Gunite -vs- Vinyl lined

[MarkC]

One downside the vinyl liners is you can't go to very high chlorine levels without damaging your liner. If you keep your water balanced this should not be a problem though. I did have a problem when I added dry acid to a vinyl liner pool once and it left an area where the acid sat that looked wrinkled. I have 2 dogs that swim daily so I went with concrete. My concrete pool builder was actually cheaper than the vinyl guy we had out. Only $18,000 5 years ago.

[beary]

Waiting for a house to sell, we have been shopping for a pool for six months thinking vinyl liner petty much the whole time. You can build some really nice looking vinyl pools now, but when we got down to details, we found vinyl pools haven't progress to beach entries or custom changes in shapes at reasonable prices. You can customize the shape, but the cost shoots up because shape changes require the pool manufacture to design than build the steel to the shape. Even worse is after you spend the extra money for the change, the liner still may not fit perfectly. Just about every contractor we interviewed told us that it is next to impossible to get those complicated liners to fit perfect and look good.

Our price for the pool we designed with everything we wanted was within just a couple thousand of the Gunite, so we switched. If you like the basic shapes of the vinyl pools presented in the brochures, than vinyl is a good option. If you want more freedom to build the pool with the shape of your dreams using beach entries, custom swimouts, and suntan ledges, then you probably want gunite.

beary

[CarlD]

The old modern architechture saying "Form follows function" can be adapted: Pool lining follows shape and function. If vinyl won't do the job well, use gunite and don't worry about it.

If vinyl works and you're happy with it, use vinyl and don't worry about it.

It's not that one is "better" than the other, it's that applications are different and one or the other will be more appropriate.

Just be sure you have ALL the variables.