Vinyl Pool Liner Keeps Falling Out Of The Coping Track
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Do you have a problem with your pool liner pulling out of the coping track? This can happn to both new or older vinyl liners but the good news is that in most cases this is a very small problem and something that can be fixed in just a few minutes. So how do you go about fixing a liner that has pulled out of the coping track? The answer to this depends on how old the liner is. You do not need to actually know how old the liner is, just be aware that the older the liner is the harder this problem will be to resolve. Usually you can still resolve a liner pull, even in older liners, but it might take a little more effort or a few extra steps versus a newer liner.
Pool liners lose elasticity over time. Generally by 7 to 10 years of age a pool liner has almost no stretching ability left at all. This is why it is harder to fix liner pulls in an older liner versus a newer liner that has much more stretching ability left in it. In fact, the lack of stretch left in the liner might actually be the reason why you are having the liner slip out of the coping track in the first place. As the liner loses elascticity it will become stretched tighter and tighter. If the coping track is loose or stretched out then it can let go of the liner under this strain resulting in an area where the liner has pulled out from the track.
Pouring boiling water on your liner - The first (and only) trick you need to reset a liner that has fallen out of your coping track is to pour boiling water over the entire area that you are needing to fix. Immediately grab, pull and stretch the liner back into the coping track. Often this will take a fair amount of hand and arm strength to accomplish, and if you are struggling with this process yourself then likely you need to try to get stronger (or find someone with gorilla arms to help you). Boiling water will make the liner supple and easy (easier) to stretch than its normal condition. You only get a few moments before the liner cools down again before you will need to repeat the process and pour more boiling water.
Do NOT use a heat gun - It is common enough to see pool owners (and some pool technicians) to use a heat gun to heat up a liner to fix a liner pull like this. I consider this to be unacceptable and I would never recommend that someone does this. The chances of causing a burn or melting the liner is very high, and the process of warming with a heat gun is too slow and too concentrated of an area to be effective. Boiling water is more effective and easier to apply to the entire area you are working on...best of all there is zero chance that boiling water will cause any damage to the liner. So there really is no valid argument for using a heat gun to stretch a pool liner other than inexperience.
In a worst case scenario where the liner will not stretch back into place even with boiling water then the next move will be to lower the water level in the pool slightly. The area of pool liner above the water level is the only area that will stretch as you apply the boiling water. If you only have three or four inches of exposed liner above the water level in the pool then this limits the amount of liner area to stretch. Lowering the water level by another six inches or one foot, which is safet to do in most vinyl liner pools, will expose more horizontal vinyl on the walls which you can heat with boiling water. This will make the process of stretching the liner back into place easier. Old liners with minimal stretch left are the ones that will likely need this additional step in order to reset the liner into the coping track. Use of liner lock can be explored as a repair option to help a problematic liner from slipping out of the track again.
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