Cant find leak in Intex Pool

[brandy100973]

Hello everyone, I have a intex 24 x 52 metal frame pool and it has a leak and I cannot find it anywhere. I tried the dye test, went underwater with goggles and looked and even patched some seams where the water was coming from and it is still leaking. At this point I have drained the pool. Does anyone have any suggestions for finding the leak or should I just get a new liner next year? I replaced all the equipment with a new Pentair DE filter, Hayward 1hp pump and hard plumbed everything. This is my second year having this pool and would hate to just throw it away...

Thanks for any advice anyone has.

brandy

 

[duraleigh]

Well, this may be water under the bridge by now, but you could've let the leak drain it down until it stopped. The leak would be at the waterline.

 

[brandy100973]

I thought about that but I looked all over the sides of the pool and couldnt find where it was wet anywhere. The liner was dry..

 

[zea3]

It could have been somewhere on the bottom of the pool. Try putting a couple of inches of water in the pool and see if it leaks.

 

[kimrst]

We found tiny holes in our intex bottom. When you turn the bottom over and you look at it from the gound side and hold a flash light near it can you see them? The other thing was we had leaks at the seams where the sides met the bottom, for this there really isin't a repair. But for holes in the bottom we did the patch with boxer glue. We had a huge problem with nut grass growing thru the tarp we laid down first and then trying to get into the pool. I also had some issues with leaks near where the hoses went, to fix that we got new gaskets. Hope this helps, Kim

 

[mcoonan]

Brandy,
What I do for closing every year is drain pool, put the legs up on patio chairs (I just put one under every other leg) and spray the bottom of the pool to rinse any nasties off. If you do this, you can go under the pool while the sun is shining bright and you can find any small pinholes that are causing your leak. I just found 2 that I did not even know that I had, not even sure if I will patch them, they are so small.
Mike

 

[kimrst]

Mike, That is a great idea, I wish we would have tried that when we had ours. When the pool is empty and still intact 2 or 3 people can move it around a little bit, so you could move it over to a sunny dry part of your yard and just crawl under it after hosing it off. Great idea! I loved our intex, but this pool was too good of a deal to pass up. Kimrst

 

[mcoonan]

Kim,
I know what you are talking about, I actualy had a friend offer me his 28' pool for free (it was only 5 years old). But with our city's regulations about pools, it was a "No can do!" They consider the Intex style pools as toys and do not bother with those. So I am stuck with an Intex and putting it up and taking it down every year. I do wish that I had made my pool pad bigger though, with the new 24' model out there.
Mike

 

[brandy100973]

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for thier advice. You guys and gals are great. I ended up taking the pool down because we need to relevel the yard anyway and I also need to put something different under the pool next year. Its funny last year we left the pool up and it had over 30 inches of snow on it and nothing happended to the pool. We go the whole summer and then all of the sudden a leak... I wonder if my aqua bug caused it. We finally got the aqua bug to work toward the end of the summer and that is when we got the leak. At any rate it is packed up in the garage. I really like the idea of looking underneath of it to see if there are any holes. That is a great idea. Worse case senario, I will get a new liner and make sure there is plenty of padding underneath so nothing can put a hole in it the next time.

Again thanks a million..

brandy

 

[mcoonan]

Brandy, this is what I did setting up our pools.

1. Choose area, use a can of marking paint to paint a circle 2' larger that your pool. ie 18' pool = a 20' circle.
2. Cut sod off and dispose of. (if you do not do this it rots and stinks terrible)
3. Attached a 4' level to a 10' 2x6 pegged to the middle of the circle.
4. Swing board in a circle trimming away any high spots and filling in any low spots.
5. Tamped entire area with a hand tamper. (lots of work, rent a plate compactor it goes alot faster and not as hard on the back and shoulders.)
6. Spray a good quality herbicide and pesticide to help control weeds and ants.
7. Put down 1 1/2" or 2" styrofoam (the pink stuff). Tape the seams with Gorilla tape. Cover it all with a HD tarp. (don't use the tarp that they send with the pool, get a good HD one)
8. Setup pool, place 1 1/2" or 2" pavers/patio blocks under the legs.
9. Fill pool with 2-3" of water and smooth all wrinkles out.
10. Fill up the pool with the rest of the water.
11. Test water with your new TFTest kit (you did order one right?) use results on The Pool Calculator and add BBB (if needed) to your Pool.
ENJOY THE POOL!!!!
Mike
PS, I did eliminate a few steps. Like go to store buy beer. Go to store buy AsperCreme for the aching muscles. Go to store buy more beer. LOL