Hi.

My 1 year old pool has a vinyl liner. I just noticed that it has a ripple in the liner that goes from one end of the pool to the other. (12'x24' pool) I got in and tried to flatten it out but it just keeps coming back up. Is that a leak?

Thanks.

sv.

Not a leak but you won't get rid of it withour draining the pool below the ripple. You would need to do about 75% of the work involved with a total liner replacement to fix this. I'd let it go until a replacement liner is due. When that time comes write back for instructions on how to install a liner without a ripple. You will need two people and about 20 clothes pins.

You can minimize this wrinkle without draining your pool. You need a good quality toilet plunger as your only tool.

While in the pool you want to start at either end of the wrinkle (as opposed to the middle) and grad the liner with the plunger on either side of the wrinkle and lift all pull away. Essentially you are trying to smooth the wrinkle out as much as possible. You should be able to divide your big wrinkle into two smaller wrinkles. Then divide the two smaller wrinkles into four even smaller wrinkles. This process takes time and a skilled hand but the more you try, the more you should be able to minimize your wrinkle. FYI the wrinkle will not cause any long term damage to the liner but is simply a cosmetic problem.

I hope this information is helpful.

Steve Goodale
Serendipity Pools

Your right about the wrinkle, it won't hurt anything. I just drained my pool and fixed the wrinkles. If the tile border is old and faded out, apply adhesive swimming pool tile borders available on the internet through swimming pool websites, its called Borderlines adhesive swimming pool tile borders that come in different patterns. The borderlines are a peel and stick application and they look great, took me just one afternoon myself, pool looks new again.

I have a 20' x 40' pool with a liner which is about 3 years old. Gradually, the liner has gotten wrinkes... all over the place. Is there anything I can do about this? Will it eventually tear? I heard somewhere that it could have something to do with the pH, but that doesn't make sense to me.