Best pipe to replace underground water pipe?

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Jill

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Jun 17, 2012
88
Cloudy Water/leak in pipe underground

Hello! I am brand new here and a brand new pool owner.Please tell me what all you need to know as this is all so foreign to me! And I am sorry but this will be looong!

We have a 27,000 gallon inground. Zeobrite in our Hayward 200 sand filter, Vinyl pool, full sun, 2 trichlor floatersin there, next to pine trees that drop long needles in all day.....We opened the pool with no problem. My husband started up the pool fine. The water was clear. We took a ample to a pool store and everything was fine balance wise. Well we weren't swimming because it was too cold so I didn't realize that I needed to still be testing and treating the pool water. :hammer: It clouded up so my husband bought some clarifier and it cleared up (still not testing or treating) but he did buy a test kit. It has the store name on it but inside are little Taylor testing bottles, 8 in all. So I tested it and the chlorine came up as hot pink 5-10ppm. So I thought my chlorine was trhough the roof. Well then it got warm so we swam and poof the pool clouded up. This was June 10th. On June 14th, I hadn't found this place yet and took a sample to a pool store and spent 180 dollars, who said I had NO free chlorine even though my Taylor testing kit said I had 5-10ppm....Pool store owner had me do this after these test results...
FC:0
TC:2.5
CC:2.5
ph:7.4
hardness: 600
ALKALINITY:144
CYA:90
Phosphate:2500 ppb

He had me do this:
2 gal liquid chlorine wait 20 min
1 gal muraitic acid wait 20 min
2.5 lbs Oxy Plus
32 oz Natural Clear
1 qt magenta stuff
Run filter until pool clears
Pool still the
2 gal liquid chlorine
wait 20 min
1 gal muratic acid

Pool still cloudy, no change on 16th. Go back to same store. Results:
FC:0
TC:7
CC:7
ph:7.3
hardness:500
Alk:173
CYA:90
Phosphate: 1000ppb
He told me to pour in 5 lbs Oxy Plus.

Wondering why my pool kit is showing FC and TC at 5-10, and not trusting this other guy who is saying I have 0 FC I go to Leslies where this test was purchased. they get these results: he used the same type of Taylor drops as my test kit....
FC:5+
TC:5+
ph:7.1
TA:100
CYA:50
CH:280
TDS:900
Phosphates 100

Sold me some soda ash and a clarifier and told me to take the floaters out. Put all this in yesterday and what do ya know? Still cloudy as Crud.

There is one other thing that could be the whole problem but we don't know. This filter is so old. The pump is not priming coreectly. We can see water swishing through window and we get air coming out of the jets.We let the air out the top of the filter and keep it open a little. Husband replaced all the piping and O rings around pump. Still getting air.So husband put the air compressor onto the pump and we saw some air coming out of the side of the window but nothing crazy, not enough considering how much air is in the jets and come out the top of the filter.......So then he hooks it up the other way, to test the pipe underground and down the PSI went. We could also hear the air shooting out somewhere underground.........GREAT.

We are losing a considerable amount of water while we have the pump running continuously. It
s probably an inch below where we keep it right above the skimmer basket every morning so we are also filling it as we go with our hose and our well water.............

help. we are maxed out $ wise right now. Buying a new filter or going under ground to fix the pipe my send my husband to the looney bin...

Sincerely,
Jill
 
Re: Cloudy Water/leak in pipe underground

You've gotten some pretty bad advice. A know a lot of us will chime in - we all arrived at this website with a similar story. If you really want to take control of your pool there going to be a bit of work on your part.

First - check out the Pool School section here. There is a lot of chemistry information that isn't going to make much sense at first. That's ok - but keep reading, and over the course of the summer it will all sink in.

Second - the test results you are getting are bogus - but I think you know that. Everyone here will advise you buy a real professional test kit and do the testing yourself. These kits are not cheap ($75) but will totally free you from the pool store craziness

At the moment your pool needs Chlorine, adequate filtration and patience. The bad news is the cloudiness wont clear in a day even if the pool is clean and the filter is fixed. The filter will take time to clear the pool. The good news is you can stop buying the clarifier, oxidizers, soda ash, etc etc etc.

So - get the filter fixed, get a good test kit (It looks like you may only need a DPD-FAS Chlorine test. Post the reagent numbers from the kit you have and we can sort you out. tftestkits.net is a good source for this) In the mean time keep your chlorine level in that darker yellow range on your test kit - this will give you a big head start on the shocking process once your plumbing is fixed.
 
Re: Cloudy Water/leak in pipe underground

Fix your leak first. I had the same problem. Digging up your lines stinks, but you are not going to get adequate filtration/circulation until the leak is fixed.
 
Re: Cloudy Water/leak in pipe underground

I'm not sure my husband is willing to dig up the lines this summer......He is a HVAC salesman and working 80+ hours a week right now and through August.Do I just have to deal with a cloudy pool until he digs it up and fixes it? He is thinking of doing it in the Spring? Or is that just to long to wait?
 
Re: Cloudy Water/leak in pipe underground

Jill said:
... Do I just have to deal with a cloudy pool until he digs it up and fixes it? He is thinking of doing it in the Spring? Or is that just to long to wait?
Click to expand...
It's too long to wait if you want a clear pool this season. As already mentioned, you've got to have good circulation & filtration to get & keep that water clear. Besides, you're losing lots of water each day from that leak.

I can think of one option. It won't be pretty, but it'll be pretty cheap. Run PVC pipes on top of the ground from the pool to the pump and the filter to the pool. PVC is pretty cheap and you don't have to be any kind of expert to cut it, put it together, and glue it. Since it's cheap, it's pretty forgiving to work with - if you make a mistake, cut it out and do it over with another piece. The return from the filter to the pool wouldn't even have to be PVC - you could use backwash hose.

Might not be feasible, but it might be.

Good luck!
 
Re: Cloudy Water/leak in pipe underground

So it looks like my husband can not attempt to redo the pipe until the beginning of July. In the meantime I have ordered the TF100. Once I get that I will be getting on with my BBB care......Do I just throw out the 100lbs of trichlor tabs then? Should I be doing anything in the meantime? FC on my Leslie DPD test show 5+. Ph and Alk are fine. Do I just wait it out? I am very very cloudy in the deep end.
 
We have a leak in our underground pipe. What is our best option for replacing it? My husband will be digging it up soon and we are very new to this whole pool thing and this is throwing us for a loop! Thanks so much
 

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Jill said:
Husband says that it is a black poly type pipe? Is PVC better? We live in MI so a lot of expansion and retraction.....He says he will do it the begininning of July.
Click to expand...

Do you know which line is leaking?

I had a similar situation a few seasons ago. No matter what I did during startup the pool wouldnt clear, and was losing water.

I determined which line was cracked and completely abandoned the existing one. Had to cut a spot into the concrete deck around the pool over the return jet in this case, cut the existing line off the inlet of the jet and trenched for a whole new line right from the pump. I had never even thought of doing that until I talked to someone who had replaced a busted pipe before. its not worth trying to save whats there, its just easier to run a whole new one.

First find which one is leaking. Then think about renting a Ditch Witch from Home Depot....gas powered ditch digging machine (get the bigger one so you can go 12+" down). Its a bit hard to control because its so big, but it sure beats digging a trench by hand.

Just make sure from now on, every winter, that line is blown out very well or else it might crack again (blowing out the lines in an inground pool [with the correct tool, not necessarily compressed air] thats not open year round is the right thing to do anyway)

BTW, I had poly pipe underground as well. I went to a plumbing store and got some much thicker walled poly pipe. A lot heavier duty but A) more expensive and B) harder to work with (doesnt flex as much). Looking back I should have just replaced it with the same poly pipe that was already there.
 
It's odd that they used black poly (ABS?) to run the line from the skimmer to the filter. It's usually white PVC. Is it flexible black PVC pipe or is it the ABS drain/waste/vent stuff? This is important because it will determine how the fix will be done.

Is there concrete decking over the pipe run from the skimmer to pump? If so, it may be easiest to just fix the part of the vacuum line that is leaking. In any event, at some point I'd have the whole line replaced with standard schedule 40 or 80 white PVC. Is there any way you could get a picture of the piping, if even just at the pool equipment pad? This would help tremendously.

I agree with the comments above. You need mechanical filtration no matter how much chlorine you have in the pool. The chlorine will kill bacteria and algae, but those dead cells need to be cleared out of the pool, and this is only accomplished with filtration. You will need to keep the chlorine levels high to minimize the chance of an algae or bacteria outbreak. BTW, what kind of filtration system are you using?
 
How are you able to be sure that's where your leak is?

I only mention it because my brother, father and I were "sure" we knew where my leak was. We busted up the concrete and it wasn't there. I'm trying to be much more methodical to avoid this again.

Remember; this could be you:
Pool%2520concrete%2520cropped.jpg
 
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