Answer: No, our fiberglass pools will not crack or break in the winter. Viking Pools come with a Lifetime Structural Warranty. This is valid for the lifetime of the original purchaser. Viking would not be able to offer such a warranty if their pools were not structurally superior products. Viking Pools are actually Advanced Composite Pools. They are made of a four-layer composite. The first layer is the gel-coat. This layer provides the beauty and is the layer of the pool you will see once it is installed. The second layer is vinyl-ester resin. The use of this component was pioneered by Viking and is now used fairly universally because it provides the greatest impact resistance and optimum blister protection plus a beautiful profile. The third layer is Viking’s Exclusive Ceramic Core. This unique layer provides unsurpassed strength and water resistance. And the fourth layer is a combination of specially designed resin and hand-layed fiberglass. This entire Advanced Composite Pool structure has 17 times the structural strength of concrete. Thus, Viking Pools weather climates from Florida and Texas to Minnesota and Canada with no difficulty at all.

Question: I’ve been told that fiberglass pools are great except that they can pop out of the ground. Is this true?

Answer: No, our pools will not “pop out” of the ground. The circumstance that people are referring to when they say this, is having an empty pool with groundwater underneath. The force this groundwater creates is called hydrostatic pressure. Anytime water gets underneath a solid structure in the ground, it does exert hydrostatic pressure. This is true whether it is concrete, vinyl-liner or fiberglass. Each type of pool addresses this issue differently. Our response is two-fold. First, a fiberglass pool is meant to stay full of water year round. When they are full, a large pool will weigh up to 30 tons. It would take tremendous pressure to push this kind of weight out of the ground. So, the weight of the water and pool itself is the first factor in countering any hydrostatic pressure. The second part of the answer is that just to be sure, we put a drainage system underneath every one of our Viking pools! This installation process is tied in with Viking’s Lifetime Structural Warranty. Just off the deep end of the pool, we dig a trench and lay in 4 inch perforated pipe and clean rock. If there is enough slope in the yard, we continue the trench out with drainage pipe until it “daylights out.” With this application, any groundwater that passes underneath the pool, will run down to the deep end, collect in the perforated pipe and immediately drain out and away from the pool. This way, no significant groundwater will ever accumulate under the pool- thus avoiding any hydrostatic pressure issues. If the slope is not sufficient to do this, we put a sump pipe straight up off the end of the perforated pipe. This gets capped off in the concrete decking (which slopes away from the pool,) so that if water ever builds up under the pool, it will take the path of least resistance and push up and out the sump pipe. Thus, no pressure will ever be exerted on our pools.

Note: For example, the first thing you do when setting a concrete septic tank is fill it with water. This is to ensure that it does not get pushed up by hydrostatic pressure. Concrete and vinyl-liner pools will sometimes use one-way valves to relieve hydrostatic pressure on their pools. These one-way valves will allow any accumulated groundwater to seep up into the pool water. This protects the structural integrity of the pool, but allows muddy water directly into your pool water.