Can anyone help me interpret this?

[Phulish]

We are in the process of selling our home at we have a IG 40x20 vinyl liner pool. Liner, Pump and Filter are all about 4 years old.


As a preface, we had a leak in our pump, water was all over the pump house floor and coming out the sides of the pool house. We had that fixed (it was a compression gasket), so no more water in the pool house. Over the next couple days, I noticed there was still some runoff occuring outside the pool house. Closer inspection and there was a ever so slight trickle of water coming out of a crack in the deck.

I turned off the water that runs up to the pool house (for the bathroom and water spigots) and sure enough that trickle of water stopeed.....phew....i will still probably have to do some concrete removal to fix but not that bad.

So I get the buyers reply to inspection/addendum to agreement of sale and it says the following:

"The inspection of the in-ground swimming pool revealed that pressure testing of the plumbing lines showed a failure of return line 1, Vacuum Line 1 and also skimmer line 1....."

Now, my realtor did ask if I was having to add water to the pool as the slow leak in the foundation was noticed. I indicated that I have not had to add water to the pool all summer (although we have had decent rainfall) and that I have since determined that the leak in the foundation is pool house plumbing and not pool line plumbing.

Sooooo.......what do I do now? I am gonna try the bucket test tomorrow. Does the pool inspector have some sort of record of how much pressure was lost over what period of time? What does failure mean? If all 3 lines failed is it most likely where all 3 lines tie in (meaning above the concrete?)

Any thoughts would be very helpful. I will do the bucket test 1st to determine how big an issue I may have and the probably call American Leak Detection.....

 

[waste]

Welcome to TFP!!

You can use the bucket test as a comparison of the water level in the pool (mark the water line in the pool) v.s. evaporation. You say that you haven't lost water since you fixed the compression gasket, now let's make sure the pool isn't still loosing water

Let me know what the overnight test reveals and we can discuss your options

 

[Phulish]

Welcome to TFP!!

You can use the bucket test as a comparison of the water level in the pool (mark the water line in the pool) v.s. evaporation. You say that you haven't lost water since you fixed the compression gasket, now let's make sure the pool isn't still loosing water

Let me know what the overnight test reveals and we can discuss your options

Thanks for the welcome, been a lurker for a LONG time...back in the poolforum days and then over here. to be honest I wasn't even seeing water levels drop when I had the pump issue, but again the rainfall has been healthy. Will let you know the bucket results on Sunday

 

[Phulish]

ok, as a followup. Performed the bucket test. No noticeable difference in water level change outside the bucket or inside.

Got a copy of the pool inspection.

There is a section that says:

"Pressure Testing of Plumbing Lines"

under this are a list of various lines, a box to check for pass/fail and a line to write comments.

Return Line 1: Fail - comment: further testing required
Vacuum Line 1: Fail - comment: further testing required
Skimmer Line 1: Fail - comment: further testing required

at the bottom are the inspectors comments and he put this:

"Further leak detection testing $400 - $800"

Now as I mentioned above, he saw a leak at the corner of my concrete near the pool house and asked if we are losing water from the pool. Is it possible that he never actually pressure tested and is just assuming that the leak requires more testing to determine where it is??

I have determined the leak is from the pool house plumbing and not the pool plumbing (see above and bucket test confirms). To fix it it appears I will need to remove a section of the 2-3 ft concrete deck.

Could this potentially impact the pool plumbing (this is a 20 year old pool). Reason I ask is we would rather give him enough money to cover doing the repair and let him decide whether he wants to do it. You can stop the leak by turning the water off to the bathroom and sink when not in use. It seems to me that jackhammering concrete to get to it is risky and not worth the trouble. Any thoughts would be appreciated

 

[waste]

If the bucket test shows no loss of water (outside evaporation) and the pool itself isn't loosing water - why pay for more pressure testing :?:

If their line pressure tests are showing a 'possible' leak and your pool ISN'T loosing water - I'd question their equipment Of course, you may well be right - he saw water at the corner and didn't even bother to test the lines and want's you to spend more $ for him to "find" the leak

From your post, it sounds like there may be a leak in the water feed to the pool house - we now know that the pool isn't leaking - I'd either spend the tine to investigate the water line to the pool house or shut it off and not have a usable sink and toilet in the pool house

I honestly think that the water that you can see at the corner of the pool is from the feed to the pool house - it's up to you to ignore it, and turn off the feed to the pool house, or fix it

I'll still be here to ask questions of, but I believe the pool dude is trying to transfer some $ from your pocket to his :x

 

[Phulish]

I just spoke briefly to the pool inspector. He didn't do a Pressure test, he did a leak detection test? What the heck is that? I am awaiting them getting permission from the buyer for hiim to speak with me to further understand, but does anyone know what a leak detection test is? Isn't that any of a number of ways? (Pressure, Dye, Inspection)?

I am seriously thinking that he saw the leak and said, done, leak in the pool, get it further inspected. When in fact he wrote his inspection up to say the pressure testing in the plumbing lines failed.....

enough to give me an aneurism......

 

[Phulish]

arggg, ok, I finally spoke with him. They did some sort of evaporation test which works instantly? They measured that there was 3 times the loss of "average" evaporation when the pump was turned on. He indicated this pointed to it being in the "pressure side" which i assume is the return line.

He indicated I probably had 3 choices:

A temporary Line
replumbing the other suction line to be a return line?
Hiring a leak specialist to figure out exaclty where and what

I am gonna run the bucket test with the pump on....so I can see the results

a bit overwhelmed on this as I am not sure how to proceed. The pool has settled which he said was a bigger concern in his opinion and that the buyer may want to do something more invasive so that I may just want to give him money towards that....

 

[waste]

Sorry I wasn't here last night (waaaay out of town job and heavy traffic on I 95 when we got done with the day)

Run the bucket test with everything running, then (if you can) keep it going while sealing off various lines.

If I miss a day here and there with responding, please understand that work is getting busier and that I will keep helping you with this :-D

 

[haybird]

Waste:
I don't know how to do quotes(in a reply), but its people like yourself and others here that make this the best site ever!!

 

[X-PertPool]

arggg, ok, I finally spoke with him. They did some sort of evaporation test which works instantly? They measured that there was 3 times the loss of "average" evaporation when the pump was turned on. He indicated this pointed to it being in the "pressure side" which i assume is the return line.

He indicated I probably had 3 choices:

A temporary Line
replumbing the other suction line to be a return line?
Hiring a leak specialist to figure out exaclty where and what

I am gonna run the bucket test with the pump on....so I can see the results

a bit overwhelmed on this as I am not sure how to proceed. The pool has settled which he said was a bigger concern in his opinion and that the buyer may want to do something more invasive so that I may just want to give him money towards that....

Anderson makes a product that can measure very small losses of water with an electronic device that uses a float, it has a graph on a screen. Although I never purchased this because there is no way of measuring how much is evaporation. That's why I like the bucket test since there is essentially a control in place. Unless you want to purchase 2 of these devices and place on in the bucket lol.

 

[Phulish]

Sorry I wasn't here last night (waaaay out of town job and heavy traffic on I 95 when we got done with the day)

Run the bucket test with everything running, then (if you can) keep it going while sealing off various lines.

If I miss a day here and there with responding, please understand that work is getting busier and that I will keep helping you with this :-D

not a problem at all. I ran the bucket test with the pump running for 8 hours. Looks like I lost between 1/4 and 1/2 inch more in the pool than I did in the bucket.

Because I need to respond to the buyers request for repairs, I went ahead and set up an appt with Am. Leak Detection who are coming tomorrow. So at this point I won't stress it till they do their thing. My return side plumbing is pretty small (distance wise) so if it is there, it shouldn't be too invasive or difficult to find. But I can't sign off that I will have it fixed till I know what I am dealing with.

Thanks again!

 

[Phulish]

arggg, ok, I finally spoke with him. They did some sort of evaporation test which works instantly? They measured that there was 3 times the loss of "average" evaporation when the pump was turned on. He indicated this pointed to it being in the "pressure side" which i assume is the return line.

He indicated I probably had 3 choices:

A temporary Line
replumbing the other suction line to be a return line?
Hiring a leak specialist to figure out exaclty where and what

I am gonna run the bucket test with the pump on....so I can see the results

a bit overwhelmed on this as I am not sure how to proceed. The pool has settled which he said was a bigger concern in his opinion and that the buyer may want to do something more invasive so that I may just want to give him money towards that....

Anderson makes a product that can measure very small losses of water with an electronic device that uses a float, it has a graph on a screen. Although I never purchased this because there is no way of measuring how much is evaporation. That's why I like the bucket test since there is essentially a control in place. Unless you want to purchase 2 of these devices and place on in the bucket lol.

Thanks, sounds like it could be it, except the pool inspector said they calculate evap as well taking into account some environmental things like wind, humidity, etc.

 

[waste]

Waste:
I don't know how to do quotes(in a reply), but its people like yourself and others here that make this the best site ever!!

Thanks for the kind words! (I was able to quote you by clicking on the "quote" bubble in the top right corner - alternately, you can copy and paste a quote when you use the "Quote" button when you're typing a message {an example from Kevin's post -

Anderson makes a product that can measure very small losses of water with an electronic device that uses a float, it has a graph on a screen.

}

Thanks for the info Kevin! I've never seen one of those devices.

Phulish, it does indeed sound like a return line leak Please let us know what ALD finds.

 

[Phulish]

ALD came today, pressure tested all 3 lines and all held 20 psi for 15 minutes. They then scoured the liner and found nothing. They found a hairline crack at the skimmer which they think may have been it. When he cleared the dirt out and squirted some dye, it got sucked right out. He thinks that when the pump was off the dirt basically kept water from flowing out but when the pump was on voila....

I am just relieved my pipes are in good shape.

So that ends my saga....probably something I could have found myself but since I had to respond to a pool inspection, paying the $450 for 2 1/2 hours of the experts was well worth it!

Thanks for all the support and info