Endless Pool - Leaks "Only" When People Are In It?

[JZeld]

I inherited, from the prior owner of my house, an in-door Endless Pool. The pool is in one room and I have access to the entire pool in the basement, under the pool. Last year I had what i thought was a leak in the liner...so this year I decided to just go ahead and replace it and the Endless Pool swim spa motor. I spent a lot of time prepping and getting everything ready, making sure I had all of the right parts. I had a buddy help me who knows a bit about pools having put in 10+ in his lifetime. So we think we're finished, fill the pool up and everything seems pretty good. Tighten a few things and everything seems good to go. But later, after my daughter and her friends were swimming and splashing water, I found water dripping in a number of places. The water appears to be somehow getting between the liner and the pool and the galvanized steel wall and running out the wood base of the pool. We're only talking a couple ounces of water per spot, but this is indoors. `The thing is, the water all dries up overnight and the pool doesn't leak any more...until kids get in it again. I've tried things like caulking the metal tracking that the pool cover moves on but that doesn't seem to do anything. The only other thing I can think of is that water is getting between the coping and the top of the pool and somehow going down the galvanized wall?

So, a couple of questions: (1) If it was a tear in the vinyl, wouldn't it leak even when people weren't in the pool? We're talking bone dry when people aren't in the pool.

(2) Anyplace else the leak could be coming from? Does the place where the C-track/coping/liner meet sound like a possibility?

Any thoughts are appreciated. This thing has become my Moby Richard and it is driving me crazy, particularly because I have 2000+ gallons of water inside the house.

Thanks for any help!

 

[Patrick_B]

1. I would think yes. A tear should leak all the time.

2. That's a tough nut, and sorry to say, you'll have to keep searching till you find it. Sorry that's not helpful, but it's really hard to say from here.

 

[PoolESQ]

That's a tough one. I might start out by having a couple people sort of bounce around in the pool (get some movement of the actual physical structure), but not create any splash out and then check for dripping. Second test try to splash water around various areas of coping and the cover box. Check for leaks after each area is doused with water to see if you can ID the leak source. Until someone comes along with a better idea, this might at least help you try to narrow down the source of the leak. Please keep us posted - curious to see if you're able to figure this out.

 

[Bama Rambler]

It really sounds like splashing is causing the water issue. PoolESQ has the best advice for trying to pinpoint the location of any water intrusion. My guess would be splashed water seeping under the coping somewhere.