Leaking Pool?

[mknmike]

We have owned this 1950’s style pool for about a year at this newly purchased property.

I noticed I had to add water or the skimmer would suck air.

We started looking for leaks with food coloring at the top of the pool and then tried to try the broken old light… which looks a little rusty. And the wire at the junction box is broken. So I expect I will need to run new conduit at least to the junction box if not farther.

The light doesn’t work, and I’d like to get it working, but it’s not urgent.

Is this a common problem?

Where do I start with my light replacement? Can I caulk this thing to stop the leak?

This will be a year round issue because the light is below the minimum level we put the water for winterization. The water level was near full when we opened the pool after reducing the level to the lowest jet level in the fall.

[mknmike]

I tried to take a video and think that may be all it proved is that I’m wrong and the light might not be leaking


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[Denniswiseman]

First of all switch off and plug all the outlets and inlets with expandable bungs and set your MPV to closed, this will determine whether your light is leaking
You can then remove bungs one at a time and see what happens

[mknmike]

First of all switch off and plug all the outlets and inlets with expandable bungs and set your MPV to closed, this will determine whether your light is leaking
You can then remove bungs one at a time and see what happens

I will try to look up these words that appear Greek to me.

Edit:
I’ve used an electrical tester to verify there’s no power in even the power-side cord at the ground-level junction. There’s a switch on the exterior wall that does nothing. If you saw it you’d either say “cool!” if you are into old things, or “OMG” if not.

I will try to get pictures later or tomorrow.

[mknmike]

From the video, here’s a pic of the light.

[img]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20220604/bfdd3f2f9dcf30099d5de8ac0e467c51.jpg[/img]


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[Denniswiseman]

To determine your leak
I meant switch off the power to the swimming pool equipment
Outlets would be main drain and skimmer
Inlets are your returns to the pool
MPV is a multi port valve
Expandable bungs are bungs that expand to fit the fitting when you screw them in
Forget about the light for now but get an electrician to look at it

[mknmike]

So I’m not very confident now that it’s the light after all. I decided to to some basic research and was again impressed by the wikihow site. https://www.wikihow.com/Find-a-Leak-in- ... mming-Pool

There’s some good simple tests there like the bucket on the step to compare rates of water loss.

I know that one of my pumps and/or the brominator is leaking a little on the floor, probably because I did a quick-and dirty with the plug installs instead of “doing it right.” The water there hasn’t been enough to do anything other than make the floor wet, but perhaps that’s enough in combination with regular evaporation.

I do think that I have leaks higher in the pool. For example, the pool will never overflow. There are tiles at the top covered by bricks. The water will flow under the bricks.

So it seems there are some basics that I can work on before jumping to conclusions like I’ve done above.

[Denniswiseman]

The bucket test is fine for determining whether it's evaporation or a leak
Sealing all the inlet / outlets will prove whether the pipework is leaking
Lights are a common place to leak
How much are you leaking over what period of time?

[mknmike]

Well…

Here’s what I know:

It appears that losing maybe as little as a 1/4” from what I perceive as my ideal fill-height is causing the skimmer to suck air (and thus the pressure robot to not run). I’ve found myself having to add water about every 2 days on average. This morning I ran the garden hose full blast for less than 15 minutes and the level was ok. I don’t know the rate that the garden hose is providing water, but I’m guessing the amount of water isn’t going to be painful if it takes only that much water, sort of like watering the lawn or taking a glorious casual shower.

Here’s my recording of the water level and skimmer sucking air.

https://youtu.be/lIet825S094

[Denniswiseman]

Looking at that your water level should be 1/2 to 2/3 up the skimmer opening, no wonder you're sucking in air, your pump is pulling it out quicker than it can spill in
I thought at first your wier door was jammed closed but you don't have one
What I would suggest is to fill it up to about the 2/3 level, mark the height and time and check how much you lose over a set period
What is the surface area of the pool so we can work out just how much you are losing

[mknmike]

I think the pool is about 15x28’. I’m embarrassed I don’t know the width, but I’m pretty confident in the 28’ part.

I’ve estimated it’s about 13,000 gallons with a 3 foot shallow and 7 foot deep end, but I understand that’s not needed for evaporation. I do notice that the robot often blasts water in the air though.

[mknmike]

One problem I have with filling half way up the tile is that I know I lose it quickly. I know that if I go too high I’m going to lose water fast. Yep. The pool has issues.

Here’s a video I took about 5 hours after the first after filling the pool a bit.

https://youtu.be/uT0TIFrItbU

[mknmike]

This first picture shows where the pool level was when I opened the pool just a few weeks ago. I wonder if that’s the level where my leaks stop. It’s below the tile. There was shmootz on the tile, but that could have been from waves… or from the water level rising and leaking down. I may never know.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202205 ... 3e81f4.jpg

[img]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20220520/eec573db9b150772080bfc2d443e81f4.jpg[/img]

https://www.poolhelpforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=45736

It appears that last year I was able to hold the water level at the top of the overflow drain, and now I’m struggling to keep the water level at the bottom of the overflow drain. https://www.poolhelpforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=45841

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202206 ... 432840.jpg

[img]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20220606/872239963db6519c8a4fdd4d0a432840.jpg[/img]

[img]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20220607/3c5e25fdf3cfddf392bb96204befa62a.jpg[/img]


I will try to document my water level there and probably in about two weeks try to really tackle this problem.[img]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20220607/0c598a753ae12390a52ecc6b5426ad6a.jpg[/img]

[Denniswiseman]

Apart from making sure the whole pool is sound you could try setting the skimmer lower in the pool
It's quite a job but not as big as making the pool sound

[mknmike]

Apart from making sure the whole pool is sound you could try setting the skimmer lower in the pool
It's quite a job but not as big as making the pool sound

That does actually make a lot of sense. It hadn’t even crossed my mind. Thank you!

Today I stopped over about 24 hours after filling the pool again, and the water level was barely at the bottom of the drain box.

This level seems to work fine with the skimmer.

TODAY:
[img]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20220607/39c3483fafd6e9f7318fe2e47ed33d61.jpg[/img]

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202206 ... d33d61.jpg

YESTERDAY:
[img]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20220607/fbc7713ebdbc6242ea7f61d50587f1e8.jpg[/img]

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202206 ... 87f1e8.jpg

Comparing this to the level from almost 20 hour earlier, it seems like maybe I’m losing 1/4” per day. I see that 2 mm to 2” per day can be expected depending on your conditions. https://poolonomics.com/pool-evaporation. If 2 mm is to be expected even with a pool cover, then perhaps I don’t have all that much to worry about if I’m only losing about 6 mm per day with no pool cover.

I seem to have stopped the leak at the brominator. So maybe at this level everything is going to be ok with just a few minutes of adding water every day.



In a few weeks I will try to research more.

I would like to be able to fill the pool above the drain box. That is maybe another 2” high. I am more concerned that the water level will drop much faster the higher the level is. There ARE leaks up high. And the concern is that they are getting lower and lower.