Is It Hard To Ruin a Pool?
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Is it hard to ruin a swimming pool? By this what I mean is can there be a situation where a pool owner does something seemingly small or innocuous which ends up costing them majorly with unexpected pool repairs? Unfortunately the answer to this is yes. Pretty much every kind or type of swimming pool can be damaged or even destroyed beyond hope of repair by doing something that they should not have done. Hopefully the information on this page will help you to head off a potential disaster with your own swimming pool.
To unpack this question just a little bit while there are some situations where the pool can be ruined entirely there are also a host of smaller, less serious situations you might encounter where making the wrong decision for your pool might cost you a few hundred or a few thousand dollars in unplanned or emergency repairs. Whether small or large it would just be better if you can avoid damaging your pool completely so be sure to review the following information:
Pool types - Not all pools are created equally. There are three main installation styles which are inground, onground (partial burial) and above ground pools. Additionally there are vinyl liner pools, concrete pools and fiberglass pools. There may be other less common or hybrid building styles however this covers the majority of the pool installations. The kind of pool that you have, and the orientation of the pool within the ground, will determine what kind of damage your pool might be subject to. Different pool types like concrete, fiberglass and vinyl liner pools all have unique build styles and as such are subject to breaking in ways unique to that pool type.
Ruining a concrete pool - First and foremost with a concrete swimming pool you need to know that draining the pool carries risk. If done wrong, or at the wrong time, you can encounter a situation where the pool will lift from the ground. This permanently breaks a concrete pool as there will be no way to reseat it. This is the holy grail of things you want to avoid doing to your own pool. The reason why this does actually still happen is because some people have been draining their own pool for years without a problem. One day it could become a problem and hydrostatic pressure can lift the pool from the ground. Similarly a pool owner might know other pool owners who drain their own pools for various reasons and make the incorrect assumption that this is something that is safe to do. When you drain a concrete pool you need to be aware of ground water table conditions, the foreseeable future of weather, and an understanding of how to control hydrostatic pressure around a pool. In addition to the pool lifting from the ground the next most common way to buy yourself some unneeded pool repairs is to allow the water chemistry to become too far out of balance, or for too long of a period of time. The water will seek out to balance itself and can leech minerals from stainless steel or mortar surfaces. This can cause a hose of staining issues and damage to interior surfaces like plaster or tile installations. The last most likely way you can ruin a concrete pool accidentally is to not allow for expansion and contraction forces of the pool deck. You must allow for expansion joints on horizontal concrete surfaces to prevent from these surfaces pushing against the pool walls which can result in a failure called deck sheer. It is important to upkeep and maintain the expansion joints around your swimming pool coping for this reason.
Ruining a fiberglass pool - Just as with a concrete swimming pool it is possible to float a fiberglass pool up from the ground which is going to permanently break it, or at absolute minimum require a full removal and reinstallation of the pool. Unlike concrete pools a fiberglass shell is not heavy. Of course it is heavy to a person, but not in comparison to the massive weight of a concrete swimming pool shell. For this reason the risk with floating a fiberglass pool is even more serious than with a concrete pool, so much so that you should really never drain a fiberglass pool at all without first installing braces to hold the pool and something to control the ground water around the pool. Even still the chance to end up bulging, lifting, cracking or otherwise damaging your fiberglass pool is high if you start to remove water from the pool for any reason. From a chemistry perspective, just as with concrete pools, if left unbalanced for too long the water will seek to find balance by leeching minerals from the surface of your pool. This can cause staining, calcification and delamination of fiberglass surfaces, as well as damaging the interior gel coat finish.
Ruining a vinyl liner pool - Unlike the concrete and fiberglass pools a vinyl liner pool structure does not displace water in the ground in the same way. Not until the liner itself is in the pool is there hydrostatic pressure building as the floor itself, as well as the wall / floor connection point are not waterproof in design or practice. For this reason there is no concern to float a vinyl liner pool like the other two. Instead the comparable problem would result in the liner itself floating, but the rest of the pool would remain unmoved. Of course this is not good for the pool and would likely end up causing additional problems if left like this for an extended period of time, but usually you would notice the floating liner and pump water from behind the liner to reset it (if possible). In addition to ruining the liner from floating you can also damage a pool liner from adverse chlorine or pH conditions. Either one of these, such as pH too low or chlorine too high, can cause the liner material to change chemical composition and it will absorb water. In doing so it will physically increase in size, however the liner already is a perfect fit in a pool so there is nowhere for the extra liner material to go...and this is how you can end up with wrinkles (permanently) in your pool liner. Even a single event with very high chlorine or very low pH is enough to cause widespread wrinkles throughout your liner which will require a new liner installation to resolve unfortunately. You can also end up costing yourself a few dollars by not replacing your liner when the time is due. If you attempt to get a few more seasons out of your liner you may damage the coping track. The liner loses elasticity and over time will shrink, especially noticeable in the corners. This puts undue strain on the coping and can cause it to break prematurely. This is especially important for pools with deck integrated coping like bullnose as removal and replacement would require removal and replacement of the pool deck also.
Ruining a pool heater - Ruining a pool heater is something that can happen fast, and a lot easier than what most pool owners would think possible. On one hand I am sympathetic to pool owners who experience an early heater failure at 1, 3 or 5 years age especially when heaters for pools used to last 20 to 30 years commonly. It certainly feels like cheapening materials or process might take some of the blame here for early pool heater failures, but regardless you want to do what you can to prevent your heater from failing early. First, a heater bypass might be a good idea to allow you to take your heater offline when there is adverse water chemistry, or you need to superchlorinate the pool. Next, know that any time you have a high chlorine level, or a pH level which is too far from the 7.2 to 7.8 acceptable range for pools, you are likely experiencing heater damage. In a worst case scenario you have high chlorine levels plus low pH levels and something like this can damage or ruin a heater in a single event...so be sure to watch your pool chemistry closely and always protect your heater from chlorine injection systems like erosion feeders with a corrosion resistant check valve.
Ruining a pool pump - Fortunately with variable speed pumps slowly taking over the market the concern for accidentally ruining your pool pump should go down. It used to be with single speed pumps that if you ran them dry they would end up damaging themselves from the heat (and sometimes even lighting on fire). If the water level in the pool drops below the mouth of the skimmer then some pools will lose prime on the pump but the pump will have no way to know this. It will continue to run until you notice and turn it off, or it overheats. With automatic water level systems, and new variable speed pumps which can detect a no-flow situation and turn themselves off before sustaining damage, ruining your own pool pump should be less and less of a concern moving forward.
Ruining a pool filter - In this case I am referring to a cartridge pool filter as these in particular can be compromise easily. When you clean the filters you should never use a pressure washer even though it will appear to do a great job of helping you clean the filters. They will drive the debris and material deep into the filter paper and it will end up ruining the filters. Similarly if you have a cartridge filter it is very important to not acid wash the filter unless you have already degreased it and removed the oils from the paper. If not, and you apply acid to oils the oils will bake into the paper material, again permanently ruining the filter. Always degrease a filter before acid washing it if you have a scale problem on your filters you are trying to solve. If you have a sand filter then be sure to turn off your pump before changing settings on the filter head. Also be sure to only rotate the filter dial on one direction to avoid damaging the gasket inside the filter head and inducing a leak.
As a pool owner there is a lot of responsibility to know about certain problems like the ones listed on this page. I can not imaging how upsetting it must be to ruin your pool or do thousands of dollars of damage accidentally while simply attempting to care for your pool. This is why pool professionals exist, who also carry insurance for protecting against damages to pools for things like draining them. If you decide to work on your own pool then you have to be careful or you might end up costing yourself more than you are saving in the first place!
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Swimming Pool Steve is an award winning, second generation swimming pool and spa specialist from Ontario Canada. With over 10,000,000 views on the Swimming Pool Steve YouTube Channel, winner of the 2018 Pool & Spa Industry Leadership award and author of hundreds of pool and spa articles both online and in print Steve is committed to helping pool and spa owners as well as pool and spa industry workers learn more about the technical side of building, renovating, repairing and maintaining all types of swimming pools and spas. Follow Swimming Pool Steve on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
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