Caring For Your Vinyl Pool Liner

The most important factor that determines the life of your pool liner is water chemistry. Maintaining proper balance of ph allows the other chemicals to perform properly, while allowing chlorine to kill bacteria & algae. Winterizing is also important to prevent damage to your pool liner. View winterizing chemicals here.
A test kit is needed to test for proper ph and chlorine levels. See Table below.

Proper ph levels are important not only for allowing other chemicals to perform properly, but also important for your liner. Having pool water with high ph (basic) accelerates the aging process of your liner and in turn will not last it’s expected life span of 12-18 years in Winnipeg. Low ph (acidic) under 7.0 can cause your liner to swell and create unwanted wrinkles.

Chlorine Levels: Normal chlorine levels range from 1-3ppm (parts per million) for a conventional chlorine pool while levels as low as .5ppm are achievable when using a UV sanitation system. Too low chlorine levels do not kill bacteria, while high concentrations of chlorine in your pool water will “bleach” your pool liner and shorted its life.

How To Use Chlorine: When using granular chlorine, add chlorine only once it is dissolved. Granular chlorine can be dissolved by mixing it in a warm pail of water. This dissolved mixture can then be added to your pool water by pouring it in around your pool perimeter and will get mixed in by your pool jets. Note*never mix chemicals together in a bucket. Mixing certain chemical together can cause toxic gases or reactions to occour.

Liner Care: Keeping the area of vinyl above the water level clean will not allow contaminants such as body oils, suntan oils, and airborne contaminants from “baking” on your liner. This is very important with the side of your pool that has the most sun exposure. These baked on contaminants cause your liner to crack and dry out causing premature failure. You can easily clean off the bathtub ring from around your pool by using a sponge and approved vinyl pool liner cleaner such as TLC cleaner. Do not use CLR, petroleum, household cleaning products, or abrasive cleaners. Use only brushes that are approved for use on your vinyl liner.

Suns effect on your liner: All pool liners installed by us are coated for protection against the fading effects of the sun, chemical absorption, algae, and mold. Keeping your pool full of water at all times is important in keeping it from drying out or shrinking. When your pool is winterized this is an exception to lower the water level of course. If your pool is pumped down to the level of the shallow end floor and left, the liner will shrink and eventually rip around the staircase, jets, and skimmer.

Pool Start up After Liner Replacement: When adding all fresh water to your pool such as when you liner is replaced you will need to add:

• Stabilizer condition – Prevents the chlorine from disappearing from the water with sun exposure (not needed on indoor pools)
• Muriatic acid or hardness treatment. You will need muriatic acid if you are adding hard well water or hardness treatment if you are all city water.
• Stain control – Prevents any stains from sticking to your liner
• Algaecide – Prevents aglae
• Chlorine – Some liquid chlorine to get levels up initially then maintain with pucks
• Test ph to make sure within range as listed below
• Always dilute chemicals before adding them to your pool. Also always add the chemical to the diluting water not the other way around!