Captain we have a leak!!

[swreeder70]

I’m in the midst of troubleshooting a leak and figured I start a thread to get advice from everyone.

1. I first started to notice their might be a problem as I was seeing the salt level in my pool drop. I just converted to a SWG and this dropping level of salt tipped me off on their might be a problem.
2. I turned off the auto fill, isolated the pool and spa and watched the water levels overnight. The spa level barely changed, the pool dropped 1/2“ in 12 hours.
3. I plugged all my return lines, turned off auto fill, marked both the spa and the pool levels and added a bucket filled with water as an additional indicator. In 12 hours, the spa and bucket dropped about 1/16“, the pool again dropped 1/2”.


So where I stand now, I appear to be loosing about an inch a day. I have no visible leaks around any of the pumps, plumbing or around the pool that I can see. There is no air bubbles in my pump or return lines. Since I’ve isolated the return lines, so I think I can rule them out.

What should I focus on next?

 

[mknauss]

Do you have a MPV on the de filter? How is the line to waste plumbed?

 

[swreeder70]

I just put in a new MPV two weeks ago and the waist line is just a stub right now on the pad.

 

[mknauss]

Great. Eliminates the siphon effect that can occur if there is an issue with the MPV.

Any air from the suction side when the pump is running? Do you have a main drain?

Leak Detection

A number of things can cause leaks in your pool. You can learn tricks for leak detection and how to pinpoint where your pool is losing water.

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[swreeder70]

No air at all in my pump on the suction side. The pool has two drains on the bottom fairly close together.

One area that I am going to investigate is that I have a skimmer door that is sticking, might be a clue to a problem.

 

[mknauss]

I hit all the easy stuff. Now it takes more work. Plugging off the main drain is one, but that takes a diver.

 

[swreeder70]

I spent an hour on Sunday with dye and a syringe trying to find something leaking. No luck. I also inspected the entire pool surface several times over underwater with a good set of goggles on. Nothing apparent jumped out anywhere that I could visually see.

I have 2” plugs arriving today to start rolling out the main drains, the water feature train and the skimmer return lines.

 

[swreeder70]

Overnight test with Skimmer lines plugged and water level still dropped. Systematically ruling things out. I did notice some weak grout spots where the skimmer entry meats the tile. Going to let it keep dropping and see if it stops or keeps going below skimmers.

Either way going to use some pool putty to shore up those areas on both skimmers.