My husband and I have spent the past 2 weeks putting up an above ground, 30' round, pool only to have it cave in on us in one spot 2 different times. The first time we discovered we were missing the bead retainer for our beaded liner, so we fixed it and also added sand under our pad that's under the liner. It is completely level all the way around and across both ways and we have worked ourselves to death, and we really thought we had corrected any problems but then when we started filling the pool, at the 10" mark the liner and retainer pulled away from the wall and folded over into the center of the pool. We are just heartbroken and don't have any idea of what could be causing this to happen!! We have followed the directions to the letter and we just have no idea what is going wrong when we start to fill it. Please tell me any ideas you may have about this - I have called several installers to ask them and one of them said it could be the cove around the inner perimeter. We bought the peel and stick cove - could this be the problem? I find it hard to believe that it could cause this big of a problem, but I would love to know what you think! Thanks for any help you can give!
Desperate and Depressed

When you stretch your liner around the pool you should have a great deal of liner pulled over the edge. The center of the liner just barely touches the sand. As you add water the weight of the water will pull more liner down and into the pool. I've used spring clamps around the perimeter to hold the liner as I fill, like big clothes pins. I walk around the pool as it fills and open/close the clamps to feed more liner. Write back if this doesn't make sense for you or you have more questions.

It is possible that you have stretched the liner too tight over the top rim of the wall of the pool. This can cause the liner to fold in the walls of the pool as the water fills - this is especially true if you fill it overnight when the liner is cold and does not stretch well.

To fix this problem you should pull more liner over the lip and into the pool. This will increase the likelihood of cosmetic wrinkles on the walls, but should also increase the likelihood of you being able to fill and use your pool. =)

The only other possible option is that the pool is considerable out of square. Check and make sure that you are completely round with your construction.

Most people do not fully realize how much work it is to build an above ground pool - and 30' diameter is quite big.

I hope this information is helpful.

Steve Goodale
Serendipity Pools
Serendipity Artificial Rock - By Design