Possible pool leak discovered after excavation

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C

calisoldier

Well-known member
Jul 31, 2015
110
CA
Pool Size
22000
Surface
Plaster
Chlorine
Salt Water Generator
SWG Type
Jandy Aquapure 1400
I'm having drainage installed around my pool. When the rooter company dug up a section of the dirt close to the pool wall, they noticed water was pooling right after they vacuumed it. It did this repeatedly. Around the same spot is a line that runs to the spa and/or baja. The concern is the line runs under a section of the pool so I'm not sure how it would be repaired if it was compromised under the pool without tearing up a portion of the pool. The rooter company said the water may be run off from past rain and they did hydrojet a bunch of water underground the day before due to an issue with the exterior drainage. But, it's been a few days since the past rain already so they're going to check it again tomorrow. I'm a little bit more pessimistic and think it might more than that since the water did seep in pretty quickly each time it was vacuumed. I'm trying to run a bucket test and determine if it is a leak.

Does anyone have any thoughts on how I should handle next steps?
 

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Last edited:
If you have an autofill turn it off and perform a bucket test.
www.troublefreepool.com

Bucket Test

This is a simple method of leak detection is done by marking water levels on … Read more…
www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com

Oops just saw you are doing a bucket test. Complete that and let us know how it turns put. Then we can go from there.
 
W.J.Christy said:
Oops just saw you are doing a bucket test. Complete that and let us know how it turns put. Then we can go from there.
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+1 Bucket test will separate out a high water table from a leak. Does anything different happen when you have the pump running? Like the puddle rises quickly...

Is the water level always the same after you suck water out and let it refill? Does it ever get higher? What is the level of the water in the hole relative to the water level in the pool?
 
PoolStored said:
+1 Bucket test will separate out a high water table from a leak. Does anything different happen when you have the pump running? Like the puddle rises quickly...

Is the water level always the same after you suck water out and let it refill? Does it ever get higher? What is the level of the water in the hole relative to the water level in the pool?
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I'm not sure what a high water table is so I got some Googling to do. Turning the pump on didn't appear to change the way the water filled the hole. It seemed consistent with the pump on and off.

The water level stayed the same after refill. It didn't get higher, stayed the same.

The water level is about a foot lower than the normal pool water level.

Thank you and everyone else for helping me investing this.
 
Scoop up some of the water on the ground and test it for CYA, chlorine, or salt. CYA is the best tell as it never appears naturally in water.

If the ground water contains CYA or a chlorine level that matches your pool then you have a leak. Municipal water supplies contain 1-2 ppm of chlorine so low chlorine level may not indicate a leak.
 
ajw22 said:
Scoop up some of the water on the ground and test it for CYA, chlorine, or salt. CYA is the best tell as it never appears naturally in water.

If the ground water contains CYA or a chlorine level that matches your pool then you have a leak. Municipal water supplies contain 1-2 ppm of chlorine so low chlorine level may not indicate a leak.
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Good idea!I was thinking this but didn’t know if it got contaminated when it hit the dirt. Sounds like I’ll try that too.

I also use borates but don’t have a tester for that :(
 
It can easily be the runoff from rain but as soon as you have any void it'll quickly fill with water. As AJ said if it has lots of chlorine it's your pool water unless a neighbor has a pool problem and doesn't know it yet. I've seen this scenario once years back but the homes were really close.
 
calisoldier said:
Good idea!I was thinking this but didn’t know if it got contaminated when it hit the dirt. Sounds like I’ll try that too.

I also use borates but don’t have a tester for that :(
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Since the CYA test is a turbidity test if the ground water has a lot of dirt in it it may affect the result. You need to see how cloudy the sample water is before you add CYA reagent for the test.

While municipal water can have 2 ppm of chlorine if you increase your pool FC level to 10 ppm or more then the groundwater sample test for FC should tell you if it came from your pool.
 
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ajw22 said:
Since the CYA test is a turbidity test if the ground water has a lot of dirt in it it may affect the result. You need to see how cloudy the sample water is before you add CYA reagent for the test.

While municipal water can have 2 ppm of chlorine if you increase your pool FC level to 10 ppm or more then the groundwater sample test for FC should tell you if it came from your pool.
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Thanks, I bumped up my Aquapure to double what it's set at now. I do have Salt test too so I have a few different controls to test against it sounds like.
 
Testing via chemicals was challenging.There was no trace of chlorine even though my pool was at ~7ppm this morning so a little short of 10. The salt test kind of produced a blob but there wasn't any salmon color, it was just brown. I'm trying the bucket test now.

We also dug up more of the pipe. It seemed leak free at the exposed joints. Here is a video of water seeping in after vacuuming.

 

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wireform said:
It can easily be the runoff from rain but as soon as you have any void it'll quickly fill with water. As AJ said if it has lots of chlorine it's your pool water unless a neighbor has a pool problem and doesn't know it yet. I've seen this scenario once years back but the homes were really close.
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PoolStored said:
+1 Bucket test will separate out a high water table from a leak. Does anything different happen when you have the pump running? Like the puddle rises quickly...

Is the water level always the same after you suck water out and let it refill? Does it ever get higher? What is the level of the water in the hole relative to the water level in the pool?
Click to expand...

Here are the bucket level results after 24 hours. The pool water level didn't really fall at all. The bucket was a bit elevated above the pool water and it was windy yesterday and that had more evaporation than the pool! For reference, the bottom of the vertical piece of tape was yesterday's level.

This is looking more like a result of the elevated water table from the rain.

What do you guys think?
 

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Does not look like a leaking pool to me.

Do you have any irrigation lines?
 
ajw22 said:
Does not look like a leaking pool to me.

Do you have any irrigation lines?
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The irrigation lines are in the same hole, coming from opposite direction and are capped off.

There are strips of astroturf surrounding the pool.
 
Water will flow to the place of least resistance which means if you dig where there's Water in the soil it'll keep filling. That may be what's happening but you have to find a way to drain that away subsurface somehow.
 
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