Quote Originally Posted by SunnyOptimism View Post
I understand how you feel. And I'm glad the original pool guy did the right thing by not charging you. If he did use a garden hose and bladder at first then at least he understood the dangers of pressurizing PVC with gas. I sincerely doubt that your efforts caused the leak, but perhaps a combination of events has lead you to where you are.

Pools (like any other part of real estate) do become a money pit over time. Anyone with an "old" house knows what it's like to have to constantly repair failing infrastructure year-in and year-out. It would be sad if you drained your pool and just had an open pit in the backyard. In fact, you might not want to do that as draining a pool can also cause damage that would then make your home more expensive to sell in the future. Tearing out a pool and backfilling the hole is expensive as well (~$10k-$15k in some areas) so your best bet may be just to keep it running as best you can until the day comes when you're ready to sell and move on.

Hopefully you'll find the leak and it will be something simple to fix. I'll keep my virtual fingers crossed for you...good luck!
Thanks so much for your supportive words. I think I'd be more "okay" with all this if I didn't feel that I, somehow, contributed to it. But the other pool guy said he also didn't see how anything I had done could have caused the clog (that's the big mystery of all this, how the clog could have related to the filter cleaning in some way). There is a cracked manifold in the bottom area of the filter, but he said that would have nothing to do with the water loss/leakage in the pool and is a relatively minor repair that he felt I could do any time. The filter canister itself is tight, no leaks, looks fine. I have to just accept that somehow or other, something happened, and I'll have to get it dealt with.

Thanks also for your input about draining the pool. I tend to feel you are right on that. If/when I sell, if the pool were empty, I'd fill it for sale, as it certainly looks beautiful when clean and sparkling and is a selling point. There's nothing uglier than an empty pool in a backyard. Also, I don't want to spend big $$ for a cover which would need to be done to keep tons of pine needles and other debris out of it. And then the cover would need cleaning and maintenance. If empty, to refill the pool would be very expensive in my area due to water rates (and also the major drought, I'm in NV) So, I'll probably just keep it up best I can.
I will follow up and let you know what happens and to help others with leak issues and pass along whatever I do learn. Thanks for the positive thoughts!