Doughboy Pool with Winter Damage

(New Hampshire)

You can see from the pictures, on one half of my pool, the walls have buckled at the bottom and dropped the walls 1-2 inches from the top rails.

The pool store said it was likely from frost underneath, but also said I would have to replace the entire pool. Really?? From other posts it looks like I can drain, maybe pound out the wall and probably replace the liner.

Do you agree? Most importantly, what can I do to help prevent this from happening again. (The side of the pool under the deck was fine...) The pool is 5 years old. Thanks!!

Hi

That's my favorite model from Doughboy, one of the best pools ever made. It is sad to see it looking like that. To get a good repair job done on the wall the whole pool would need to come down. The wall could be laid out on concrete and hammered flat.

Doughboy has had problems before with the seams in that particular pattern of the 25 mil liner. It is possible the ground froze and the bottom rails rose up causing the lower damage. It is also possible that the liner leaked causing the ice to pull the wall down. The gap at the top is a good indicator that is what happened. Normal ground freezes push the wall up, leaving a kink near the bottom edge, but it does not pull the wall down.

Since I don't know how you winterize it's hard to give you tips about that, but watching the water level, and keeping it the same, is important.

When your repairs are done I would definitely start over again with a new liner. Chances are slim that the one you currently have would be re-usable.