What do I look for to determine pool's integrity?

18 years is a pretty good life span for an above ground pool.

You are correct that plastic piece is in place to kind of lock the overlap liner in place - that single cracked piece is not important by itself and they are probably pretty inexpensive to replace, but yes, I would take that as a potential indicator of other problems.

Rust is the biggest killer of above ground pools (assuming you don't have resin, which may not have been around 18 years ago?) and is what did mine in. Do you see any rust anywhere on the outside? Particularly along the bottom?

Typically an AG pool is a continuous sheet of material with bolts at one point which is at the seam. There are some pools that have a stainless steel panel for the skimmer and return so that would have 2 rows of bolts. I guess there may be AG pools where they bolt each pool wall section together but I don't know. My old pool was about 20 years old when the liner went. It lost most of it's bottom "swirl" pattern and the walls were definitely faded vs the original color. It developed a tear by itself I suspect due to age since nothing struck it to cause it to tear. My skimmer had been weeping for a few years which caused visible rust on the outside.

Once the liner teared we were going to replace it but when we removed the liner we saw the bottom track totally rusted out so there was nothing holding the pool bottom together. Outside there was light rust on the bottom but inside there were numerous places with rust spots. Since the pool lost it's bottom track there was no reason to pay for a liner - the pool was taken down. If the bottom was not gone I would have done the screwdriver test to see how structurally sound the pool wall was.

The clips you are showing are for the overlap liner, I would think that as long as they don't crack to the point stop the liner from being held in you are probably OK. If the pool is in good condition - no signs of really bad rust I would imagine replacing the clips may give you a few extra years of pool enjoyment.

18 years for a liner is great
When its time for a new one just replace the coping strips or buy a jhook or unibead liner which doesn’t need coping strips. (If the pool interior /structure is indeed in good condition.)

ePoolUser said:

Thanks Paul, Vinny and Mdragger, these replies give me confidence to continue on with the pool in apparently good condition. And maybe even replace the liner myself someday??? I'll guess there are online videos to get me through that job! There isn't any rust on the panels, only on a couple of few screws in the top rail which seems an easy replacement if I need to replace the liner.

Now it's time to refresh my pool school lesson on closing down for winter.

Thanks again all!

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If you ever decide to replace your liner, just ask here. Plenty of us have done it ourselves and can give advice that will make the job MUCH easier.