Our leak, maybe, and am I out of my depth?

[tj__r]

We may have found our 1"/day leak, maybe. According to my figuring that's about 2 cups/minute. Going around a lot of the pool with food coloring and a syringe showed up one spot that seemed pretty suspicious. It's around our large skimmer frame where there's a couple smashed in parts on both sides:[attachment=2:29x6wov3]DSC03196.JPG[/attachment:29x6wov3][attachment=1:29x6wov3]DSC03197.JPG[/attachment:29x6wov3]

So, I thought I'd let the pool leak down until it was about past these areas. It's there now and doesn't seem to have gone down in the last few hours. Does it seem possible that an area like this could leak that much?

Another possibility or concern is that the blue caulk between the fiberglass wall panels [attachment=0:29x6wov3]DSC03198.JPG[/attachment:29x6wov3] seems funky. Poking it with the syringe, gummy bits sort of came off on the syringe about the consistency of a warm Starburst. But we didn't find any specific leaks. I guess if it leaks all along these lines, it would be too slow to show with the food color test.

Anyway, should I remove the screws around the skimmer opening and take a look behind it or will that get me into trouble?

Thanks for any advice!

 

[X-PertPool]

It's hard for me to tell if it's the skimmer faceplate that is broken or the skimmer itself.
You can buy a replacement skimmer faceplate and gasket and replace them as it wouldn't hurt. If it's the skimmer body that is cracked I would use plast-aid or A-B Putty. I've been liking plast-aid more recently as it bonds very well to plastic unlike the pure mechanical bond of the A-B putty that can sometimes crack off.

 

[tj__r]

Kevin -

Thanks. It's definitely just the faceplate, no cracks I can see in the skimmer itself. I did remove the screws from the faceplate. They were not particularly tight. Looks like the gasket is sort of like cardboard with a plastic coating on the outside. Packed it back in and tightened up the screws but I would guess the gaskets on all skimmers are fairly funky. Also looks like there is a gasket that goes between the skimmer body and the back, non-pool side of the fiberglass wall panel that there appears not to be a way to replace? Should I caulk that with something this fall?

Thanks again...

 

[X-PertPool]

you can put dye there to see if it takes it, if not I wouldn't worry about it. Did you get a new gasket for the skimmer or just use the old one?

 

[tj__r]

No, I didn't have access to a replacement gasket so I just smoothed the old one out as best I could and tightened carefully. Are these originally butterfly gaskets that wrap around the edge of the fiberglass panel? If so, is it possible to replace the entire gasket? I could understand doing so on an aboveground, but this is an inground.

 

[X-PertPool]

I thought they were just a standard cork gasket. If it's a rubbery butterfly gasket you could always put some jacks lube on it to keep it supple