I am having a vinyl inground pool installed. My question is do I have to install the brick coping prior to installing the liner??

If you are having a vinyl liner pool installed - then the pool installers should be doing this =)

To answer your question, yes, you want to complete al work near the edge of a pool (coping included) before you hang the liner. Technically you could do the brick work after the liner and water are in the pool, but I would not recommend it.

How terrible would it be to knock a brick or sharp object like a screwdriver into the pool and puncture your liner. That would be terrible. Your liner is the weakest link of your pool so you need to treat it like a baby if you are ever going to make it through the 30 year pro-rated warranty that good manufacturers are giving now on vinyl liners.

Being that I am a pool professional, there are many occasions where I need to work in proximity to an unprotected liner with all sorts of menacing tools and materials. Bricks are pretty much the worst. If you drop one in, you have a hole in your liner and a dent in your soft floor. Then for the next thirty years you get to look at an underwater patch that no one else can see - but you know it's there.

Whether vinyl liners or gunite plaster finish, I always do it last to make sure that the finished product is as good as it can possibly be.

I hope this information is helpful.

Steve Goodale
Serendipity Pools & Artificial Rock
Vancouver, BC
604-421-8429
1-888-267-0802