at least 2 inches larger in diameter than the pigsty. For case, if the rip is iii inches long, the patch must exist five inches in diameter.

3. Apply Agglutinative

For peel-and-stick patches, remove the paper backing to expose the adhesive side. For all other patches, be sure it's gratuitous of debris, then use the dauber to employ a generous amount of agglutinative. Brand sure it reaches all the edges.

4. Taco 'Bout It

Fold the patch in half like a taco, with the sticky side out, then submerge it.

5. Stick It

Holding the patch over the hole, slowly and gently open up the patch taco while smoothing information technology onto the pool liner. Press out whatsoever air bubbles, and so hold the patch in place for 2 minutes. The adhesive needs to cure to achieve its total strength, so resist the urge to tug on the patch to check it.

6. Apply Weight

Some patch products recommend putting weight on your patch for 24 hours while the adhesive cures. Information technology'southward next to incommunicable to apply weight to your puddle wall. Merely if your patch is in a spot where information technology's possible to do and so, rest your puddle cleaner head or a clean brick covered in plastic wrap on top of the patch.

7. Double Patch It

Placing a second patch over the kickoff won't make your fix any stronger, but if it makes you experience more at ease, in that location'south no reason y'all can't double up. If you lot practise, be sure to let the first patch cure completely before applying the second. Cut the second patch at least two inches larger in diameter than the showtime patch (making it four inches larger than the hole), so it can adhere to the puddle liner and the first patch.

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04/15/2022 03:39 pm GMT

Easy Soft-Sided Vinyl Pool Patching

Intex-style pools are made from slightly dissimilar material than vinyl pool liners, but they tin also be patched, even on the outside. You don't need to empty them, either.

Patch kits for this type of puddle usually include clear vinyl, blue vinyl, and exterior patch textile (laminated PVC). The clear is for top ring repairs, the blueish is for interior repairs, and the laminated PVC is for outer wall repairs. The adhesive works for all three. If you're concerned well-nigh risks associated with PVC exposure, wait for patch kits with bisphenol A (BPA)-free patching vinyl.

You can likewise notice peel-and-stick patches for this type of pool, which may exist easier to use.

Patching soft-sided pools follows the aforementioned process every bit with any vinyl liner, except when patching the top ring. Fully inflate the band, marking the hole, and utilise adhesive effectually it. Then employ adhesive to the clear patch and apply it. Press on it for a few seconds, then slightly deflate the band and so the agglutinative can cure without force per unit area. After 12 hours, yous tin can reinflate the ring.

When Patches Aren't Plenty

The road to a brand-new pool liner is paved with good intentions and waterproof record. Eventually, no matter how good you are with a dauber and agglutinative, your liner will give up the ghost. Knowing how to patch a puddle liner can buy you time to find a replacement liner without letting leaks destroy your puddle or property.

In one case your liner has a patch or two, be sure to keep an centre them. If they start to pull upward, piece of work a little adhesive under the edges and smooth them back downwardly. You lot tin besides double patch past smoothing a larger patch over one that'due south starting to give out. Just remember, pool patches won't final forever. But if applied correctly, you lot may well continue enjoying your pool liner for years to come.

Happy Swimming!

Matt Giovanisci is the founder of Swim Academy® and has been in the pool and spa industry since 1995. Since then, his mission is to make puddle and hot tub care easy for everyone. And each twelvemonth, he continues to assist more people with water chemical science, cleaning, and troubleshooting.

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