Pool Plight – AGAIN!

When I provided an update on our backyard back in May of this year, I mentioned that there was one more improvement they we planned to make in our backyard.  And by the title of this post, it would not take a rocket scientist to figure out what the update was.  Doesn’t this photo just make you want to dive in?  Not!

What may seem more like an April Fool’s joke,  a little background is necessary to understand how we were celebrating a belated St. Patrick’s Day in April with our algae-filled green pool.

I have written numerous times about the joys we have experienced over the almost 25 years we have had this pool.  But at the same time, I have also written about the miseries we have experienced—in particular, miseries for me having been the “pool boy” over all those years.  To me, it has truly been a “love-hate” relationship.

Our latest plight started several years ago when we discovered that our barely 2-year-old pool liner had sprung a leak.  You might ask how one finds this out?  Well, once you find you are continuously having to add water to your pool, you hire a scuba diver to enter your pool with a syringe filled with colored dye who then swims along the bottom searching for the elusive leak.  Once discovered, he applies a patch.

Then three years later, Mother Nature decided to get in the act when she dealt us an ice storm that dumped the top of our neighbor’s tree into our pool.

While this tree actually did not punch a hole, it was the top of our little gem magnolia (also broken in the ice storm) that when taken down by the tree company fell into the pool and poked another hole.  Thus, we hired the diver for another dive.  He then discovered this hole.

Over the 2023 to 2024 winter, I noticed the water level once again dropping in the pool.  Water loss during the hot summer months is common due to evaporation but I knew we had not experienced any 90-degree weather days over the winter.  My wife and I talked it over and given this was our third hole in less six years, we decided rather than having to pay to patch it once again, we would just replace it. Another contributing factor was that it had faded significantly and had many wrinkles from all the times ground water had floated the liner due to Memphis rains of 1 inch or more.

To visualize the fading, this is what the pool liner looked like when it was installed in November 2017.

When we had it installed, we were actually surprised how inexpensive it was.  But as the saying goes, “you get what you pay for”, we just didn’t know we were getting a lower quality liner.  So, this time, we decided to not only get a higher quality liner, but one that was thicker to help prevent future punctures.

Now comes the tie-in to St. Patrick’s Day for less than a week after we signed the contract for the new liner, the pool pump died.

I had noticed last summer that on really hot days, the pump motor would shut off due to getting overheated, no doubt a safety feature to prevent the motor from burning itself out.  After the motor cooled off, it would come back on.  Once the days got cooler, the issue went away.

But then this spring when it wasn’t even hot yet, the motor started shutting itself off again and in March, shut off for good.

This was when our pool began to turn green since there was no water circulation.  When the pool company came out, they confirmed it needed to be replaced but then told me about a newer design pump that was variable speed.  Given that our existing single speed motor and pump was probably 30-year-old technology, we decided to spring for the extra cash and go with the new design.

It took two weeks to get the new pump installed but when I went outside to see it, I could hardly tell it was running it was so quiet.  Our old pump was so loud running at 100% speed constantly (3,450 rpm), that it diminished our pleasure sitting by the pool.  Sometimes I would just turn it off to enjoy the quiet.  I am so glad we got this pump as I had no idea how much quieter it would be.

With once again a functioning pump, I went to get a water sample tested but when I learned that it was going to take over $100 worth of shock to kill the algae in the water, water we were going to pump to waste before the new liner could be installed, I convinced my wife we should save the $100 and just live with a green pool.  It was a joyous day when the liner company called to say they were ready to install the new liner.  And an even happier day on May 1^st, when the green water began to be pumped out (that’s See-More (Seymour) our floating swan that keeps an eye on things for us year-round in the pool).

The next morning, I was delighted to see most of the green water gone.

Having pumped algae filled water for weeks, rather than spending hours cleaning the cartridge filters, I decided to replace them as well to start off our new liner with pristine filters (a better use of that saved $100).

On Saturday, we even more delighted to see the crew show up to pull out the old liner.

My wife and I had been grocery shopping when they first arrived, so this was the progress they had made by the time we returned home.

A few minutes later with the entire old liner pulled, they began the cleanup process.  The vertical sides of the pool are galvanized metal, and the pool floor is a special blended, lightweight, tan-colored concrete.  You might wonder why it looks so dirty.  Well, every time ground water from a heavy rain floats the liner, that water is quite muddy since that is where it came from—underground.  When the water goes back where it came from, it leaves the dirt behind.

Since we had a birthday party to go to, we only witnessed what a thorough job they were doing cleaning the shallow end and by the time we returned four hours later, we had a new liner installed with fresh water being added to the pool.

On Sunday afternoon, once the water had entered the shallow end, they installed the pool light and removed the two vacuums (unit on each side of pool) that had been sucking the liner up against the floor and walls to prevent wrinkles.

If you zoom in on the water in the deep end, you might notice sprinkling rain on the surface.  That was just the beginning.  Overnight, we had torrential rain that by Monday morning, you guessed it, had floated the new liner leaving numerous wrinkles (most noticeable in the photo below on the left in the shallow end).  Without a pool full of water, there wasn’t adequate counterweight to prevent the ingress of ground water.

Thankfully we were dealing with a very reputable company and that afternoon, even as rain sprinkles continued, the owner came out and was able to suction the water out from behind the liner while smoothing away the multitude of wrinkles with a pool brush.

It took nearly three days to fill our pool back up with water.

The owner came out the next day and cut in the jets and the skimmer openings.  He started up the pump and he even washed down the pool deck to remove all of the Snowbell tree droppings.  I would still need to re-establish the chemical balance in the pool but with clean water now in the pool, it could begin to warm up for our first swimmers.

Which occurred just a few days later when our in-town granddaughter decided to come over and christen our new pool, gleefully jumping in despite a brisk 76-degree water temperature!