How To Install An Expandable Liner

by Jeffrey
(Oklahoma)

Your site has been extremely helpful. I am installing a half deep end with expandable liner on a 24 foot round pool. Like the one in the pictures on your website.

My question is, when installing the liner initially, to put water in the deep end to allow stretching, how much of the overlap liner do I leave over the edge of the pool during this process?

Hi Jeffrey.

I think you are probably talking about this page.

Expandable Liner Installation

I hope you noticed that the photos can be clicked to enlarge. They show a lot if information for anyone attempting to do this on their own, like you are.

The photo just above the actual adding of water shows you just about where the bottom seam goes. We are still pulling the liner up, but it is almost ready to add water.

I never look at the liner hanging over the outside of the pool. That is not important to me. I want the center of the liner completely off the sand base and I want the bottom seam perfectly even near the top rail.

These photos clearly show the bottom seam and how close it gets to the top rail. Most of the time the seam is about six inches from the top rail. In some cases it may be three inches and other cases closer to eight inches. But for a Doughboy expandable liner six inches down from the rail is about right.

As you see when we start adding water the side with the deep end gets let down sooner than the shallow end. In this case the seam does not stay even, but it needs to start that way. With the seam even near the top rail, and the liner completely off the base, you know the liner is perfectly centered.

When the base is flat bottom, or if the deep area is in the center, this seam stays even all the way down. I go around the pool every thirty minutes or so and release the liner at every post. This is done evenly in most cases, except with offset deep ends. That’s where you have to leave the shallow end tight until the water is out of the hole and putting pressure on the liner.

Seams for Expandable Liners

by Karen
(SC)

I have a 16x24 older Doughboy pool and am planning on replacing the liner. I have purchased the expandable Doughboy liner for my pool. The deep end is about 6 ft on one end. I have looked at videos and read instructions but still have a question. I know the liner starts with the seam 6" from the top all the way around the pool. I think from what I have read, that the deep end is lowered first as it fills with water. The shallow end is not lowered until the deep end is filled with water to the pool floor. Please correct me if I am wrong. My questions are, from the point when there is enough water in the pool to lower the shallow end, are all sides lowered the same amount(say3") every fifteen or so minutes? If so won't the seam not be even in the bottom of the pool because of the deep end being lowered first? Will I run out of overlap on the deep end when almost filled? How do I know how much to lower in the deep end to end with the correct amount of liner left to overlap? In your picture it looked like when the deep end hole was filled to pool floor, the pool seam was about 4 or 6" lower than the rest of the pool sides.

Hi Karen Most of the time the seams end up fairly even but it is far more important to have the bottom wrinkle free. When letting the liner down keep in mind the deep end portion needs to stretch, so do not let that area down too fast. Keep it very tight and let the liner expand into the hole.