How to Install a Swimming Pool Liner

This article will explain how to install an overlap pool liner in a round free standing swimming pool.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A Ladder
• Heavy Black Plastic
• Masonry Sand
• 3 Dozen Cloths pins
• 3 People
• Pool Cove
• Screwdriver
• Level
• A Garden Hose
• Pool Floor Foam

1. Drain all water from your existing pool. Remove all top ledges and top caps from the pool wall. Save all hardware, replace any rusted or missing plates, screws or cage nuts. Remove your skimmer, return inlet fitting and any other attachments such as ladders, steps, alarms or lighting. Remove the inverted V-shaped coping strips that are on top of the pool wall holding the liner in place. Remove old liner.

2. Your pool should already be on level ground. Make sure that the site is still rock free and has no sharp protrusions of any type sticking up that could puncture the new liner. Place a circular piece of heavy black plastic down as a weed barrier followed by enough masonry sand to make a 4 inch high level mound all over the inside of the pool space.
   Either slope the sand up around the entire inside edge to a height of about 6 inches, or buy enough pool cove for your size pool. The cove is Styrofoam, triangular in shape and attaches to the bottom inside rail of your pool. It gives a uniform edge that won't slide as it would if it is only a sand slope. Sand slopes can give way and wash out.
   Use your level to make sure that the entire space inside is level.

3. Use a garden hose to moisten the sand and then tamp it down, compact it. Check your level and make any adjustments right now or never.
   Some people will put down a layer of pool floor foam. It is a thin 3'wide roll of plastic that can be cut and placed. Its purpose is to soften the floor of the pool after the liner is installed. It also hides any footprints that you and the other two workers inside of the pool may put down. No shoes in the pool, rather just wear white socks to avoid slipping once the water starts into the pool.

4. Wait for a cloudy day and carefully open your pool liner. You already made sure that the box has the correct diameter. A heavy enough gauge like 25 or 28 gauge is what you should order so that it is can stand up to years of wear. If your pool is a 48 inch high or 52 inch high check the height of the liner on the box to make sure it is correct. Some liners that are solid blue for example come 48 inch/52 inch so they will accommodate both sizes. A patterned liner may only come either or.
   Don't slice the liner box open. Its important to treat the liner with care so you do not put any cuts or punctures in it as you are installing it.

5. A cloudy day is great for liner installation because the sun will shrink the vinyl that it is made of. You would think that just the opposite would happen, but it doesn't.
   Two of you should open the liner and unfold it completely, trying to center it as you go.
   Push all wrinkles towards the edges and once you have it situated and flat with as few wrinkles as possible, drape it over the top of the wall all around and secure it with cloths pins temporarily. The outside person should be alert and keep circling the pool and making the necessary cloths pin readjustments.
   That outside person will be able to see how much overhang there is around the perimeter. Make it all even and then get ready to slowly start adding the water with a garden hose.
   If the sun comes out while your doing it sprinkle the entire liner down during the course of the filling.

6. Now is the time to get all of the wrinkles out. Keep working them to the sides and then readjust the overhang over the top wall of the pool.
   If you don't get the wrinkles out before you get several inches of water in the pool, or they'll never come out!

7. Keep adding water slowly and once you are convinced that all of the wrinkles have been dealt with, the two inside pool installers can come out. Continue filling the pool noting the stress on the pool wall all around. Don't let the wall buckle because the liner is pinned down to tightly in one particular section. Treat this exercise as a fluid thing if you'll excuse the pun, that has to be constantly monitored and corrected as you go. Fill the pool almost all of the way up to the skimmer and inlet port openings.

8. Once you are convinced that your liner is seated correctly and in its final permanent position, it is time to cut the whole in the vinyl for the skimmer and the inlet fitting. This should be done from inside the pool. A sharp knife can cut an X for both locations and both fixtures can be reinstalled taking care not to cut too much liner. Once in place the inner excess liner inside of the faceplate and the inlet fitting can be trimmed off.

9. Continue filling the pool until half way up the skimmer and stop. Replace all cloths pins with the coping strips followed by the top rails and caps. Put you ladder back and either fold or tuck the excess liner up under the top rail of the pool. Some people decide that they simply want to cut the excess off, but please leave enough liner for some future emergency.

Tips & Warnings

• When you set your A-frame ladder in the pool to give you temporary access, make sure someone is holding it for stability.
• In a fresh installation, make sure that there are no rocks or sharp sticks that have worked their way to the surface that could impact your installation.
• Floor foam and pool cove may cost you more money initially, but the comfort of a cushioned pool bottom and the perfect slope around the bottom are well worth the investment.
• Use only masonry sand, other types may contain stones or large pebbles that will become quite evident and annoying as time goes on.
• Make sure that a patterned liner is level all around the inside or it will look terrible.
• Never set your pool on fill dirt. Always cut away earth to achieve level, never add any to achieve it. The weight of the water will compact the soil and create an unbalanced appearance such as a shallow end and a deep end instead of a uniform height.
• Unbalanced water can put undo amounts of pressure on certain parts of the pool wall and may eventually effect the integrity of the entire structure.
• Never let a new vinyl liner sit overnight in a pool without water in it. Shrinkage can be imperceptible, but very real. It may not appear to have shrunk, but when that water pushes into every corner at fill time, the only excess liner it has to pull from is over the top wall.
• Never cut out the openings for the skimmer and return inlet fitting until the pool is almost filled.