Kangaroos, Cows & Vinyl Liners: Modern Liner Tech with Jamie from Aquatec

On this Mondays Down Under episode of the Talking Pools Podcast, Shane in Auckland and Lee on the chilly NSW coast are joined by Jamie from Aquatec, a family business that’s been making swimming pool liners since the late 1970s. They dive into how vinyl liners have evolved from “one blue fits all” to highly engineered, custom-fit solutions for everything from tired old concrete pools to wild freeform designs with benches, bar stools, and beach entries.

Jamie shares the story of taking over the business from his father and sister, partnering with an Australian manufacturer to bring in cutting-edge 3D measuring technology, and how a smart pivot into refurbishments kept them thriving when new builds slowed down. The trio also tackle a listener question from Debbie in Florida about liquid chlorine and vinyl, unpack myths around chlorine damage, talk calcium hardness in liner pools, and swap some unforgettable insurance stories—kangaroos, cows, and pole-vaulting kids included.

If you’ve ever hesitated to recommend vinyl, or wondered how long a liner really lasts when it’s properly maintained and balanced, this episode is your masterclass.

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Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00)
Hello everybody and welcome to another edition of the Talking Pools podcast. Monday's down under. You're joined by me, in Auckland and Lee over in, where are you today,

Speaker 2 (00:14)
am at home, Shane. So I'm in southern New South Wales on the coast, home, but it is third day of winter. We're recording this on the third of December. ⁓ third day of summer, I should say. It feels like winter. I'm confused because it feels like winter. It is cold and I've still got my Ugg boots on and I've got a puffer jacket beside my desk. So hopefully the sun came out today, which is a good start.

Speaker 1 (00:27)
Bye!

Speaker 2 (00:40)
Hopefully it's going to be warming up. I know the northern states are warm and I also know Western Australia of having a heat wave. obviously just cold where I am. Go figure.

Speaker 1 (00:53)
We have a very special guest with us today, Jamie from Aquatech. Also from Auckland, New Zealand, against one at the moment here, Lee, unlike the Alts today. Well, it's... Yeah, yeah, true, true. G'day, Jamie, how you doing? Yeah, hi, Shane. Hi, Lee, very well, thanks, mate. Good, good, good.

Speaker 2 (01:04)
I've always been the other way around, so now it's...

Speaker 1 (01:15)
I'm sure a lot of people that listen to the show in New Zealand are very well aware of who you are. You are probably one of the most likable reps or business owners, definitely in Auckland, if not throughout the country. And I'm just trying to get those extra discounts here, Lee, is it right?

I was going to say, I appreciate it, not sure I deserve all of those compliments, but I'll take them. No, no, you are, are. No, no, they're real good genuine guys. So ⁓ yeah, for the listeners that aren't aware who you are and what your company is and does, yeah, by all means, take it away. Awesome. Yeah, thanks mate. Thanks for the introduction. yeah, Equitech Industries, what do we do? We make swimming pool liners, tank liners.

commercial liners, but our core business, yeah, is making swimming pool liners. We've recently transitioned into manufacturing pool covers as well, by partnering up with Avgal in Australia, which some of you may have heard of already. But yeah, before all of this happened, Aquatec's been around for, since the late 1970s, actually, and my father started

the business and as the business grew, he brought on my sister Kim and dad and Kim ran the business together for 30 years. then just four years ago, 2021, my wife and I decided that, well, I should say that we all got together as a family and discussed.

purchasing the business of my sister and father John. So I was actually in a completely different industry at the time, but as a young kid growing up, I'd been involved in the business from time to time. So had a bit of an idea of how things went. And yeah, just the opportunity came up and was too good to let it pass. It was...

something I was already passionate about because thinking of getting a pool at the time too actually. was just, yeah, all good timing. Apart from that we were just coming into our first lockdown. yeah, it was a bit scary. There was ⁓ a lot of risk, but you know, as they say, you've got to try these things. You only live once, right?

So yeah, we took the opportunity and since then, as I said, four years ago, we've never looked back. It's been an exciting journey and the different people that we've met, customers that we've been fortunate enough to work with and develop really good working relationships with, like yourself, Shane. Yeah, it's been amazing, absolutely amazing. And then, you know, the

end of it all, we're creating these wonderful swimming pools for people and bringing their dream, backyard dreams to reality. And not just with new pools and pool liners, with refurbishing old pools as well. So pretty exciting stuff. And so, yeah, just coming up to Christmas.

things are really busy. We're making a lot of liners, is great. A lot of inquiries coming through and it's quite interesting. know, we've been around, the company's been around for that long, but it's really cool how there's still a lot of people out there that don't realize that we have this liner, this solution available to fix up there.

their old pool. So that was a big focus for me when I took over the, when I bought the business at the end of 21 was as new builds and things like that started to drop off and decline. As I said, it was a bit scary. So we had to look at, you know, what else we could do. And

having a big push on the refibs and refurnishments and putting liners and old concrete pools, fiberglass pools, things like that where people never knew that that was an option. And that's really what kind of kept us going and where we are today really. Fortunately things have...

turned around a bit, we're doing a few new builds now too. So we've been quite lucky.

Speaker 2 (10:51)
people used to think of line-aligned pools as being your traditional round or oval pools, maybe keyhole or kidney shape, maybe, but

Speaker 1 (11:03)
This is really...

Speaker 2 (11:04)
There's some really modern shapes that are out there now. And it's amazing what technology has brought to the vinyl liners pool, vinyl line part of the industry. The fact that it really can be made to go in any shape. And like you say, all these old pools out there, maybe there's a bit of movement in the concrete cracks, that sort of thing, getting it completely resurfaced might be.

something that's outside of their budget, but you've got an alternative option for them, which a lot of people might not even realise is an option these days.

Speaker 1 (11:41)
Absolutely. The liner is flexible so it puts a cover literally over the cracks. It flexes and moves and by repainting by... The cracks are a bit like rust actually. They never sleep so you can fill them

as best as you can, which might fix it for some years, but it's no telling how long until those come back. They will just keep creeping back, as I said, a like the rust. So that's where the liner really comes into play and set apart from anything else that's available out there really. Unless you were going to rebuild the pool,

was that bad. So what the guys can do is just plaster up of the floor or walls are that badly deteriorated and there's remedial work that needs to be done on a concrete pole. They can just plaster over it and smooth that back and put one of our liners in, job done.

Speaker 2 (12:48)
And there's some beautiful patterns in them now. Like I've said many times on this show, I have a vinyl lined pool. We built our pool and we put a vinyl line in it. It's a very modern shape. We have a beach area, a lot, let's say a shallow large step that I can lay on. I've planned my pool very meticulously for my comfort and use.

And also little kids. a grandmother now, so it will come in handy for that. But yeah, they're not the old fashioned, traditional one color blue that used to be around for years. So they really have come a long way. sometimes there's a bit of hesitation, I think, from those that aren't familiar with it as a product. We put in vinyl liners for years. So it's something I was really comfortable with.

and the maintenance of them is something I'm very comfortable with as well. So I think the more you know about something like anything in this industry, the more you know about it, the more likely you are to sell it or work with it, be comfortable with it. So it's all about education and knowing your products.

Speaker 1 (13:58)
100%. Yeah, it's ⁓ funny you mentioned Lee that there used to be only a few blues and a small variety of shapes around the ovals. And that was something that my father said when I did my first stock take at Aquatec. And I couldn't believe how many different colors and patterns that we needed to order.

and the cost. And we had a bit of a chuckle because he said, yeah, well, you know, back in the day, there was only one color. It was blue. And only a set range of shapes. And yeah, they're either oval, round, and you know, there was some different types of rectangles out there. and they had a plan for them all. So real easy to make, real easy to manage. Stock.

Yeah, didn't have to, you know, hold a bulk, a range of stock of all these different colors and patterns that are available. But it's great. You know, it's wonderful to have that now and have the ability to, you know, be able to offer pretty much any color that somebody's looking for. And some of the patterns that Abigail are bringing out now are really cool. And there's always something new coming out. So something new and innovative. yeah.

It's really good that they're, yeah, it's good to see that they're keeping up with the technology side. We had a conversation last week, Jamie, in regards to the technology and, know, the way you were explaining it was like, wow, you know, these guys are, you know, they're really, really ahead of the game, which is really good. So obviously the pool industry is still moving forward with that technology side as well.

As well as everybody else and you know every other industry others, so that's really good to see and hear. Absolutely. The equipment, the robot pool cleaners. mean, you just need to go along to the splash show and you get to see all of the latest tech and latest stuff coming out. So and what some of these guys are doing. It's pretty amazing stuff, right? So yeah, it's the same with the liners.

And it's not just the colors and patterns, but as you said, showing the technology that's available now to measure the pools, which can be one of, I guess, the initial put-offs is, you know, how do we actually measure up for a liner to fit, you know, one of these pools? And there's just so many pools out there now, so many different shapes, so many different sizes.

not just your round oval rectangle. We've got all of these different types of freeform balls. You know, there's kidney shape, but yeah. So I would say one of the most interesting ones I've seen, not personally, but just from a picture and it is a vinyl line. An ex podcast host, Dan Lenz. has it on, I'm assuming he still has it, but a Mickey Mouse.

head shaped one on iron pole. Big shout out to you Dan. And the picture of it looked amazing, know, just very, very unusual, but yeah, really, really quirky and looked cool.

Speaker 2 (17:07)
Dan loves Disneyland, just so that you get why he has a Mickey Mouse shaped pool. But yeah, I have actually seen a vinyl lined pool that actually had like bar stools in it.

Speaker 1 (17:20)
I was just going to say, yeah, I mean, with that 3D technology that we use, that Abigail has developed, we're lining over bar stools, benches, it's shaped steps. Yeah, it's incredible. Absolutely incredible.

Speaker 2 (17:40)
Yeah, makes me feel old and archaic given that I still know how to do triangulated measurements, tried and trusted. Is it tried and trusted? Well, yeah, anyway, whatever it is, I know I can rely on my measurements. We were talking earlier about this and I typed up pages of measurements, triangulated measurements. So for those who have never measured a freeform vinyl line pool,

you actually do, you plot distances around the pool and you measure from double a triangulated measurements around the pool at each of these plotted points. So we typically worked off about 500 millimeters apart. So we would end up with quite a few, a lot, maybe a hundred or 200 odd measurements. And you can actually see when you get it wrong.

So you can see the gradient, whether the measurements are increasing or decreasing as you get around the pool. And it's actually easy to see where you've gone wrong. And I take great comfort in that. You want something to fit like a glove. So for me, when I saw this new technology come out with our girl a couple of years ago now, I was really quite impressed by it, but also quite anxious by it because I thought,

I know I can trust my measurements, but can I trust this? So yeah, kudos to you for doing it and implementing it. And I can see that it works well. I can see from the photos that Abigail post in their adverts, going around barstools would be something I don't think I'd ever personally attempt, but kudos to you guys for pulling it off.

Speaker 1 (19:20)
Thanks, Lee. Thanks. Yeah, I've actually got one of those old job sheets right here, quite a number of them that I'm still going through if you'd like to have a help me. Have a look at some of these numbers. But it is very rewarding and as much as I like the 3D measure and we do a pretty good

variety of the both actually, the traditional 2D measure which you mentioned you've used in the past and also the 3D. And it is really rewarding when we do a 2D liner and someone's gone out and measured it with the old measuring tape every five, six hundred millimeters and you wind up with this, know, liner plan piece of paper with, you know, 200 different

numbers on there that you've got to work with. We give to our guys out in the factory and they replicate that and basically map that out on the factory floor with the med blue tape, by eyesight, just getting together as a team and creating this thing.

Speaker 2 (20:28)
I

have actually been in the factory when they were actually doing a triangulated measurement on the floor and I couldn't believe that that was actually they were replicating exactly what I had measured out on site which was really quite cool process to see. And easy for them to see then when a measurement was wrong too because I did actually get a couple of those phone calls over the years.

We've done hordes of them, but I've got a couple of phone calls saying, hey, can you just check this measurement for me? There's something not quite right there. And yeah, so it was, it was nice to know that comfort, nothing more rewarding. Like you say, Jamie, going on site, unrolling that roller, that, that liner, and there are a few thousand dollars. Like if you talk.

Speaker 1 (21:22)
You

Speaker 2 (21:23)
That's the thing you're so anxious about this liner you're unraveling and will it fit and it needs to fit like a glove and I'm pleased to say hand on heart of all the liners we did all of them fitted so I think we have some really good teachers. was good but that's what gave me confidence in selling that as a product so when you when you know you can do it and you understand the product

Speaker 1 (21:40)
Sorry.

Speaker 2 (21:51)
It makes it so much easier to work with and understand. So, I think, Shane, that was where this podcast today came from or stemmed from was from one of our listeners in Florida. So.

Speaker 1 (22:06)
Yeah, yeah, one Debbie swearing gin. Hopefully I pronounced that correct, Apologies if I haven't. But yeah, Debbie was she was asking in regards to vinyl line pools. just find it from what she has been told, not saying this information is accurate. You shouldn't add liquid chlorine to vinyl line pools.

as it can break down the plasticizers. I heard this from a vinyl rep and was told to use Dichlor, but the cyanuric level builds up quickly. I'm trying to find the right system to avoid algae and sanitize the pool. Yeah. What would you say to that, Jamie? Yeah, liquid chlorines are a good option for a liner pool. The trick is to just evenly distribute it around

pole surround or perimeter with the system running.

Speaker 2 (22:59)
and not to over-chlorinate.

Speaker 1 (23:01)
And yes, not to over chlorinate obviously with any chlorine, but yes, with specifically the liquid, how do you apply it? Yeah, as I said, you're best just to evenly distribute it around the pool. If you're using the chlorine granules, then

I personally, I like to dilute it in a bucket of water first before I tip that into the pool, again with the system running. And this goes for any pool actually. Or a small capful of the granules into the skimmer is also what a lot of people do as well. But yeah, personally, I like to dilute it. But yeah, I mean,

Speaker 2 (23:46)
I completely agree whenever instructing people to add chlorine to the pool. Obviously if it's concrete, something that's a hard surface, fully tiled, they're going to be more resistant to damage from granules landing on the surface. mixing it up in a bucket of water, pouring that liquid around the pool,

and giving it a couple of passes. So put a bit more water in there, mix it a bit more and dilute it off. Because with a vinyl line pool in particular, if I'm then adding that to the skimmer basket and that's going through to the pump, you've taken a lot of the sting out of the chlorine. So you're not putting a high concentration of chlorine through the pump basket, through the equipment.

So you're taking a bit of the punch out of it. You're putting it where you want it, which is in the pool and in the water, but you're over doing it, going through the equipment. You've watered it down, taken a bit of the hit out of it. So, which is good for the equipment, which is the objective.

Speaker 1 (24:48)
Absolutely. Yeah, I agree, Lee. And another thing, a step that would help is just to keep the cover off too. If it's a, if you've got a solar bubble cover, a thermal blanket, or even a spa pool with ⁓ you know, a on there, it's good just to, to maybe keep that off for even a few minutes. But I like to leave it off for half an hour now and just let that pool breathe.

Speaker 2 (25:15)
Completely. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:18)
So we're keeping that chlorine within range. Basically, it shouldn't really matter what chlorine you're using in a vinyl-lined pool as long as it is in range. So I think this goes back to as well, Lee, you mentioned a while ago, not just on vinyl-lined pools, but any pool that you're dealing with. Depending on what your readings are, we'll decide for what type of chlorine product you would use.

If have a pool which has a high cyanuric level, you're not going to use stabilized chlorine. So you would use liquid chlorine and that's intercalcium hydrochlorite. Personally, I've never had any issues using liquid chlorine myself with vinyl line pools. And yeah, just following that routine, depending on what your chemistry is at that given time. Personally, I don't think it's an issue, you know, mixing, not mixing the chlorines together, but

each visit decide in which chlorine to use at that specific range.

Speaker 2 (26:13)
Well, I think the thing is here it's once chlorine is added to the pool, regardless of the form that it is, it's chlorine in the water. It's all making the same chemistry is just with different additives. So like stabilizer or calcium. But the thing is here and where I think Debbie's concern comes from is it seems to be, and I could be talking out of turn here. So those in the U S will probably be.

screaming at the podcasts while they're listening to it. But my understanding is a lot of the pool techs over there service the pools weekly. And when they go there weekly, they're giving it a mass dose of chlorine to actually sustain it through the week. Because a lot of these pools are hand-fed chlorine pools. So they're not saltwater pools. They don't have automatic feeds and doses on it. Whereas in Australia and in New Zealand, it's quite different.

We've typically only adding hand dosing chlorine when we're actually treating a low chlorine level, a green pool, something like that. So in the U S I think they're adding a large amount of chlorine to get them or sustain that pool through the Therein lies a problem, but it's a different problem. It's not so much the type of chlorine they're using. It's the level of chlorine that they're adding to the pool that is damaging.

Speaker 1 (27:27)
and

Speaker 2 (27:38)
liner or deteriorating the color at the very least. and shortening the, potentially shortening the life of the vinyl if done on a very regular basis as it's being done from what I understand. So

Speaker 1 (27:52)
Yeah, we do see that from time to time over here as well. ⁓ And it's just about the right education. With the line of pull, we recommend between one and three parts per million of chlorine. And we really don't like to see that go any higher than three parts per million, not to say that it's not going to handle it.

know, shock dosing it and reaching up to 10 ppm, that could do some longer term damage.

Speaker 2 (28:18)
especially when it's done weekly.

Speaker 1 (28:20)
Yeah, and there's other factors involved, you know, is the cover on and off, things like that. Does the pool have good circulation? That's also a really important factor that people can sometimes forget about is it's not just about keeping your your chlorine levels high to keep the pool sanitized, but the

The movement of water is also extremely important. By increasing the flow or vortex around the pool, you can reduce the amount of chlorine that you're using.

Speaker 2 (28:59)
That's also where I think a lot of the older style fiberglass, sorry not fiberglass, vinyl lined pools where they've only got the one skimmer box and the one return line and sometimes they were even skimmer box with return line directly underneath with some of the old models. So the circulation was really poor or maybe it was just one return line up the very far end.

So you're going to have a lot of dead spots. You're going to have a lot of poor circulation, poor water movement. And so therein lies another thing that you really need to make sure that you're doing on a regular basis. And that's brooming the surface of the pool, brooming the walls and the floor. It helps with the circulation and the movement, obviously getting rid of biofilms, algae growth, even though we can't see it, it's there.

then really aiding that circulation. And that's where I think robotic pool cleaners have really come into play because we can't change the plumbing of an old pool. It's plumbed in 40 mil, it's got one return, it's got one suction point or skimmer box, I should say. And therefore we're gonna have poor circulation. So using something like a robotic pool cleaner can really make a huge difference in those types of pools.

Speaker 1 (30:12)
Absolutely, yes. A lot of that build up that you're referring to, Lee, we see it on the waterline a lot. And just by cleaning that off periodically, it's going to also help preserve the life of the liner, mainly the pattern, actually. Because what that waterline scum is, is a combination of all these different types of body fats,

bacteria build up. And then there's another chemical reaction that starts to happen if you leave it there. So it is good practice just to go around as you say brush the wool from time to time just just to clean that water line scum off and that's going to help preserve the colour on the liner.

on any pole, whether it's a fibreglass or concrete pole that's been painted or the gel coat on the fibreglass pole or the liner, the pattern on the liner. So yes, I agree that the pole cleaners, they've been another big game changer in the industry because they're able to come up the wall. And let's be fair, we're not the greatest at ⁓

going out there and scrubbing the walls on our own.

Speaker 2 (31:27)
No, but word of warning to those people out there who do have a vinyl liner like me and have a robotic pool cleaner like me, you are best to pick one that has soft brushes on it. So wonder brushes, foam brushes, those sort of things. The PVC brushes against a PVC liner, you will get friction and you'll lose some of the pattern on your liner. So that's not a manufacturer's fault. That's not a product fault. That is

two frictions against each other, so be warned.

Speaker 1 (31:58)
Yeah, definitely there's that wear and tear risk there and so you want to do some homework, want to do some O &D on the type of pool cleaner that's going to be fit for your pool. And that again, that goes for any pool really. And it's about getting the right cleaner, the right brush, that's suitable. Yeah, I mean...

With the wall cleaners, something else you want to be cautious of is just the types of steps that you have. It may be a step set that you would want to consider putting the pool cleaner into floor only mode. There's some pretty unusual shaped steps out there. So we kind of handle that case by case.

Speaker 2 (32:40)
Yeah, but I know some of those cleaners even struggle with, ⁓ fiberglass pools with those steps. I think I know the steps you're talking about and, and they struggle to get up that. of course there's going to be friction points and whatnot. So it's something just everybody needs to be aware of, particularly if you are recommending a robotic pool cleaner to a client, be very aware of the surface of their pool and

things like steps so that you know you're choosing the right product for them and they're not going to have any recall on you because you suggested something that did some damage.

Speaker 1 (33:16)
Yes, we do get asked the question. We do get asked the question a lot. So we do have a couple of kind of go-tos that we like to use.

What's your experience with the robot cleaners there Shane? Well, for every one I've sold, I have not touched wood, haven't had a negative comment come back. So if anything, it's been more, we should have done this earlier. We should have purchased one earlier. And we actually sold one on Friday last week.

And the other client texts me on Saturday, yeah, the same thing like, wow, these are amazing. And I'm kind of getting into that stage now. You text them back just saying, yeah, you're probably going to lose two hours of your life now just watching it for the first time. And that's exactly what they always do. I guess it's a bit of an obsession and something new.

Speaker 2 (34:10)
Then you need to ask them.

You need to send them a text message and say, now what did you call it? They all name their cleaners something.

Speaker 1 (34:17)
Yes.

What's name of yours, Lee?

Speaker 2 (34:24)
⁓ his actual name is Dave.

Speaker 1 (34:26)
Yes!

Speaker 2 (34:28)
Because,

because my sales rep at the time from the company that I bought it from, was his, his name was Steve. So when he set it up in my pool, he called it Steve and it hasn't changed. So, but I've had customers, we actually had a competition and this is something our listeners out there can do. We've gone completely off track here as we do. but we had a tank in our shop.

which had a robotic pool cleaner in it, the display in it, we used to run it regularly. So if you've got a tank in your shop, one, make sure you run your cleaner and two, make sure that the water is clean. And that sounds like a stupid thing to say, but it is actually amazing how many shops are going to, and one, the cleaner is turned off and two, the water's on the verge of going green. So don't do that. But we actually had, we had clients keep

coming in and calling their robotic pool cleaners by a name. And so we decided that we would actually start making name tags and we plastered our tank in our shop with all the different names. We wrote, what will you call yours? And so then people would fill out their name on a tag and they'd stick it to the tank. And we had all these names. It was great. We had an Archimedes. ⁓

So an Archimedes, I think we had a Bartholomew, I don't know why it was Bartholomew, I think because they thought it sounded like a Jeeves, a Jives, Jeeves, Jives, like a butler. this Dolly Dolphin, Barry, like the amount of names that these things had, and were the weirdest and wonderfulest names, but it was so funny and customers loved it.

Speaker 1 (35:58)
Yes.

Speaker 2 (36:09)
They really thought it was a great thing. there's a tip for everyone. Name tags on

Speaker 1 (36:14)
Your customer will be calling this Shane soon. Maybe, you'll have an experience that would happen on your first.

Speaker 2 (36:24)
Instead

of naming their firstborn child after you, they'll be naming their pool cleaner after you.

Speaker 1 (36:29)
I

can live with that, I'll be happy with that.

So Jamie just wanted to ask, there is a little bit of a myth out there. I think it's everywhere in the world as well. I know Rudy has also mentioned it, but the line of pool itself, the composition is made up with calcium chloride, calcium hardness. We've seen a lot more probably on

you your homeowners, social media groups where certain pool pros have been telling these people you don't need to add any calcium into the pool, the same as like fiberglass. But obviously if there's calcium as a makeup part with the liner, how important is that to add calcium into the pool? Yes, absolutely Shane.

I guess, we refer back to balancing the pool, we're talking about all chemicals and that includes the calcium hardness. And yes, another very important part of balancing your pool. The liner makeup does have calcium in it, yes. So by not adding enough hardness to the water can actually start to leach it out of the liner long-term.

So yeah, so this this this in turn will actually damage the liner or damage the plasticides in the liner potentially term brittle over time. Yes, it can have an impact on the liner. Would you say it would call it could cause wrinkles in a pool in a vinyl line pool as well? This is something

something I've seen probably in the last few years as well since... the water acidic, if it turns acidic but it's normally... Wrinkles caused by chemistry, by bad chemistry, or not balancing the pool properly is usually Chlorine, Chlorine levels being too high, the pH

or the stabilizer, the cyanuric acid is too high. these are generally the sorts of things that would cause the wrinkling unless it was something else like hydrostatic pressure, is water getting behind the lighter, which we can talk a bit more

Speaker 2 (38:50)
So the difference between the wrinkle types, so the hydrostatic pressure, they're a bigger wrinkle, aren't they?

Speaker 1 (38:58)
Yes, yeah. So the chemistry wrinkle from, you know, consistency low pH levels or which is going to turn the water acidic or high chlorine levels, they will generally cause the liner to pucker up a lot smaller, small shaped wrinkles generally grouped together or it can look a bit orange peely if it's really bad. Where the

hydrostatic pressure, is water getting under the liner, and that could be because of a high water table under the ground, they will usually be a long, straight looking wrinkle, which almost looks like the liner has moved and pushed up and caused like a kind of a flap almost. And sometimes we see it

so badly that it looks like a water bed that's imploded. And you can literally put your hand down the side of the pool on the wall and the wall is bulging. And people at first think that it's air getting in behind the liner because that's literally what it feels like. If you remember the old water beds.

when you jump on them or push down on them and that kind of a feel, that's what it feels like. But of course, because the pool's full of water, yeah, it almost feels like there's this big bag of air behind the liner, but in fact, it's water. And the only way to get that out is to...

remove the water to drain the pool and to refit the liner and vacuum it back into place. That can be easily fixed. The hard part or the sad part is having to completely drain the pool. So you're wasting all that water. But once that's done, the liner can be quite easily refitted. Obviously this depends on the age of the liner too. If it's very old then that.

Speaker 2 (40:50)
We have had success, Jamie, with actually removing water from behind the liner with like a sump pump. So just sucking the water out from behind the liner because once the pressure inside the pool is greater than the pressure outside the pool, if there's cracks in the walls and gaps for the water to get out, it'll help push it out. So we have had success with that.

The biggest problem we found was people with vinyl liners not like letting their pools overflow. So the water was getting above the bead line where the liner actually attaches to the structure. And it was getting in behind there. Because some of these pools do have like the ones that we worked with have like a tiled line around the top. And so the bead wasn't all the way up under the coping.

So yeah, a few inches of rain. If you don't have an overflow on your skimmer box, that water quickly can rise up over that liner level. And as much as like when we did our install, we thoroughly siliconed underneath the escutcheon, not the escutcheon. I said this last time we were talking about this extrusion. The extrusion.

plate, we siliconed that and sealed it, the water still gets in ⁓ and crept in. so yeah, that's something to watch. So don't let your vinyl line pools overflow with water because the water will creep down behind it.

Speaker 1 (42:20)
It's not one of those things that you tend to retrofit is an overflow. We do have clips that are available that they won't leak if they're installed correctly. But yes, there are clips that will. And yeah, it just really depends on the application.

Speaker 2 (42:24)
No!

Yeah, we actually did. And we've done a couple of liners where the step is under the water level or the seat area entry point is fully tiled and, and underwater and we put the bead around it. And then I think we put in O-ring and then a cap over the top of it to really seal it into place. So, that didn't leak.

Speaker 1 (43:01)
I don't envy the installers at all.

Speaker 2 (43:04)
And I have to say, Jamie, I even ordered that one with the bead already welded to the liner. So it had to fit like an absolute glove. And that one we nailed twice in the 20, 25 years we were in business. We replaced that vinyl liner twice because some annoying little children in a hotel got the tele-pole and decided to use it like a pole vault.

They had circular holes in the bottom of the vinyl line pool from the kids trying to pole vault from one side of the pool to the other. Covered by insurance though, they were happy about that.

Speaker 1 (43:39)
Yeah.

Well, yeah, that's one way to get a new liner. yeah, no, pole vaults or poles in general and liners don't go well together.

Speaker 2 (43:55)
I do have another one that we actually replaced. This is a good story. Now, US listeners will love this one. I had a kangaroo destroyer vinyl liner. So the kangaroo, kangaroo jumped over the fence. I don't know whether it was true. It was in quite a heavy residential area, jumped over the fence, jumped into the pool area, straight into the pool and then was trying to get out and of course big claws and absolutely toward that, toward that liner.

Speaker 1 (44:04)
Thank

Speaker 2 (44:22)
two shreds. Wow. That was an interesting insurance claim.

Speaker 1 (44:27)
We had a similar situation last summer. wasn't a kangaroo, but a cow decided to cool off in the pool. Really? Being a liner pool, it absolutely destroyed it.

Speaker 2 (44:42)
Wow. Well being New Zealand I wouldn't have been surprised if it was a sheep but...

Speaker 1 (44:47)
I'm sure there's been a series. But this was one happy cow. I saw the photos. That's an interesting one. Did it get out okay? It did eventually. It needed a bit of help. So the wrinkles in the pool then Jamie, so...

Speaker 2 (44:52)
I'm

Speaker 1 (45:03)
through hydrostatic pressure. They could be potentially removed depending on the line of age. Wrinkles from over-chemicalizing the pool or if the balance has been aggressive for long periods of time, would that be? It's inevitable. They've got to live with it. There's no chance of getting these creases out. It's just damaged.

When it's chemistry, yeah, it's pretty much done the damage and it's not really reversible. Yeah, I mean, it's consistently low pH levels, that's gonna make the water acidic, which is gonna pull the plasticizers, start to pull the plasticizers, sorry, out of the vinyl.

It's going to cause it to shrink and pucker and there's yeah, there's no bringing that back When the liner moves because of hydrostatic pressure Or water behind the And that type of wrinkle it hasn't actually damaged the liner. It's only moved to the So that's why that can be stretched back into into place or as Lee mentioned

If you're lucky, you might be able to remove that water from behind the liner and the water volume that's in the pool will just naturally push the liner back into place. But if they're really bad wrinkles, and a lot of them from the high water table or water pressure and behind the liner, then the only way to get those out is to actually drain the pool because you're

you're pretty much refitting the whole liner. You have to push that material that's moved. You have to move that wrinkle somewhere. It's got to go somewhere while there's water in the pool. The liner does not move. But the reason it does with the hydrostatic pressure because the pressure is so great, it overcomes the weight of the water pressure in the pool itself.

People say, well, it equalizes. But yes, it does. But when we have events like we had cyclone Gabriel and just the deluge of water and the rising water tables, it's just, yeah, it's a whole other. Yeah. Yeah. You actually sent through some really interesting fact sheets as well to do with

issues with vinyl lining pools so we will add these to the shell notes as well. think Lee you had a quick look at them as well. Yeah, they're great. or six and yeah thank you Abigail for providing them as well. Some really really interesting things on there but what would you say is the average lifespan of a vinyl lining pool? I know they come in different thicknesses.

But on average, you know, if somebody is actually looking after that pool well, keeping that water chemistry good, cleaning the pool as and when needed, you know, what would the average lifespan of a vinyl line pool be? We've had customers tell us that their liners lasted 30 plus years, but they could also last five years. Again, it comes down to just

general TLC, but most importantly, the balancing of the roll. We do different liner thicknesses, so that is also a factor as well. If it's a real thin liner, then you know it might not last as long as our thicker option, which is the 0.75.

Speaker 2 (48:39)
was going to say the thinner option is usually what's used on the above ground pools and the thicker option is usually used on the in-ground pools, is that right?

Speaker 1 (48:47)
That is correctly, yes. Yes, sometimes the thicker liner is a little bit too heavy for the above ground pills, but there is a way to make it work. And yeah, we generally use it though in in-ground pills, the 0.75 and the lighter liners on above ground pills. And then we try to, yeah, minimise the using the lighter liner in the in-ground pills.

The time to time we do one for a cost conscious customer. And I've got a line of warranty.

But Abigail have designed their liners for New Zealand, Australia conditions. % they're all living in Australia. Yeah, let's do it. Harsh New Zealand, Australian sun and chemicals.

Speaker 2 (49:37)
But prevention, think the thing is here, it doesn't matter what type of surface you're looking at, but obviously a softer surface like vinyl or like paint. Prevention is easier and cheaper than cure. And if you keep your pool well maintained, if you balance it regularly, if you sanitize it regularly instead of having to super chlorinate all the time, if you maintain those levels at optimum levels, then

You're not going to have a green pool. You're not going to have pools where you have to super chlorinate and potentially cause damage to the pool surface. remember, it comes down to everything that we talk about. Prevention is easier and cheaper than cure. And it's a lot better for the equipment, for the environment, for your pool structure. So just maintain it. That's it.

Speaker 1 (50:31)
And try to avoid the poll voting.

Speaker 2 (50:34)
kangaroos, cows.

You

Speaker 1 (50:35)
Maybe alligators over there in Florida. Yeah, Cool. Well, yeah, thank you, Jamie. Really appreciate the insights today. It's been a really good chat and hopefully some of the listeners have away some of these points today. I know I have.

Speaker 2 (50:39)
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:55)
Thank you, it's been great. You're welcome. Thanks guys, thanks for the invite. No worries. And if anybody else has any questions, by all means reach out to talkingpools at gmail.com. Any vinyl questions, any other vinyl questions that we haven't covered, we'll put them towards Jamie again. And yeah, thank you guys. Have a good evening and we'll see you next time.

Speaker 2 (51:19)
See ya.

Speaker 1 (51:19)
Thank you everyone. Thanks for having us on the show.