Experts share field-tested techniques for installing and repairing vinyl liners.

Vinyl liners are becoming more advanced every year. From plasticizers to UV inhibiters to thousands of color combinations, the options available to the builder and customer are nearly endless.

But even the newest liners are vulnerable to the same old issues, such as staining and punctures. Wrinkles seem to have a way of sneaking up from behind, and shrinkage can cause flotation in almost any climate. All these problems, however, have straightforward solutions.

Here, experienced pros reveal their secrets for mastering the art and science of vinyl, from installations to repairs.

Choose walls without foam
Vinyl liners are most durable when resting directly against metal wall panels. A layer of rolled foam backing puts the vinyl at risk for punctures and wrinkling, no matter what substrate it covers.

“Foam walls exacerbate liner puncturing,” says Michael Giovanone, president of Concord Pools and Spas in Latham, N.Y., a Pool & Spa News Top Builder.

Giovanone also points out that the weaker construction of a rolled foam layer lacks the holding power to keep a liner in place. “Foam lets liners creep and wrinkle,” he says, “because it doesn’t have a solid bond to the substrate or the wall.”

Imagine a piece of paper pressed against a hard surface, like a desktop; then imagine poking that paper with a sharp pencil. It’s nearly impossible to puncture the paper as long as it remains flush with the hard
surface. But lay that same piece of paper against a soft pillow, and any sharp object can rip right through it.

In short, a liner is only as strong as its weakest layer of backing.

“The backing behind a liner is the most important factor in that liner’s durability,” Giovanone says. “And the worst enemy of vinyl liners is wall foam.”

Measure and mark the liner
Fitting a liner’s beading onto the bead track can be a frustrating process. Manufacturers typically include markings on the liner’s underside to indicate its corners and center, and these can help a crew properly place the liner in the pool. But the manufacturer’s markings aren’t much help for aligning the top of the beading with the track.

“The manufacturer’s marks — the arrows — are just a rough approximation,” says John Warner, president of Done Right Pools and Spas in East Greenbush, N.Y. “And the manufacturer doesn’t put anything at the top of the bead.”

Warner, however, recommends a technique for ensuring the alignment is on target: Before unfolding a liner, measure it. Find the points where the top of the beading will actually line up with the corners of the bead track, and mark each of those alignment points on the liner’s underside.

“When I first open the liner up,” Warner explains, “I physically locate what I think is the exact spot where it’s going to line up with the corner at the top of the bead, and I make a little pencil mark at that spot on the back of the liner.”

Rethink sealing and vacuuming

During the initial installation, most crews hold the edge of the liner against the walls with duct tape or sandbags. But it’s not always possible to create a perfect seal this way. Wind, cold and dryness can quickly begin to stretch the seals, or even loosen the liner’s edges.

One possibility is to try a different approach right from the start. “Instead of duct tape,” Giovanone says, “use caulk to seal every [wall] panel before it gets bolted together.” Though this process takes more time, it creates a hardened seal that’s much less vulnerable to the elements.

Next, run the liner’s beading through the entire track. The usual practice at this point would be to leave part of the beading out of the track and tape an industrial vacuum pump behind the liner to tighten it. Giovanone says, “That’s completely wrong.” Instead, fit a vacuum pump over the top of the skimmer opening. As long as their dimensions are compatible, they’ll form a perfect seal.

“Liner vacs are manufactured to be square, and they’re meant to sit on top of the skimmer,” Giovanone explains. “It fits like a glove; you don’t need to use any tape.”

Because this scheme uses the vacuum’s shape and weight to secure the seal, it ensures a much tighter fit between the vacuum and the liner, and thus lowers the chance of wrinkles. When combined with the technique of caulking wall panels, it also avoids other taping-related issues, such as flotation.

“If you bead the liner and caulk your wall panels,” Giovanone says, “you will totally eliminate floating liners.”

Use only vinyl duct tape
If using duct tape on the liner is unavoidable, pick a brand made from vinyl. Many types of duct tape are made with cloth, which is an organic substance, and thus home to microorganisms that can quickly stain and degrade a vinyl liner.

“Pink and purple staining, which is a huge problem with vinyl liners, is actually the excretions from microorganisms,” Giovanone says. “It’s called microbiological staining, and it comes up through the
vinyl from the back.”

While shocking the pool will dissipate the appearance of the problem, this is only a temporary solution. Until the infection is totally destroyed, pink stains will continue to creep back through the liner.

The easiest way to avoid this issue is simply to avoid organic duct tape. Vinyl-based tape is inorganic, so it poses no threat to the liner.

Start filling as soon as possible
Because vinyl liners are designed to stretch to their full size under the weight of water, they’re most vulnerable to shrinkage immediately after installation, before the pool has been filled. Unless several inches of water are holding it in place, a liner may begin to shrink and float within 2 to 3 hours, even if a vacuum pump is pulling it tight.

“I’ve found that the old system of leaving the vac on, then pumping in water from the customer’s hose just doesn’t produce consistent results,” Warner says.

Instead of waiting for the hose to fill the pool, one option is to bring in about 9,000 gallons of water as your crew is finishing the installation. Once the liner’s wrinkles are brushed out and the vacuum pump is running, dump in enough water to fill the shallow end to a depth of about 6 inches.

“I always insist on it,” Warner says. “We have the water on hand as soon as installation is finished, and we dump it in the pool right away.” This prevents any shrinkage from taking hold during the first night, while the pool is being filled. Warner says this strategy is especially useful on colder nights, when liners are prone to shrinkage.

Though having water delivered does add an expense to the installation process, the benefits down the road will be well worth the initial cost. “It’s a money-saver for the customer in the long run,” Warner explains, “because the liner’s going to fit right, so it’s going to last longer.”

Hold onto that water
Groundwater seepage and shell uplift are major problems in areas with high water tables. Because vinyl pools require at least 6 inches of overdig, their sites are particularly susceptible to these issues. Hydrostatic relief valves aren’t always available to offset this danger, and the usual practice of pouring drained water onto the lawn only adds to the problem.

Fred Martin, president of Martin Pool and Spa in Pittsfield, Mass., has discovered a straightforward way to save money and prevent uplift at the same time. When draining a pool for repairs, instead of directing the flow of water to a deck drain (or the customer’s lawn), his techs pump all the drained water into tanks.

“When we go in to replace a vinyl liner,” Martin says, “we first set up some tanks to hold all the water we drain from the pool. That gives us a buildup of supply.”

When they’ve finished repairing or replacing the liner, the techs immediately return the stored water to the pool. This puts pressure back on the water table right away, and prevents the liner from floating while the pool is being refilled. It’s friendly to the environment, too.

“This way,” Martin explains, “you’re not wasting water, and you’re also making sure that if you’ve got ground water, it’s not going to come up through the sand or gunite.”

Source: Ben Thomas- Pool and Spa News | 6.25.2010

While a lot of swimming pool stains are the work of familiar culprits, many have uncommon causes

Most pool owners assess the well being of their swimming pool by what they can see: the clarity of the water and the appearance of its surfaces. As a service technician, you must be able to diagnose problems that can compromise the homeowners’ visual evaluation of their vessel. There are many common issues that lead to staining in pools, and a few not-so-well-known offenders.

Water balance

Most stains and discoloration can be traced to improperly balanced water. But even “perfectly balanced” pools have the potential to contribute to these types of problems due to the almost-daily influx of metals, minerals and other contaminants. Oxidation also is a concern.

Common organic staining scenarios

Staining and discoloration can be broken down into two main categories: organic and inorganic. Common organic causes include scale, algae, “pink slime,” white water mold and vinyl liner mold. The Langelier Saturation Index measures the corrosiveness and neutrality, or scaling ability, of water. Water, by nature, “wants” to be neutral or balanced. When pH and/or total alkalinity are high, water cannot rid itself of either of these two important components, but it can push out calcium. Scaling is one unwanted by-product of this reaction.

When heavy rains combine with hot weather and low or no sanitizer, algae in its many forms can become an issue. Mustard algae seems to vanish easily when brushed, but will reappear quickly and continue to spread if left unchecked. Black algae creates a protective gelatinous coating. It also has roots, which can penetrate a pool’s plaster, fiberglass or vinyl surfaces. Green algae can first appear as a tinting of the water, which can rapidly transform a pool into a veritable swamp if not treated. In addition to a discoloration of the water, green algae also can produce rapidly spreading stains throughout a vessel.

Pink slime actually is reddish bacteria that most of us have seen on our showerheads. It can be introduced by rain, soil and contaminated swimsuits — as can mustard algae — and can rapidly grow in circulation pipes. Like pink slime, white water mold grows in circulation piping. This contaminant resembles small floating pieces of white tissue by the time it finds its way to the pool water. Although not a surface stain, vinyl liner mold is a fungus that grows underneath a vinyl liner, which is visible as a shadow beneath its surface. Tannins, commonly associated with trees, also can find their way into pools and create staining.

Common inorganic stains and discoloration
Inorganic troublemakers include scum-line buildup, cloudy or tinted water and iron and copper stains. When suntan lotions, body oils, make-up and dirt gather at the waterline, an unsightly scum-line buildup can occur. It should be noted that organic contaminants also can contribute, though they aren’t the main culprits. If left unchecked, additional dirt and contaminants will more easily adhere to an existing scum line, creating a snowball effect.

Cloudy water is a byproduct of unbalanced water, poor circulation and poor filtration. Ironically, the response of then adding too much clarifier can worsen existing cloudiness.

Metals such as iron, copper and manganese can produce a tinting of pool water and serve as a warning of sorts that metals are present in the system. All it may take is a shock treatment to plate the metals from the water onto a pool’s surface, thus creating a metal stain. Metal stains can also potentially be introduced from well and municipal water, metallic equipment parts, pool chemicals such copper- and silver-based algaecides, certain grades of salt for chlorine generators, certain grades of chlorine, ionizers, lawn chemicals and more.

Lesser-known causes of staining

Copper cyanurate, dubbed “purple haze,” can occur when a high stabilizer level (above 100 ppm) combines with copper, creating a purple precipitant. This purple stain is bright and highly visible, often showing up on tile, spillways and pool cleaners. If left untreated, copper cyanurate eventually will adhere to all pool surfaces. Until the stabilizer level is lowered to below 70 ppm, the problem can appear to be chronic.

Another potential stain-causer: potassium permanganate. If a house’s water supply is high in iron, manganese or hydrogen sulfide, many homeowners choose an iron/hydrogen sulfide reduction filter for their water treatment system. This filter contains manganese green sand, which reduces contaminants through an oxidation/filtration process. Should green sand water mix with make-up water, it can contribute to staining. The manganese in the filter is expelled when the system recycles, and it will create a pink/purple potassium permanganate stain when it comes in contact with the pool finish.

Iron and scale are two common causes of staining in a pool, but occasionally they work together to create a more obscure form of discoloration. This hybrid stain, known as iron scale, can be particularly difficult to remove, as standard treatment doesn’t often work. The only way to alleviate this buildup of layers is to remove first the top layer of scale, then treat the iron stain that it previously covered.
Source: Jack Beane- Pool and Spa News | 4.15.2010

Years after the start-up is finished, changing water conditions can still damage and stain plaster in some surprising ways.

Gary Gripp’s story begins like so many others.

“I’d been servicing pools in this area for over 15 years when it happened,” says the service manager at Anderson Poolworks in Portland, Ore. Gripp and his team had been hired to drain, clean and refill a gunite pool, and everything seemed to have gone right. “When we left the job site, that plaster was clean as new, and the water was sparkling clear,” he says.

But the next afternoon, the customer called again, complaining that the pool’s water was grayish.

Gripp was hurrying back to the job site when he answered another call from the same customer, the water had now turned a pale shade of lavender.

“And by the next day,” he says, “the water was this beautiful deep purple — like a jewel. I wouldn’t have even guessed water could turn that color.”

The culprit, Gripp discovered, was manganese, a metal known to lend a distinctive range of tints to water: Grayish at lower concentrations, up through brighter shades of purple at higher ones. The real question was, why had manganese suddenly become such a problem for this pool?

“When we tested the fill water, we found that the manganese levels coming out of the tap were just about off the scale,” Gripp says. Luckily, he’d managed to pinpoint the problem before the manganese stained the plaster, and was able to bring the water back into balance with a sequestering agent.

Still, Gripp says he learned something crucial from the experience. “No matter how long I’ve been working on a pool,” he says, “I don’t assume anything anymore. I test the fill water on every visit, sometimes even multiple times. Your chemistry could be perfect, but until you test your makeup water you never know what it could be depositing into the system.”

As builders and service technicians around the country have confirmed, balanced water chemistry is a science — and, in its own way, an art — that reaches well beyond the start-up. Even years down the road, calcium hardness, total alkalinity, pH and other factors can shift dramatically, sometimes in a single day.

Even so, a little preparation and a lot of thoroughness can help stop these problems before they damage the plaster.

Chemical crawl

Changing water chemistry can seem to sneak up on you. Its effects, however, are often — though not always — the results of conditions that have been building up for some time.

Take metals, for example: Their level in the water can gradually rise due to a variety of factors. In dry or windy areas, evaporation removes water but leaves dissolved solids (including metals) behind, significantly raising the water’s total dissolved solids over time. If someone’s been adding a copper algaecide without testing the level regularly, the water’s copper level can rise even more quickly.

Metal deposits inside pipes can be harder to detect, and they often accumulate for years before leading to a problem. “At every pool I’ve seen that’s been around for a few years,” Gripp says, “you can cut a pipe open — even a PVC pipe — and see a deposit of some kind in there. It may be clear and slick, but something always accumulates.”

Most pool water contains some amount of dissolved metals, but these are typically harmless, and invisible to the naked eye. Nevertheless, a variety of common chemical reactions — such as the breakdown of hypochlorous acid under UV radiation and the electrolysis of saltwater in a chlorine generator — increase the water’s concentration of “free” oxygen, the form necessary for oxidation to occur.

The more free oxygen that becomes available, the more metals in the water begin to oxidize — that is, they bond with the free oxygen, which converts them into oxides. Oxidization causes the metals to precipitate out (or fall out) of solution and become visible as a tint in the water. The longer this oxidation reaction is allowed to continue, the greater the risk that the metal oxide will stain the plaster — and eventually be absorbed by its surface.

This is most common with copper, particularly in areas that experience severe storms or droughts, like the Gulf states, says Jana Auringer, owner of The Pool Lady in Coppell, Texas. Auringer travels the Southwest as a consultant, tracking down the sources of plaster stains. She says copper’s telltale pale green tint often appears in pools that experienced no staining issues prior to a bout of harsh weather, and it’s usually traceable to a chemical change in the pool’s fill water.

“[After a storm or drought], we’re finding higher levels of copper in the source water when we test it,” she says. “A lot of times, though, the metal won’t show up on water tests, because it’s already precipitated out and stained the plaster.”

Sudden shifts

Stains and other plaster issues don’t always sneak up so gradually, though. As Gripp discovered with his purple pool, water’s composition can seem to change dramatically in just a few days. Sometimes, water whose chemistry has remained stable for years will suddenly display a sharp drop in calcium hardness or total alkalinity. In those cases, servicepeople say, it’s probably not the same water at all.

Across the country, builders and service pros confirm that municipal water circulation has become more complex over the past few years. These days, the water that flows from a tap is a mixture of water from wells, rivers, reservoirs and storage tanks, and the proportion of water drawn from each source may vary from day to day.

Lance Sada became so frustrated by the seemingly random water chemistry he encountered on his route that he performed his own chemical survey. Using a series of brand-new test kits, the owner of A Clear Choice Pool and Spa Service in Sun City, Calif., tested the water up and down residential blocks in his area. “I found that from one street to another, the water’s calcium hardness might be as low as 20 ppm, or as high as 200,” he says. “Sometimes, the hardness from a single tap varied by 100 ppm from one day to the next.”

In cases like these, the most effective way to prevent problems is to test the pool’s fill water on every visit, before adding any chemicals. But in other situations, the source water itself is less of a problem than what it dredges up.

“Some customers get an accumulation of metal deposits in the bottom of their well,” Gripp says. “When you kick that well on, an abundance of iron, copper, manganese — whatever accumulated in that well source — will come flying into the pool during the initial burst of water.”

Pools that sit idle for the winter tend to display similar symptoms when the weather heats up. “If you shut a pool down for a period of time and you don’t empty the chlorinator, or run the chlorine off beforehand,” Gripp says, “that chlorine’s chewing away at the copper or iron inside the pipes.” When you turn such a system on, it may kick a cloud of metal oxides into the water, and create stains on the plaster.

Perhaps strangest of all, some stains only appear after a plaster surface has been freshly cleaned. “A degraded surface sometimes doesn’t attract stains because it’s so heavily scaled, or has some type of mineral coating on it,” Gripp explains. “And when you resurface it, you might find that your water chemistry looks fine, but all of a sudden you get a stain around the return.” Those stains are most likely metal oxides, to which the plaster’s exposed surface is suddenly vulnerable.

Even if you’re anticipating unpleasant surprises like these, they can’t always be avoided. If you start investigating as soon as you notice discoloration, though, it’s often possible to prevent a metal oxide from becoming a permanent plaster stain.

Getting proactive

Diagnosing the source of a discoloration takes a lot more than educated guesswork. Each pool’s chemical conditions are unique. Manganese, for instance, can appear as a gray, black, lavender or purple stain, depending on the chemistry of the surrounding water. A high TDS reading may point to an excessive level of contaminants, or it might mean you’re adding too much of a particular chemical — or any number of other issues. That’s why it’s crucial to pinpoint the problem’s origin, then confirm it with multiple tests, before you start any treatment.

To become a master of plaster problem-solving, you’ll need to focus on two related skills: Investigating all factors that affect the system, and confirming test results before starting to treat the issue.

The first skill, though it might seem overwhelming at first, is mostly a matter of knowing what questions to ask the customer, and listening carefully to the answers.

“You’ll need to get some background on when the owner first started seeing the discoloration,” Auringer says. “Was it after a heavy rain? After shocking the pool? After a new type of algae treatment? Try to find some change in circumstances to tie the problem to.”

It may also be helpful to find out if any equipment has been replaced, and ask to see the house’s plumbing to check if water has been running through old copper or iron piping. It’s also important to understand the history of the pool’s maintenance regimen, who’s been working on the pool, and what’s been added to the water over time. This can often lead to surprising (and useful) answers.

“It might sound like a lot,” Gripp says, “but if you take every pool on a case-by-case basis, you can find out everything you need to know in a 10-minute conversation.”

The second skill is also somewhat of a matter of instinct, but it too can be boiled down to some basic principles. Techs agree that you’re doing yourself a favor by testing on every visit, in more than one spot in the pool, and by testing source water regularly.

“Always start with a clean slate, and test the tap water first,” Gripp says. In fact, the first time he visits a site, he runs through every single test in his kit. “We also use the separate tests for manganese, iron, copper, phosphates and — if it’s applicable — salinity,” he adds.

Testing the water at several spots around the pool, then averaging the results, can help prevent inaccurate readings due to dead spots or other circulation problems. “Every time I’ve tested multiple spots in a pool,” Gripp explains, “there are significant pH, alkalinity and chlorine differences between them.”

Garrett and Gripp both recommend holding onto your results from the source water, and comparing them against your test results from around the pool for confirmation. “When you go to the doctor,” Garrett says, “he’s always going to check your blood pressure, pulse, temperature and so on, because that gives him a baseline reading to know if there’s anything else wrong with you. It’s no different for pool chemistry: You need to establish a baseline before you know what you need to adjust.”

Finally, before acting on your test results, it’s important to confirm them with other testing methods. At the very least, your test kit should be calibrated against a set of chemical standards, which are usually sold by the kit’s manufacturer. You can also ensure the accuracy of your results by confirming them against another type of test, such as an electronic meter or test strip.

“And that makes you so much more confident when you speak to the homeowner,” Gripp says, “because you can show them the results of multiple tests that all confirm each other.”

Source: Ben Thomas- Pool and Spa News | 2.11.2011

To effectively preserve the pool’s plaster life, techs must recognize common mistakes in calculating balanced water.

Source: John Miles- Pool and Spa News | 2.13.2009