Beaded Liner Installation

The first step in a beaded liner installation would be to remove the old liner and prepare the pool for the new one.  Follow the tips on this page to make sure your pool is ready for a new liner.  If you do not have a beaded liner you may need this page for for an overlap liner installation.

Begin by placing you liner in the pool and unfolding.  The utmost care must be given to making sure the liner is perfectly centered in the pool before you start inserting the liner bead into the bead receiver.  With a round pool you just have one seam to deal with.  It is the bottom seam that goes around the base of the pool.  It should be located near the cove area.  It may fall at the base of the cove, at the top of the cove or a few inches away from the cove.  The only thing that matters is that it is in the same position all the way around.  Do not start with the seam three inches up the wall on one side and three inches from the cove on the other.  Take you time here.  Those inches out of center add up to wrinkles later on.  The wall of the liner should be folded in to the center so you can clearly see the seam.  This pulling and tugging, a little here and a little there, is also smoother the wrinkles out of the center of the liner.  When this step is done the floor of the pool should be pretty smooth and the bottom seam centered in the pool.

With oval pools you have another important factor in regards to centering you liner.  The bottom of the liner is made of several pieces.  They are bonded together creating seams.  Most of the time you will find two seams running the length of the pool.  Locate the exact center of the pool at each end.  That point needs to line up dead center between these seams at each end.  A few liners may have just one seam end to end.  If so that would fall on that center point at each end.  To make matters more difficult some liners have seams that go from side to side.  You would line those seams up in about the same way.  They all need to hit the opposite side of the pool in the same relative position.  When the floor seams are aligned you then need to align the seam around the base the same as the above paragraph.

With a perfectly aligned liner it is time to start inserting it into the bead receiver.  With a round pool start anywhere.  With an oval stat at one of those floor seams.  With the seam in the perfect location pull the liner straight up.  Start feeding the bead into the receiver and work you way back to the starting point.  With an oval pool you can make adjustments at every floor seam location.  You can bunch the bead a little or you can stretch the bead a little to keep the floor seams in alignment.  With a round pool you need to get back to the starting point to see how the liner fits.  Sometimes you will need to back up quite a way to make the need adjustments.  With excess liner you would back up and try bunching the liner as you insert it into the receiver.  If you are short of liner some stretching is required.

When all of the liner is in place it is time to recheck the bottom seam and give the base one more smoothing.  Now is a good time to have someone on the outside hook up a shop vac to the pool.  Tape some cardboard over the skimmer opening.  Insert the vac hose into the return opening and seal with tape.  Turn the vac on and watch how it starts to smooth the liner.  With the bottom fairly smooth and the liner well centered start adding water.  While the vac works to smooth the side you will need to finish smoothing the bottom.  Push all of the remaining wrinkles to the sides of the pools.  When the pool has about six inches of water in it the shop vac can be removed.  When the water is just below the skimmer and return openings these items can be installed.

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