A woodchuck burrowed beneath my 16x32 rectangular pool with a vinyl liner. The ground below the pool floor has suck where the burrows are and I now have pot hole like ruts about 6-10 inches deep on the pool floor. Can I remove the water and pull back the liner, repair the ground and get the liner back in place, or do I need to get a new liner? Someone told me that once a liner is removed it will never go back in place the way it was.

Thanks:)

[QUOTE=nelar9]A woodchuck burrowed beneath my 16x32 rectangular pool with a vinyl liner. The ground below the pool floor has suck where the burrows are and I now have pot hole like ruts about 6-10 inches deep on the pool floor. Can I remove the water and pull back the liner, repair the ground and get the liner back in place, or do I need to get a new liner? Someone told me that once a liner is removed it will never go back in place the way it was.

Thanks:) If the pool is not losing any water, your plan just might work... but the places where the liner sunk 6--10 " may not flatten back out smooth. You will probably have wrinkles in these areas. If you empty a pool of water, within 3--4 days the liner will shrink. Good Luck and let me know how thing's went :)

Whoa there cowboy, hold on just one second.

First of all, how old is your liner? If it is more than one or two seasons old your plan is suicide. There is NO CHANCE this can be done successfully. Worse than that you may very well collapse your pool slopes if the situation is just right. Since you have earth mining creatures undermining your pool base, the chances of a devastating collapse are higher.


Are you sure it's a woodchuck? That's an awfully deep route for a little animal since most 16x32 ingrounds will be as deep as 8 or more feet. Or perhaps your problem is in the shallow end, in which case your chances of repairing this become slightly better.

Puncture holes in your liner can also cause symptoms similar to what you have described so check your vacuum head and brush for wires or sharp protrusions that might have caused this. Also, you might want to interrogate your children to see if they were riding their bikes in the pool again. =)

If you are sure its animal damage, and the problem exists only in the shallow end, and also if your liner is very new, and you do not mind wrinkles in your liner after you put it back, them MAYBE you should do this repair yourself, but be prepared to need a pro to come in a replace your liner if the repair goes south on you.

It never ceases to amaze me how far a home owner will go to repair their own pool problems. It's not a bad thing to show guts and determination when faced with a big problem, but it is also important to know when a pro is needed. Otherwise, we just end up like the maytag repairmen.

I hope this information is helpful

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