Winter Damage Around Skimmer

by Angela
(Ohio)

Hi, I've looked over the other entries on your site regarding this issue and the other pictures look worse than the damage to our pool. I went to the company we bought the pool from and they offered no advise or assistance. My husband thinks he can "push" the wall back out. I was hoping an expert could take a peek at my pics and provide your opinion on whether he should try that or not. We opened the pool despite the dent as we thought perhaps the water pressure would push the wall back out but that didn't happen. Thank you in advance for your assistance!

Hi Angela

I don't think the liner will give enough for you to be able to push the wall back into place. If you did it would probably pull back down like it is. It would require draining the pool to a point where the liner had some give, and then hoping it did not pull back down as you refilled.

Kinks like this have a habit of recurring as soon as a little pressure is put on them. To do it right you would need to reinforce the wall with some flat metal riveted to the inside of the wall. To do this the skimmer would need to come off. Once the wall is repaired you then need to line the skimmer holes back up. As the pool is emptied the liner will shrink possibly making this a difficult task. Once it's all back together the liner will have some stretching to do, but filled in direct sunlight, in the heat of the day, it might work.

The older the liner is the less chance you have of it stretching enough to be workable. A liner in it's first year or two should be OK.

If it's liner changing time anyway then the repairs should be easy. Drain the pool, flatten the wall and reinforce. That's much easier and a lot less expensive than replacing the whole wall.

I would cut the flat stock to go around the skimmer area allowing plenty of room for the skimmer to attach to just one layer of wall. Doubling the wall under the skimmer is asking for leaks.