How To Repair A Torn Pool Liner
You've probably never saturday by your beautiful pool, sipping a cool beverage, wondering how to patch a pool liner. It'south far more likely you'll be all set up to jump in for a refreshing swim, simply terminate dead in your tracks when you lot notice the yard by your inground puddle feels swampy. Maybe you'll glance out the back window just before your start sip of coffee in the morning, and encounter a growing waterfall has sprung from the side of your above ground pool.
If you're reading this, you lot may have just discovered the need to patch your vinyl pool liner, and that's never a fun discovery. You lot may even exist freaking out a little. Accept a jiff. Unless you have a very old liner, a massive tear, or a tree fell on your pool, you lot can probably patch information technology.
Why Should You Learn How to Patch a Pool Liner?
Depending on the size and location of a leak, you could face up serious damage if it isn't addressed quickly.
Above Ground Pool Dangers
If an above ground pool springs a leak, the water will drain until it reaches the level of the hole. If the leak is near the pinnacle rail, the water might but go down a couple of inches. But if it's near the bottom of the wall or the floor of the puddle, the extensive water loss could collapse the pool and turn your one thousand into a dirty mess.
Inground Pool Dangers
A leak in your inground pool liner can also cause a lot of damage. The water tin create a pocket of liquid under your pool deck or cause soil erosion, leading to instability and deck cave-ins. It can also cause rust on steel pools, or erosion of concrete ones.
While those issues can be repaired, yous tin can only discover them if you completely remove and replace your inground puddle liner. The all-time course of action is to cease the leak equally quickly as you can.
Tip: If you've just found a leak and you're trying to effigy out what to do: Take hold of a roll of duct tape, and cut a slice a bit larger than the hole. You can stick it correct under h2o and rub it onto your liner. It won't concluding forever, but it'll aid keep the water in your puddle until you can properly patch it.
Notation: If your pool is concrete and develops cracks (which information technology will over time) that demand to exist patched, pool plaster repair is a whole other task with its ain tools and precautions.
The Practicalities of Pool Liner Patching
And then your pool is losing h2o, which means your liner has sprung a leak. Or does it? That information is key before you commencement patching anything.
Leak or Just Evaporation?
Most pools lose an average of about ¼ to ½ an inch of water every day to evaporation. But if you discover you're losing an inch or more per 24-hour interval? That sounds like a leak. Possibly.
Ostend the Leak
Use the bucket test to be sure your suspected pool leak isn't just evaporation.
Locate the Leak
When you lot're certain y'all've got a leak, use the ink method to detect the exact spot you need to patch. Make up one's mind whether the hole is minor enough to patch, then whether you lot need to patch it wet or dry.
How Big is Too Big?
Patches are temporary. Some will concluding for years, but they're not likely to last 15 years. And the bigger a tear is, the more likely the edges of the patch will get snagged, curl up, or pull away.
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. Only if the patch gets caught on something and pulled off, it could further rip the liner, and and so you'll accept a bigger problem than you started with.
No hard and fast rules apply to the size of leaks that can be successfully patched. You lot could have a ii-inch patch fall off after a 24-hour interval or a 10-inch patch stay in identify for five years. The more of import cistron to consider is whether your liner is worth trying to patch.
If your liner is two years old and in great shape except for an 8-inch tear on the dorsum wall, it's certainly worth trying a patch. The tear is large, but the vinyl is otherwise strong and in a spot that won't get much traffic.
If your liner 15 years erstwhile with a ii-inch tear adjacent to the stairs, you definitely need to patch it to command water loss and prevent harm. But you lot also need to get-go shopping for a new liner.
An older liner is thinner, more prone to pinholes and weak spots, and more likely to bound more leaks. Patching may extend the life of your liner, only know that this leak is likely a symptom that the liner is nearing the cease of its life.
Note: Areas of the liner close to the stairs, bead, or any of the fittings take the weight of the pool water pulling on them. They're under more stress than other areas, so patches there may be less likely to agree up long term.
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Instantly Terminate Leaks
Quick fixes come in three flavors. All three can be applied underwater or dry.
Waterproof Tape
Not specifically a vinyl pool patching product, waterproof tapes are marketed for all sorts of quick repairs. Information technology'due south similar to duct tape, merely clear, waterproof, and UV resistant. The tape tin exist overlapped to create larger sections for patching.
It's low price, durable, and easy to re-do if necessary. It's best for smaller patch jobs because it tends to skin.
Peel-and-Stick Patches
As easy as waterproof tape, but fabricated from real vinyl and designed for use in pools and on inflatable pool items. Some peel-and-stick patches are even pre-cutting in perfect, neat circles. The circular shape makes them less probable to skin up around the edges.
Just remove the paper backing, and printing it over the leak. These are likewise inexpensive and all-time used on small punctures and tears.
Vinyl Patch Kit
If you lot need to seal a slightly larger hole or you lot're hoping for a longer-term gear up, you lot can take hold of a patch kit. Kits include big chunks of liner and special vinyl agglutinative that works underwater. Some come up with blue and clear vinyl.
Patch kits for soft-sided in a higher place ground pools likewise include a piece of special laminated polyvinyl chloride (PVC) material, and then you can properly patch the exterior of the pool walls.
Moisture or Dry Patch?
If the pool's h2o level has dropped to the level of a wall leak, it'southward okay to patch it dry. You lot don't need to drain your puddle to utilise a patch to whatsoever leak, though.
How to Patch a Pool Liner Underwater
Letting all the water out can cause above footing pool walls to collapse. Elimination any puddle with a vinyl liner dries it out and exposes it to damaging ultraviolet (UV) rays, which tin make the liner brittle. And draining an inground puddle can cause it to literally pop out of the ground if y'all're not careful. It'southward best to patch the liner underwater, unless the leak exposed information technology.
Important: Never drain an inground pool unless it's admittedly necessary—not even earlier a hurricane—because information technology can further weaken your liner and even cause structural impairment. If it'south necessary, and you're not sure how to bleed a pool, acquire the process before you beginning, or hire a professional to exercise it for you.
Y'all'll need:
- Scissors
- Non-abrasive scouring pad
- Weight (pool cleaner caput or brick wrapped in plastic wrap)
- Swimming goggles (if needed)
- Vinyl patch kit or vinyl adhesive
- Dauber applicator or craft stick (to spread adhesive)
- Patching vinyl
i. Clean the Surface area
Whatever debris, algae, sunscreen or other stuff stuck to your puddle walls makes it harder for a patch or adhesive to attach. Utilize a non-annoying scouring pad to gently clean the vinyl around the hole. Do not scrub. You lot don't want to make the hole any bigger.
2. Trim the Patch
If you're not using peel-and-stick patches, cut the patching vinyl into a circumvolve. Be sure it's at to the lowest degree 2 inches larger in diameter than the hole. For example, if the rip is three inches long, the patch must be five inches in diameter.
three. Apply Adhesive
For peel-and-stick patches, remove the paper backing to expose the adhesive side. For all other patches, be certain it'south gratuitous of debris, then use the dauber to apply a generous amount of adhesive. Brand certain it reaches all the edges.
4. Taco 'Tour It
Fold the patch in one-half like a taco, with the glutinous side out, then submerge it.
five. Stick It
Property the patch over the pigsty, slowly and gently open the patch taco while smoothing it onto the puddle liner. Press out any air bubbles, then hold the patch in place for two minutes. The adhesive needs to cure to reach its full strength, and then resist the urge to tug on the patch to check information technology.
6. Employ Weight
Some patch products recommend putting weight on your patch for 24 hours while the adhesive cures. It'south next to incommunicable to use weight to your puddle wall. But if your patch is in a spot where it's possible to exercise so, rest your pool cleaner head or a clean brick covered in plastic wrap on pinnacle of the patch.
seven. Double Patch It
Placing a 2nd patch over the beginning won't make your prepare whatever stronger, only if it makes you feel more than at ease, there's no reason you can't double up. If you do, be certain to let the first patch cure completely before applying the second. Cut the 2nd patch at least two inches larger in diameter than the first patch (making it iv inches larger than the hole), so it can adhere to the puddle liner and the offset patch.
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06/15/2022 11:59 am GMT
Like shooting fish in a barrel Soft-Sided Vinyl Pool Patching
Intex-style pools are made from slightly different fabric than vinyl pool liners, merely they can as well exist patched, even on the exterior. You don't demand to empty them, either.
Patch kits for this type of pool usually include clear vinyl, blue vinyl, and exterior patch textile (laminated PVC). The clear is for superlative band repairs, the blue is for interior repairs, and the laminated PVC is for outer wall repairs. The adhesive works for all three. If you're concerned nigh risks associated with PVC exposure, look for patch kits with bisphenol A (BPA)-gratis patching vinyl.
Yous can also find peel-and-stick patches for this blazon of pool, which may exist easier to use.
Patching soft-sided pools follows the aforementioned process equally with any vinyl liner, except when patching the superlative ring. Fully inflate the band, marking the hole, and apply agglutinative around it. Then apply adhesive to the clear patch and utilize it. Press on it for a few seconds, and then slightly deflate the ring and so the agglutinative can cure without pressure. After 12 hours, you can reinflate the ring.
When Patches Aren't Enough
The route to a make-new pool liner is paved with good intentions and waterproof tape. Somewhen, no matter how adept you are with a dauber and adhesive, your liner will give up the ghost. Knowing how to patch a puddle liner tin buy you lot time to find a replacement liner without letting leaks destroy your pool or property.
Once your liner has a patch or two, be certain to continue an eye them. If they start to pull up, work a fiddling adhesive under the edges and smooth them dorsum down. You can also double patch past smoothing a larger patch over one that's starting to give out. Just remember, puddle patches won't last forever. But if applied correctly, you may well continue enjoying your pool liner for years to come up.
Happy Swimming!
Matt Giovanisci is the founder of Swim Academy® and has been in the pool and spa industry since 1995. Since and so, his mission is to make pool and hot tub care easy for everyone. And each yr, he continues to assistance more people with water chemical science, cleaning, and troubleshooting.
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Source: https://www.swimuniversity.com/patch-pool-liner/
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