When Your Swimming Pool Feels Left Out

About a month ago we woke up to find our swimming pool half drained.  Not the way we wanted to start the day.
Baby girl expressing my feelings of that day-

Since there are no drains in the bottom of our pool and the water levels were below all the inlets, we knew there had to be a hole in the liner somewhere.  And that is exactly what is was.  Apparently in the deep end of the pool a small rip gradually got larger and water continued to trickle through until it pushed away at the underneath structure and rocks.  Eventually it made a path and started draining all of the sudden rapidly.  (Seriously, before this the water level was consistent most of the summer).  The liner, just like a lot of things in our fixer upper property, was on its last leg so I guess these things happen with time.
Pool was seeing all the updates the house was getting, he wanted an update too. (Did mention I am secluded from adults most days, so therefore I humanize random things in close proximity to me, don't judge).

At one point during the 'day of draining' I channeled my inner Katie Ledecky and tried to dive down and patch it.  Keeping myself at the bottom of the pool long enough (I am apparently am quite buoyant) to adhere a patch that has no foundation behind to press against was not an easy task.  Once I did get it applied the patch was quickly sucked through the hole.  Awesome.

The pool drained (and pulled away from the wall once empty) in about 24 hours.  Not lovely.

It typically takes us days to drain halfway for winterizing at the end of the season.  This was a large escape route.

The new liner was installed in one day.  Some structural work had to be done in the area of where the foundation was damaged (I think some new concrete and perlite stone added).
This is me creeping on the pool company, taking his picture from inside the house.

Kids inspecting damaged corner

Ugh.

 We chose a tan colored liner because I thought it would match the neutral concrete pool apron better and give the water a more natural color hue (vs the aqua marine induced hue most liners give).  I did not like any of the border graphic option but that's just how it is.  The one we chose is circled at the bottom left-

We chose to pay and have the pool filled with 'town water' because we worried it would be too taxing on our well with the current drought (though filling with our well would have been free it has been a very dry year).  Plus, our well water is super cold and would have taken longer to warm to a comfortable swimming temp.  The filling part was exciting on different levels-

Tanker trunk in our driveway!

This was only 1 tanker truck's worth, did not even fill 1/2 the pool.

It took 2.5 truck loads to fill the pool.
We were quite shocked not only at how expensive this was but also to see how GREEN town water is (yes, this is straight from the public drinking water, from a nearby town).

Eek!!!!

The delivery guy said it would filter out.  And in two days it did.

We like the faux tile look.  And remember the tile color is actually tan, the water gives it this nice hue.

One day when we get around to finishing the landscaping around the pool it will look really nice.  The barn this fall is taking such funds.

So we HOPE to have another month of enjoying the pool for this season.  It is supposed to be 90's again on Thursday. :)

Did You Say A Retaining Wall??!!!!!!

Get your guitars out.... and sing with me.

Trouble
Trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble
Trouble been doggin' my soul
Since the day I was born

(Trouble, Ray LaMontagne)

This week I had a hardscape material provider come out and look at our pool fence area to give us   suggestions and a quote on materials.  (Last week's post about cleaning up around the pool fence here.)

In keeping trend with the rest of this HOUSE PROJECT (my eye just twitched when I typed that), apparently this pool has more than aesthetic problems.  There are grading (land slope) issues which could lead to structural problems.  Here are some things he pointed out.

First off the obvious, land is eroding out from under the pool apron (the concrete area around the pool).

Such is causing shifts and cracks throughout the apron-

And dropping and breaking of the concrete-

 I never noticed this brick here before, wonder if that was the last owners way of fixing it.

According to the hardscape guy (who isn't a contractor but refers them, he only provides materials) we need a retaining wall all along the back of the fence to stop the eroding.

He even suggested ripping out this section of fence and building a retaining wall for this entire corner. (the gap under the fence here has always worried me, big enough for a toddler to crawl under)-

But wait, there's more.  
He was also concerned with the area adjoining the pool.... the deck and the (once) flower garden.  Since it is right up against the structural mess of a pool he thinks the whole area needs to corrected all at the same time.
In other words, we would need to rip out the entire deck and level out the ground to slope properly with the pool apron (there are structural and drainage reasons here).  It makes sense to me, but the cost to do it is the possible problem.

Granted the deck is pretty much dead (we knew this when we moved in, inspector said it needed to be replaced soon) but that's a project we weren't planning on tackling anytime soon.  

And we thought the guy could just dump off some rocks and we could shovel them in around the fence.  :(   Oh, Trouble...... trouble, trouble, trouble.
Such is the way it is.  We JUST finished paying off the large basement project.
Thoughts anyone?  We plan to get another opinion before we do anything drastic.  Hope there is another and cheaper solution but want to do it right.