Leak in plumbing

[masonsurfer]

Greetings! Great site, I've learned a lot from reading here.

Anyway, I have a leak in my return plumbing. At least that is what's suspected at this point. This has been there since sometime last summer. The bucket test shows me losing about 1/2 inch per day. While I'm trying to locate someone to find the exact location of the leak, which we suspect is under concrete, and possibly someone to fix it, I got the idea to run some temporary plumbing to reduce my water and chemical bills.

What I did was T off the return line at the pad and run a line on the ground over to the pool, down into the pool at the height of the return lines, and put a female adapter on it to accept the return nozzle. I can then shut off the old return line and turn on the new one.

I haven't turned it on yet, but what I'm wondering is if there will be an issue because the pool has two returns, but I'm only adding one. Will there be any kind of pressure issue? The return plumbing is only one pipe splitting to the two returns under the concrete someplace.

Sorry that I don't have any pictures, the camera's not with me.

Also if anyone has any advice about locating the leak, or a company in the Cinci/Dayton OH area that could handle this I sure would appreciate it. I've got calls out to a couple but haven't heard back from them.

Thanks in advance for any advice or ideas!

 

[Siamese]

I don't think that going from two returns to one should cause any problem. I did the same last year for the same reason, a leak in my return line that I couldn't find. I was losing about an inch of water in my 20x40 inground pool a day (yes, that's a lot of water).

To find my leak tjis spring, I put a number of fittings together so that I was able to hook up my garden hose to the return line. I plugged both of the return jets and turned on the hose full blast on a nice quiet morning. Within a few minutes, I was able to hear a leak. I think I was lucky in that the leak was very near the pool wall and I was able to hear it through the wall. I was unlucky in that it was under 4 inches of concrete and 2 feet of sand.

After renting a concrete saw and a lot of cutting and digging, I located a gash about an inch long in the return line. Some creative plumbing and now I'm fine.

It might be worth trying the garden hose trick to see if you can locate it.

Good luck.

 

[masonsurfer]

That sounds like a good idea, I might have to try that.

I turned the pump on and everything looks OK. The pressure went from it's normal 15psi to about 19.