Broken spa switch control tubing

[Maike13]

Just wondering if anyone else has experienced this and might be able to offer a solution. Our in ground swimming pool attached spa has a push button switch in the spa to turn the blower for the jets on and off. How this works is you push the button and this blows air down a plastic tube to operate an air switch on the blower (about 40 feet away). The plastic tube (about 1/4" diameter) is inside a plastic pipe (about 1/2" ID) that is buried in the ground beneath the pool decking. Over time the plastic tubing became brittle and broke. Apparently the normal repair method is to attach new tubing to one end of the old tubing, using the old tubing to pull the new tubing through the plastic pipe. We have had several different pool repair companies try to fix this but they haven't been able to because the old tubing has apparently broken in several places along it's length. I know electricians use long wire "snakes" to pull electrical cable so I'm thinking this might be a possibility, although the old plastic tubing still in place might make this tricky. Another less preferred option might be some sort of radio frequency controlled remote switch with a hand held remote control at the spa, but I'm not sure if waterproof versions of the remote control exist. Anyone else faced and solved this problem?

Thanks,
Mike

 

[tim5055]

Is there anything else running in that 1/2" conduit? If not a snake is your best bet and should be fairly easy as long as there are no sharp bends underground.

 

[Maike13]

Is there anything else running in that 1/2" conduit? If not a snake is your best bet and should be fairly easy as long as there are no sharp bends underground.

Thanks for the reply. There's nothing else in the conduit. Don't know bends. We took lots of pictures during the install (11 years ago) so, if I can find those, they may show whether there are any sharp bends.