So this is the 2nd major problem we've had. The first was a slice in the flex pipe that wasn't noticed during installation. A season of lost water and torn up concrete to fix the leak. This was the builders fault and he fixed it - Questions about a possible leak....#frustrated
I closed the pool myself and blew out all of the lines properly - so I thought. This spring, I opened everything up but was not getting water to the slide. I could direct all 3400 RPM's of my pump into the slide line ONLY....and have a shop vac sucking on the slide line - and still didn't get any water. So I'm thinking it's a complete separation somewhere (maybe a fitting didn't get glued).
Had a company come out and pipe scope it with a camera. Turns out, the 1" hard pipe is cracked on both sides of the pipe for about 20' - all under concrete. Some of the crack was pretty wide.
So why did this happen? My equipment pad is well above my pool. And the slide is obviously 7' or so above the concrete. So when I was blowing air, I suspect the water in the pipe moved aside enough to allow the air to pass, causing me to think the pipe was empty. I then made the fatal error of not adding anti-freeze. When I stopped blowing air, the water settled back into the low point. Froze over the winter and cracked the pipe. When scoping, we also found that the builder bent the hard pipe around the outside corner of the pool. It's a wide, sweeping bend but I think that would still put pressure on the pipe making it more brittle.
The fix: We dug up the pipe halfway between equipment pad and where it goes under concrete. We cut the pipe there and will dig a trench through the yard for a new pipe. One section of concrete needs removed (under the slide) so the connection can be made to the slide pipe.
I closed the pool myself and blew out all of the lines properly - so I thought. This spring, I opened everything up but was not getting water to the slide. I could direct all 3400 RPM's of my pump into the slide line ONLY....and have a shop vac sucking on the slide line - and still didn't get any water. So I'm thinking it's a complete separation somewhere (maybe a fitting didn't get glued).
Had a company come out and pipe scope it with a camera. Turns out, the 1" hard pipe is cracked on both sides of the pipe for about 20' - all under concrete. Some of the crack was pretty wide.
So why did this happen? My equipment pad is well above my pool. And the slide is obviously 7' or so above the concrete. So when I was blowing air, I suspect the water in the pipe moved aside enough to allow the air to pass, causing me to think the pipe was empty. I then made the fatal error of not adding anti-freeze. When I stopped blowing air, the water settled back into the low point. Froze over the winter and cracked the pipe. When scoping, we also found that the builder bent the hard pipe around the outside corner of the pool. It's a wide, sweeping bend but I think that would still put pressure on the pipe making it more brittle.
The fix: We dug up the pipe halfway between equipment pad and where it goes under concrete. We cut the pipe there and will dig a trench through the yard for a new pipe. One section of concrete needs removed (under the slide) so the connection can be made to the slide pipe.
