Do I Need To Drain My Pool To Repair A Hole

You've probably never sat past your beautiful pool, sipping a absurd beverage, wondering how to patch a puddle liner. It'south far more than likely you'll exist all set to jump in for a refreshing swim, only stop dead in your tracks when you notice the one thousand by your inground pool feels swampy. Possibly you'll glance out the back window but before your first sip of coffee in the morning, and encounter a growing waterfall has sprung from the side of your to a higher place basis puddle.

If you're reading this, you may have only discovered the demand to patch your vinyl pool liner, and that'southward never a fun discovery. You lot may even be freaking out a piffling. Accept a breath. Unless you have a very old liner, a massive tear, or a tree fell on your pool, you can probably patch information technology.

Why Should You Learn How to Patch a Pool Liner?

Depending on the size and location of a leak, you could face serious damage if it isn't addressed quickly.

Above Ground Pool Dangers

If an in a higher place ground pool springs a leak, the water volition drain until information technology reaches the level of the hole. If the leak is near the top rail, the water might only go down a couple of inches. Merely if it's nearly the bottom of the wall or the flooring of the pool, the extensive water loss could collapse the pool and turn your yard into a muddied mess.

Inground Pool Dangers

A leak in your inground pool liner can also cause a lot of damage. The water can create a pocket of liquid under your pool deck or cause soil erosion, leading to instability and deck cavern-ins. Information technology can also cause rust on steel pools, or erosion of concrete ones.

While those issues can be repaired, you can merely find them if y'all completely remove and replace your inground pool liner. The all-time course of action is to cease the leak as quickly as you can.

Tip: If you've simply found a leak and yous're trying to figure out what to do: Grab a roll of duct tape, and cutting a piece a fleck larger than the hole. Yous tin can stick information technology right under water and rub information technology onto your liner. It won't last forever, but information technology'll help go along the h2o in your pool until you can properly patch information technology.

Note: If your puddle is physical and develops cracks (which information technology will over time) that need to be patched, puddle plaster repair is a whole other task with its own tools and precautions.

The Practicalities of Pool Liner Patching

And so your pool is losing water, which means your liner has sprung a leak. Or does information technology? That information is key before you outset patching anything.

Leak or Simply Evaporation?

Most pools lose an average of about ¼ to ½ an inch of water every twenty-four hour period to evaporation. Simply if you discover you're losing an inch or more than per twenty-four hours? That sounds like a leak. Perhaps.

Confirm the Leak

Use the bucket exam to be sure your suspected pool leak isn't just evaporation.

Locate the Leak

When you're certain you've got a leak, utilize the ink method to find the exact spot you lot need to patch. Determine whether the hole is small enough to patch, so whether you demand to patch it wet or dry.

How Big is Likewise Big?

Patches are temporary. Some will concluding for years, just they're not likely to final xv years. And the bigger a tear is, the more likely the edges of the patch will get snagged, curl upwards, or pull away.

When the patch comes up on its own, y'all may be able to repair information technology. Nosotros'll refrain from examining how meta it is to repair a repair. Merely if the patch gets caught on something and pulled off, it could further rip the liner, and then you lot'll take a bigger problem than you started with.

No difficult and fast rules apply to the size of leaks that can be successfully patched. Y'all could take a ii-inch patch fall off after a day or a ten-inch patch stay in place for 5 years. The more important cistron to consider is whether your liner is worth trying to patch.

If your liner is two years sometime and in not bad shape except for an eight-inch tear on the dorsum wall, it'due south certainly worth trying a patch. The tear is large, only the vinyl is otherwise potent and in a spot that won't get much traffic.

If your liner 15 years old with a 2-inch tear adjacent to the stairs, you definitely demand to patch it to control water loss and prevent impairment. Only you also need to start shopping for a new liner.

An older liner is thinner, more decumbent to pinholes and weak spots, and more likely to spring more leaks. Patching may extend the life of your liner, merely know that this leak is likely a symptom that the liner is nearing the cease of its life.

Annotation: Areas of the liner close to the stairs, dewdrop, or any of the fittings take the weight of the pool water pulling on them. They're nether more than stress than other areas, so patches at that place may exist less likely to concord upwards long term.

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Instantly Cease Leaks

Quick fixes come in three flavors. All three can exist applied underwater or dry.

Waterproof Tape

Not specifically a vinyl pool patching product, waterproof tapes are marketed for all sorts of quick repairs. It'south like to duct tape, but clear, waterproof, and UV resistant. The record tin exist overlapped to create larger sections for patching.

It's low price, durable, and piece of cake to re-practise if necessary. It's all-time for smaller patch jobs because it tends to peel.

Skin-and-Stick Patches

Every bit piece of cake as waterproof tape, but made from real vinyl and designed for use in pools and on inflatable pool items. Some peel-and-stick patches are fifty-fifty pre-cutting in perfect, neat circles. The round shape makes them less likely to peel up effectually the edges.

Just remove the paper backing, and press it over the leak. These are also inexpensive and best used on small punctures and tears.

Vinyl Patch Kit

If you need to seal a slightly larger hole or you're hoping for a longer-term fix, you tin can grab a patch kit. Kits include large chunks of liner and special vinyl agglutinative that works underwater. Some come with blue and clear vinyl.

Patch kits for soft-sided in a higher place footing pools besides include a piece of special laminated polyvinyl chloride (PVC) material, so y'all can properly patch the outside of the puddle walls.

Moisture or Dry Patch?

If the puddle's water level has dropped to the level of a wall leak, it's okay to patch it dry. You don't need to drain your pool to apply a patch to whatsoever leak, though.

How to Patch a Pool Liner Underwater

Letting all the water out can cause above footing puddle walls to collapse. Elimination any pool with a vinyl liner dries it out and exposes information technology to damaging ultraviolet (UV) rays, which can brand the liner brittle. And draining an inground puddle can cause it to literally popular out of the ground if yous're not careful. It'south best to patch the liner underwater, unless the leak exposed it.

Important: Never drain an inground puddle unless information technology'south absolutely necessary—not even earlier a hurricane—because it tin can further weaken your liner and even cause structural damage. If it's necessary, and you're non sure how to drain a pool, learn the process before you start, or hire a professional to do it for you lot.

Yous'll need:

Pair of scissors
Non-annoying scouring pad
Weight (pool cleaner head or brick wrapped in plastic wrap)
Pond goggles (if needed)
Vinyl patch kit or vinyl adhesive
Dauber applicator or craft stick (to spread agglutinative)
Patching vinyl

1. Clean the Area

Any debris, algae, sunscreen or other stuff stuck to your pool walls makes information technology harder for a patch or adhesive to adhere. Use a non-abrasive scouring pad to gently clean the vinyl around the pigsty. Do not scrub. You don't want to make the hole whatever bigger.

2. Trim the Patch

If you're not using peel-and-stick patches, cut the patching vinyl into a circumvolve. Exist sure information technology's at to the lowest degree two inches larger in diameter than the hole. For example, if the rip is 3 inches long, the patch must be v inches in diameter.

3. Use Adhesive

For peel-and-stick patches, remove the paper backing to betrayal the adhesive side. For all other patches, be certain information technology'due south free of debris, then use the dauber to use a generous amount of adhesive. Brand sure it reaches all the edges.

4. Taco 'Bout It

Fold the patch in half similar a taco, with the sticky side out, then submerge it.

5. Stick It

Holding the patch over the hole, slowly and gently open the patch taco while smoothing it onto the puddle liner. Press out any air bubbles, then hold the patch in place for two minutes. The adhesive needs to cure to reach its total forcefulness, so resist the urge to tug on the patch to check it.

vi. Apply Weight

Some patch products recommend putting weight on your patch for 24 hours while the adhesive cures. It's next to incommunicable to apply weight to your puddle wall. Merely if your patch is in a spot where information technology'southward possible to practice so, rest your puddle cleaner head or a clean brick covered in plastic wrap on height of the patch.

7. Double Patch Information technology

Placing a 2d patch over the showtime won't make your gear up whatever stronger, but if it makes you lot feel more at ease, there's no reason you can't double upwardly. If you practice, be sure to let the first patch cure completely before applying the second. Cut the 2d patch at least two inches larger in diameter than the first patch (making information technology four inches larger than the pigsty), so it tin can adhere to the pool liner and the first patch.

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04/15/2022 03:39 pm GMT

Easy Soft-Sided Vinyl Pool Patching

Intex-manner pools are made from slightly dissimilar material than vinyl pool liners, just they can as well be patched, even on the outside. You don't need to empty them, either.

Patch kits for this type of pool usually include clear vinyl, blue vinyl, and outside patch textile (laminated PVC). The clear is for tiptop band repairs, the blue is for interior repairs, and the laminated PVC is for outer wall repairs. The adhesive works for all three. If y'all're concerned about risks associated with PVC exposure, look for patch kits with bisphenol A (BPA)-free patching vinyl.

Y'all tin can too discover peel-and-stick patches for this type of puddle, which may exist easier to employ.

Patching soft-sided pools follows the same process as with whatsoever vinyl liner, except when patching the top ring. Fully inflate the band, mark the hole, and employ adhesive around it. Then apply adhesive to the clear patch and apply information technology. Printing on it for a few seconds, and then slightly deflate the ring so the agglutinative tin cure without pressure. Afterwards 12 hours, you can reinflate the band.

When Patches Aren't Enough

The route to a brand-new pool liner is paved with expert intentions and waterproof tape. Eventually, no thing how good yous are with a dauber and adhesive, your liner will give up the ghost. Knowing how to patch a pool liner tin buy you fourth dimension to notice a replacement liner without letting leaks destroy your pool or property.

Once your liner has a patch or two, be sure to go on an eye them. If they start to pull upward, piece of work a piffling adhesive under the edges and smooth them back down. You can besides double patch by smoothing a larger patch over ane that'southward starting to give out. Just think, pool patches won't concluding forever. But if applied correctly, you may well keep enjoying your pool liner for years to come.

Happy Pond!

Matt Giovanisci is the founder of Swim University® and has been in the pool and spa manufacture since 1995. Since then, his mission is to make pool and hot tub care easy for everyone. And each year, he continues to assist more than people with water chemistry, cleaning, and troubleshooting.

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