Installing a 48" Liner In A 52" Pool

by Roger
(Crawford County, PA)

We have mistakenly bought a 48 inch liner, and then found out that our wall height is 52 inches. Is it possible to compact four more inches of sand, and still use the new 48 inch liner, in a 27 foot round pool, with a beaded liner?

Would the water weight against the sand cove cause it to put to much stress against the base of the pool, and blow out the base? Do you have any suggestions, or should we purchase a new liner?



Hi Roger. I would give it a try, even without adding any extra sand. Vinyl liners will easily stretch, especially when you put some hot sunshine on them.


Beaded liners tend to be on the large size anyway, I would much rather install one a little small and stretch it into place.

For a couple of years we were installing pools for a store that insisted on selling their pools with beaded liners. Since I much prefer overlap liners I was not very happy with this. The first few pools we installed all had baggy liners and I was even less happy about doing pools for them. We decided to try a 48" liner in their standard 52" pool. It fit perfectly so that is what we did for the next couple of years.

We were installing pools in Arizona where the temps can reach 115 during the summer. With that kind of heat a 48" liner would just melt into a 52" pool and fit perfectly.

So if the store will not exchange liners for you I would give it a try, you have nothing to loose and it just might be a perfect fit.