Losing Water

[JesseSchmidt]

I took the cover off a week and a half ago and left the pump running all week while I was SLAMming the pool. When I started my water level was a little high but I had to backwash a few times and that brought it down to just right. Come the following Friday (1 week later) I was sucking air through the skimmer. Here in the Cincinnati area it was rainy and mild most of the week so I'm pretty sure I didn't lose it to evaporation. Once I noticed it was losing the water I turned the pump off for a day and the level was unaffected. So I'm thinking I have a plumbing leak. This is the first time I have opened a pool and now I'm worried that I'm looking at thousands to get the plumbing fixed. I have been reading this forum since we decided to buy the house last spring to learn what I can. In my reading the last couple days, it seems like this would be a pressure side leak since I'm losing water and not getting air in the pump basket. If the lines have to be replaced, how do they do it? Do they have to dig them out (in-ground pool)? If so, this is going to be a painful fix as my back yard is a hill and the pressure lines are on the uphill side with a retaining wall just past the concrete pad. Can someone give me a little direction here please?

 

[Matrioux]

The first thing you would need to do is a bucket test to make sure its not evaporation. Simply put a bucket on the steps and fill it to the same level as the pool, they should evaporate at the same rate. If the pool level falls below the bucket level, you have a leak.

Once your sure it's not just evaporation then can you shut off some of your returns to begin to narrow down where the leak is exactly?

 

[cowboycasey]

+1 Do you see any wet or mushy spots, hundreds of gallons are not easy to hide

 

[Richard320]

How is your backwash/waste pipe set up? If it's hardpiped off to a sewer or to some distant part of your property, the multiport valve could be leaking and you won't see the water exiting.

 

[Razorhog]

It might not be a pressure side leak. Can you see where your backwash water comes out? Example: last year I was losing water faster than evaporation could account for and I noticed that when the pump was running, water was slowly coming out the backwash pipe in the yard. I replaced the spider gasket in the multivalve and it fixed the leak.

 

[JesseSchmidt]

Thanks for the replies. I'll take some pics tonight of the plumbing hookup. There is a valve in the return lines but I'm not sure what it shuts off. I would assume the jets in the walk-in as there is a seat on two sides with spa jets in it but I don't know.

Cowboy, everything is wet. It has been rainy since the day after I opened it. A coworker asked if I had any green spots in my grass! I said yes, the whole yard! My yard drains really well since I'm on a hill.

Heres an overhead view from Google Earth:



Pump and filter are in the bottom left corner just outside the concrete. 2 Returns are in the chamfers in the deep end and 3 are in the walk-in. Skimmer is in the top right corner (you can see the cover).

 

[cowboycasey]

hmmm, rain does make it much harder to see a leak try and see if other things work and maybe it will stop raining long enough to see...

 

[JesseSchmidt]

Backwash is just an elbow coming out of the multiport with a translucent blue hose attached that I run down the hill when backwashing. I could disconnect the hose and see if any water comes out when pumping.

 

[JesseSchmidt]

A bit more info that I thought of reading about the MPV. It takes a while to prime the pump when it first comes on and when it shuts off, there is a ton of gurgling and suction empties the pump basket with bubbles coming out of the return closest to the pump/filter. It has done that since we moved in and never having a pool before, I assumed that was normal. But after reading some that sounds like it is not. Thoughts?

 

[cowboycasey]

as long as it primes and all/most air is out of the pump you are good, if the air continues to fill the pump then you may have a suction side leak...

 

[JesseSchmidt]

I ran home at lunch to find the model number for the MPV and checked to see what the valve in the return lines does. It shuts off the deep end returns I guess to create more of a spa effect in the walk-in. I also set up the bucket test to make sure it's not evaporation.

Does it make sense to setup a manifold with individual shut-offs for each line to and from the pump?

 

[cowboycasey]

I did for this exact situation, if I ever needed to track down a leak It is not a must do thing, just nice to have...

 

[Matrioux]

I wouldn't tear a working plumbing system apart to add isolation, but if I was designing one or had it torn apart for another reason I would certainly include as much isolation ability as feasible. I also put more unions in my plumbing then strictly necessary to make repairs easier.

 

[JesseSchmidt]

Well, I tried the bucket test but that was inconclusive. The wind blew the bucket off the step. Maybe putting a block in the bucket will help. But I have had the pump off for a few days and am losing about 3/8" of water everyday without the pump running. At this point I'm just going to find someone to come find my leak. Anyone have suggestions in the northern Cincinnati area?

 

[JesseSchmidt]

So I performed the bucket test again and it seems that it was evaporation. I'm still baffled by this as I lost a couple of inches of water in a week. By my calculations, that's 1200 gallons in 7 days! Anyway, I put the solar cover on for the week before Memorial Day weekend and didn't lose anything worth mentioning. Thanks for all the suggestions!