Can Ants Eat Through a Pool Liner?

Ants and Vinyl

• Ants will eat almost anything that provides them with nutrition, but pool vinyl liners can't do that. According to pool expert Alan Schuster, ants will eat through a pool's vinyl liner under certain extreme circumstances, including during drought. Swimming pools create a high-moisture zone around them, and ants will be attracted to them in their search for water. If ants really need water, in other words, a pool's vinyl liner won't stop them from trying to get at it.

Eliminating Ants

• If you suspect ants are eating through your pool's vinyl liner, have a professional exterminator check for infestation. If ants really are chewing through your pool's vinyl liner, the areas around and under the pool need to be treated, for starters. After eliminating a pool's ant infestation it's best to cover the ground under and around it with an ant-resistant plastic barrier. You can also have an exterminator periodically apply an ant-killing residual barrier treatment around your swimming pool to keep ants away.

Replacing Liners

• If your pool's liner has been severely damaged by large numbers of ants you'll need to discard it and install a new one. Above-ground swimming pool vinyl liners are easier to remove and reinstall than in-ground pool versions. In either case, in order to replace a pool's vinyl liner you must drain the pool. If you want to try patching a pool's vinyl liner there are plenty of easy-to-use underwater pool liner patch kits available.

Considerations

• Ants attacking and eating through a swimming pool's vinyl liner is an extremely rare occurrence, according to pool expert Schuster. In many cases where a pool owner thinks ants are attacking her pool's liner the problem is actually a poor quality pool base. A pool's base is the ground beneath a swimming pool. Ensure your vinyl liner swimming pool's base is free of pointy or sharp objects and covered in a smooth material like fine silica sand.