15X30 AG Oval Steel Walls Heaved

by Ben
(Winnipeg, Canada)

Hi there, I live in Canada and just took the winter cover off our pool. It appears the steel walls "heaved" several inches over the winter and popped several of the resin top seats off of the side posts.

We have a 15X30, 52-inch deep oval pool by Royal Sun. The pool has steel walls supported by buttress-free steel uprights on the sides, "floating" posts on the ends, a J-hook vinyl liner and 10-inch resin top seat.

Every spring when I opened the pool, I noticed that the steel walls on the sides had "slid" up the upright posts by 1/2-inch or so, but this last winter the movement was much more severe and it appears there is no way to "push" the walls back down while there is still water in the pool.

I'm going to drain the water, remove all the resin top seats, un-hook the liner from the walls, pull the foam cove off the walls and push the walls back down (hopefully) and then re-install the cove and liner.

My question is this:

How can I prevent the heaving from happening in the first place? It only appears to happen on the long walls of the pool that are supported by the anchored uprights and not the walls on the ends that are supported by the "floating" uprights.

It appears that as the pool freezes over in winter, the ice pushes out and up against the walls on the narrowest part of the pool causing them to "heave" upwards, sliding up along the upright posts, and then in the spring as the ice melts, the water runs back down to the bottom of the pool, holding the wall up against the upright post, not allowing it to slide back down.

Now, the bottom rail is still sitting on the ground, but the wall has lifted out of it and the liner is visible in the 2-3 inch gap under the wall on the sides. Not Good!

Any input or information is appreciated.

Thanks in advance, Ben

Hi Ben

I don't know what is causing this, maybe you can learn more as you take it apart to fix it. I am not an expert on damage caused by freezing conditions. I live and work in sunny Arizona. Most of the damage I see on this site is the wall buckling near the bottom. I'm not sure I have heard of the wall raising up out of the bottom rail.

If you reinforce the top plates on the sides to prevent the wall from raising, you might get the buckling near the bottom. Wish I had better information for you.