My Leak Story, etc.

[SunnyOptimism]

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!

[nefretrameses]

Check out www.leaktools.com. You can read about how leak detection works, repairs, etc. I bought my own set of tools to test my own lines. I think the high pressure broke something, maybe not right away, but jiggling the valve may have caused a "water hammer" that finished the job. If you are losing significant amounts of water, it's got to be going somewhere. If you can't see it, it's going into the ground somewhere. Good luck.

[butterflyblue]

Check out www.leaktools.com. You can read about how leak detection works, repairs, etc. I bought my own set of tools to test my own lines. I think the high pressure broke something, maybe not right away, but jiggling the valve may have caused a "water hammer" that finished the job. If you are losing significant amounts of water, it's got to be going somewhere. If you can't see it, it's going into the ground somewhere. Good luck.

Thanks so much, I will definitely take a look at leaktools. I wish I could test my own lines, I just don't have the expertise or knowledge to do so. Yep, maybe the valve jiggling contributed and whatever had potentially been semi- damaged by the high pressure was then broken fully by water hammer. A series of unexpected bad luck problems. I agree, if I can't see the water, it's going somewhere and that somewhere has to be into the ground. I see no wet spots around the pool itself. I can only run the pump about two days, 4-5 hrs, and then it's down to the skimmer and sucking air and I have to add water. It's not a HUGE amount of water, but clearly, a leak somewhere. I'll update on what happens!

[SunnyOptimism]

Thanks so much, I will definitely take a look at leaktools. I wish I could test my own lines, I just don't have the expertise or knowledge to do so. Yep, maybe the valve jiggling contributed and whatever had potentially been semi- damaged by the high pressure was then broken fully by water hammer. A series of unexpected bad luck problems. I agree, if I can't see the water, it's going somewhere and that somewhere has to be into the ground. I see no wet spots around the pool itself. I can only run the pump about two days, 4-5 hrs, and then it's down to the skimmer and sucking air and I have to add water. It's not a HUGE amount of water, but clearly, a leak somewhere. I'll update on what happens!

Maybe you'll get lucky and the leak will be in the skimmer (although you'd likely see wet ground around the skimmer unless it's covered by a lot of decking). Skimmers are prone to spring all sorts of leaks with age.

Best of luck and definitely keep posting what you learn. Also post anything interesting you learn about leak detection. Posting is the best way to spread your knowledge to others....and no matter what, it's a huge help to the DIY pool community!!!

[butterflyblue]

As promised, I am checking back in with all of you to share the results of the leak detection on my pool. The company came out today and performed a leak detection and the good news is, there was no underground leak detected. The pressure gauge that he hooked up indicated a normal response, it held the pressure properly. So, the next step was to determine just why the pool level drops when the pump is on. Here's what he found: he noticed that the spa was in some state of disrepair with multiple tiles off in various areas. Upon further inspection, he noticed a crack in the concrete rim around the spa, where a lot of these tiles had fallen off, which he said was probably due to shifting. I, of course, had known about that crack but never put two and two together in my mind as to what connection it might have to losing water while the pump is on. I had not seen any loss of water in the spa with the pump off, so didn't feel th spa, itself was leaking. But as he explained it, when the pump is on and the water level rises in the spa, it rises to the level of that crack and the water goes out at that point, and thus causes the water loss while the pump is on.

That made perfect sense, and I agreed with him that I could definitely see how that could happen. He putyed up the crack as best he could while here (he did a dye test and noted several areas of leakage around those same tiles), so he didn't fully repair it during this visit, but said I could probably putty up the rest of it myself, injecting silicon into the areas and also putty. The charge was $285. Yes, a bit steep perhaps, but he is a very experienced person in business since 1976, full time with pools that entire time. so I felt it was important to get someone trustworthy to look at the problem.

So, I guess the moral of this story is: before you call a leak detection person out, make sure that any obvious signs of disrepair such as tiles falling off, areas of cracks, etc. are repaired, puttyied the best that you can. Leak detection can be expensive and you want to eliminate as much above ground as you can. Before calling him out, I had several leaks at the equipment pad fixed to eliminate those problems, but hadn't really given sufficient thought or attention to the areas he pointed out. (and hopefully fixed!) I hope my story has helped others in the same circumstances. Thanks again for this forum and all your helpful advice. I wlil always help out others if I can, also.

[FormerBromineUser]

Thank you for following up! Helpful stuff.

[butterflyblue]

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!