Need help - Hurricane Ike damages in-ground vinyl lined pool
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Location: Galveston Bay Area, TX
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Need help - Hurricane Ike damages in-ground vinyl lined pool
I live 8 houses from Galveston Bay, my home was hit heavily by the storm surge from Hurricane Ike, and my in-ground, vinyl lined pool is a disaster. For the first week after the storm, many small cabbage head jelly fish and a water moccasin resided there. We poured more than 12 gallons of shock in it over a week's time to kill everything or chase it away. I did my best to clean out the debris, which so far includes some limbs and very stinky leaves. I am not sure what else is down there because the water is like black soup. The pump is not working. My flood insurance covers the pump/electrical system but not the pool itself.
I need a safe way to possibly drain the pool and scrub the liner before refilling it. I was going to rent a gas-powered pump from Home Depot and do it myself, but everyone I've talked to says its a bad idea to drain a vinyl lined pool. Ours is 2 1/2 years old and was installed by Wave Tech out of Geaorgetown. How much watercan I safely drain? What steps can I take to get the water and liner clean without damaging anything? I can't just let it sit there and rot. Please help.
I need a safe way to possibly drain the pool and scrub the liner before refilling it. I was going to rent a gas-powered pump from Home Depot and do it myself, but everyone I've talked to says its a bad idea to drain a vinyl lined pool. Ours is 2 1/2 years old and was installed by Wave Tech out of Geaorgetown. How much watercan I safely drain? What steps can I take to get the water and liner clean without damaging anything? I can't just let it sit there and rot. Please help.
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Do Not Drain Your Vinyl Liner Pool!
I can not stress that enough. Draining a vinyl liner pool, especially an inground pool, is not good. What will happen is once the vinyl touches the air it will start to shrivel up and become brittle and when you go to refill your pool it could potentially cause tears and rips in your liner. The only pool you can drain is a concrete pool. There is always a way to clean your pool when it is completely filled and it's much easier. For more information about cleaning your pool can can visit Website removed.
Last edited by mattison; 10-24-08 at 10:22 AM.
#3
You should not have an issue draining a 2.5 yr old pool, but DO NOT leave it drained for long. clean and refill in the same day. You should have a vac on pool to keep liner in place.
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Need help - Hurricane Ike damages in-ground vinyl lined pool Reply to Thread
Sorry to hear of your bad luck. Although you obviously have a different climate to up here in Ontario, I would agree with the last post in that, as long as you don't have the pool drained for too long, there shouldn't be an issue. After all, we drain our vinyl-lined pools by about 1/3 each and every winter before closing down. Now, we've just replaced our liner so needed to completely drain the pool and the only thing we needed to be aware of was the risk of cave-in (especially if the surrounding ground is wet and heavy). I just braced the sides at two panel joints with 2x6 and everything was fine - and my pool is probably nearly 30 years old. Good luck.