Leak through pin hole in wall

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M

mypooljc

Member
May 2, 2024
7
Chads Ford PA 19317
Pool Size
16000
Surface
Vinyl
Chlorine
Liquid Chlorine
27 foot round above ground Ester Williams aluminum pool installed 1985, new liner 1990, so old but well cared for and equipment has been trouble free all these years. Wall has two or three pinholes in one area two inches above ground level and can see some water leaking through. Remainder of wall has some minor signs of corrosion but generally in good shape. Winter cover still on, water level 8 inches below bottom of skimmer. Pulled winter cover back and see no visible sign of damage or leak. Leak appears to be very slow at this time.

Considering adding some water, say one inch at a time to see if leak gets faster. If leak is not too bad would then fill pool and try to use it this season and see how it goes. Would really like to get one or two more years out of it since may be moving after that.

Any ideas and suggestions greatly appreciated.

John
 
I left this thread up for a while until I could think of how to say what needed to be said :( I SO do not want to write this reply:

You are about to lose that pool due to rust. What you see on the outside is NOTHING compared to what is going on inside. I speak from experience. We saw a couple of pin prick places We decided to replace the liner as it was needed but then we could also "fix" the rust. It was quite a bit worse on the inside. We spend major time and effort in sanding down the rust and then painting it with Rust-Oleum. The new liner went in and was good we THOUGHT. It was only a few months later when we woke up the ALL of the water out of the pool and the wall "torn" where the two sides met. We thought we had sanded it enough but ............nope. We were lucky in that when the water all rushed out it went straight to our pond and the house was not damaged at all.

Use care and look to see where the water might end up when the wall gives way.
 
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kimkats said:
I left this thread up for a while until I could think of how to say what needed to be said :( I SO do not want to write this reply:

You are about to lose that pool due to rust. What you see on the outside is NOTHING compared to what is going on inside. I speak from experience. We saw a couple of pin prick places We decided to replace the liner as it was needed but then we could also "fix" the rust. It was quite a bit worse on the inside. We spend major time and effort in sanding down the rust and then painting it with Rust-Oleum. The new liner went in and was good we THOUGHT. It was only a few months later when we woke up the ALL of the water out of the pool and the wall "torn" where the two sides met. We thought we had sanded it enough but ............nope. We were lucky in that when the water all rushed out it went straight to our pond and the house was not damaged at all.

Use care and look to see where the water might end up when the wall gives way.
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Thank you for your reply and sharing your experience. Certainly not what I wanted to hear but I appreciate your directness and honesty. One question - you talk about rust and painting with Rust-Oleum so I assume your pool was steel. Ours is aluminum so it is not rusting but there obviously must be some aluminum corrosion leading to those pin-holes. I am wondering what difference aluminum versus steel might make with regard to the degree of and speed of deterioration?

Five years ago we had leakage around the skimmer. We discovered a cracked face plate so replaced that and the skimmer gasket, and sealed everything with silicone sealer. There was some aluminum corrosion to the wall below the skimmer cutout so we inserted a piece of aluminum flashing for added support. We have had no further issues there.

Regarding where all the water would go should the wall rupture, in our case it would flow into a field and then down a gentle slope for about 100 feet before coming to a small drainage ditch, then cross a narrow paved lane and onto a neighbor's property if it should get that far.

Thanks again for your comments and would appreciate any further thoughts from you or anyone else.
 
mypooljc said:
I am wondering what difference aluminum versus steel might make with regard to the degree of and speed of deterioration?
Click to expand...
That fact your wall is aluminum does make a huge difference. Read up on how to clean aluminum corrosion. Seems pretty straight forward and easy to find the stuff used to do so. The next question is what caused the corrosion? I was reading about ph being out of wack. I wonder what ph condensation water is? It was the condensation that formed between our liner and the inside wall that caused our rust. I am thinking that is the "water" you are seeing come out of the pin holes.

How old is your liner? Any chance it needs to be changed in time soon? I have a couple of ideas.
 
I have been testing and observing the pool and agree that the water I am seeing is condensation. I have been slowly adding water to the pool, now having raised the water level over three inches with little if any water coming through pinholes. In fact any wetness seems to correlate with the weather. For example today when it is warm the entire lower wall is wet from condensation and there is a small amount of water around the pinholes. The last few days were cooler and the wall and pinholes were mostly dry. Now thinking condensation water had built up between liner and wall until pinhole opened up - that is when I observed the greatest amount of water puddled on the ground. Once the backed up water escaped there has been very little coming through the pinholes.

Wondering how condensation manages to buildup between liner and wall? Have searched and googled it with no luck.

Liner is old having been installed in 1990 but is still in good shape and I do not think it is leaking. You said you have some ideas?

BTW water level is still about seven inches below normal level. We have always maintained ph in proper range and except when shocking the pool and tend to keep Cl level relatively low between two and three.
 
Okay so we need to find a way to clean up the inside of the wall of the corrosion that has happened. Do you think you could collect enough the water to do a pH test on it? Sure don't want to do alll of the work on the wall if it is going to keep happening.
 

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kimkats said:
Okay so we need to find a way to clean up the inside of the wall of the corrosion that has happened. Do you think you could collect enough the water to do a pH test on it? Sure don't want to do alll of the work on the wall if it is going to keep happening.
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Not getting any (condensation) water coming out of pinholes so don't know how could get a ph reading.

Bearing in mind our original objective of getting another year or two out of the pool, am considering just opening the pool normal way and monitoring it. Don't think we are up to major job of emptying pool, removing liner, trying to repair/lessen rate of corrosion, then putting all back together again, especially not knowing how successful all that would be.

As I have seen many other people say here, I just found this web site and am finding it very informative and the participants very helpful. I really appreciate the advice so far and also realize I have a lot to learn about better pool management above and beyond any pinhole issues. I will be studying up on pool water chemistry in general as we monitor our water leakage/condensation, and will keep you advised on the "pinholes".
 
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