Found the leak, but how to repair it?

[Gatinho]

Hi,

I am a new member of this forum and I am hoping that some one can help me.

My pool started to lose water from one day to another. I have since found out that the pool loses water with or without the pump running. It always stopped more or less at the skimmer line and eventually the water in the skimmer hole disappeard as well.

I noticed that the discharge line was leaking water but since there is a drain there as well, I wasn't sure. So I added about 1 liter of milk to my skimmer and waited to see if the milky fluid would appear at the discharge/backwash line. It did!!

So, in my opinion there is no leak at the skimmer it self because the water is discharged from the back wash line. Othewise the milky fluid would not appear and be somewhere in the earth or under the pool, invisible for me. Is this assumption correct?

If I am correct, how do I repair the leak? Is it a problem with a valve?

Any advise is highly appreciated!

Regards from Portugal,
Joop

[ChuckGeo]

Cetainly sounds like the first thing you want to address is the leak from the backwash line, either by repairing the leaky backwash valve or installing a cut off valve on the waste line. You might also try plugging the suction hole in the skimmer and seeing if the pool still leaks.
Does the pool leak at the same rate with the pump on or off? Typically a leak thru the backwash valve to waste will leak more with the pump on while a leak in the skimmer line will leak less with the pump on.
Good luck.

[Leak Squad Inc]

How can you be 100% sure that some of the milk did not leak out from the pipe and some just back flowed through discharge? Best thing is to pressure test the skimmer line and see if there is a leak or not.

Plugging of the skimmer and filling the pool would not work for the simple reason that the water from the pool would back flow through the returns into filter and back into the skimmer line if the skimmer line had a leak, pool would still loose water.

And easy way to test the skimmer line is to plug of the lower side of the skimmer pipe and ad water from the other side. once its topped off, wait several hours and see if the pipe lost any water. Even a small leak would loose the water pretty quickly.

For more info visit leak-squad.