New Pool With Buckled Wall

by Melissa
(Illinois)

We had our above ground pool installed yesterday. We started filling it last night. We woke this morning and the walls were buckled in 2 places. By buckled, I mean there are 2 BIG dents in the side of the pool. They are about 5 feet long and 1 foot wide. There is a separation of about 4 inches between the post and the pool wall. We called the installer first thing this morning. He came over and said this is okay and when the water gets in, it will push the wall back out. Is this okay, or has our pool been compromised? We bought a higher end pool and I am worried that it has been weakened.



Hi Melissa. The wall should not be buckled, but it does happen on occasion. There is a good chance the water will push it out. As far as the sidewall goes, it should not be damaged in any way.

If the wall does not push out it is possible the bottom rail in that area is to high a will need to be lowered. A screw driver can be used to scrape some dirt out from under the high spots and the wall will pop right back into place.

There were a couple of brands of pools out there that were nearly impossible to get the side screws into the top plates. It seemed that either the wall was to high or the uprights to short.

Out solution for this was to put our knee gently into the pool wall. This would cause a slight bow in the wall and lower the cap to match the screw holes. We would then attach the top plate and move on.

Some of these bows were still present when we were finished with our install. It took the pool filling with water to push them out. In just about every case the pool looked fine when it was full. Hopefully that's what your problem is and the pool will correct itself as it fills.