Repair Damaged Pool Wall

by Dave
(Illinois)

Two winters ago the metal walls on my above ground pool split at the point where the ends are bolted together. It appears that corrosion may have weakened the holes punched in the metal.

Would it make more sense to replace the entire 30' diameter wall or repair the damaged section? Repairing the wall would entail drilling many holes very accurately to ensure that they would all match. Thanks


Hi Dave. I would only replace the wall if I could find a good used one. New ones are so expensive.

There is nothing wrong with doing a little wall repair. If there is enough meat left on your existing wall to simply add more holes, then that should work. You could also get a three or four foot section of wall and splice over the weak area. This would actually give you three rows of nuts and bolts. You would have the original set and then one at each end of the splice. There is no way that set up would break.

They make stainless steel skimmer panels that would be ideal for this. It's just a few feet of pool wall with nut and bolt holes predrilled at each end. One of these would be much cheaper than a whole new wall. If you did not need the openings for skimmer and return simply tape some flat metal to the inside of the wall to cover them up.