HELP!! Pool is leaking with new liner!

[Colleen]

I'm going to try to hold it together here, but I really want to cry at this point. Our pool started leaking at the end of last season and my husband made no attempt to deal with it then. He wanted to just get through the winter and replace the liner in spring. The pool lost water until it went down to about 2'. You would think it would have been due to a hole in a side wall. We replaced the liner ourselves because I didn't have an extra $700 laying around. The old liner had a gash in the floor about 1". I thought that was going to be the culprit obviously. The new liner looks fab but is still leaking somewhere because we are losing 1" per day. I have a main drain and I personally seated the seals and cut the liner and installed it because I didn't trust my husband. He is not a "measure twice, cut once" kind of guy. He learns from costly mistakes. My hubby puts on the cap with valve and blows air into pipe of the main drain like we were told we have to every fall to close the pool. In an effort to find out if it is the main drain leaking he put in a plug into the drain inside the pool, but we are still losing water and all around the pool is wet, like almost half way around the pool. I have no idea how common it is to have a new liner leak, but we are not convinced this is common and keep thinking it MUST be the main drain. My hubby just headed out to buy a bag of sand to put over the main drain with the plug installed to see if this makes a difference. I am so frustrated right now. We went to the pool store and spoke with the manager who is always very resourceful and he had no clue.

Does anyone on this board have any clue how to troubleshoot this differently or have any ideas or questions? The thought of draining out my expensive water and chemicals and risking the liner shrinking or not lining up is making me sick. Thanks.

 

[Bama Rambler]

Welcome to TFP.

Keep your chin up. You'll get this figured out and it'll just be a small bump it the path of life.

When your DH gets back take a piece of plastic or rubber and lay over the main drain (MD) and then lay the sand bag on it. Keep it as flat as possible so it'll seal all the way around the MD fitting. If that stops the leaking then it's either the plumbing and he just didn't get the plug sealed off well or it's the seal or the body itself leaking. Once you've figured if it's the MD actually leaking we can work on finding and fixing it.

 

[Colleen]

Thanks Dave! I know it's just a small bump, it's just so frustrating. Honestly, if they didn't charge us like a million dollars for water and sewer here it wouldn't feel so bad and I'm worried about it killing all my pine trees behind the pool with all the water. He just got back and came in with a piece of plastic in hand to put under sand bag. My fingers and toes are crossed!

 

[poolgranny]

Our sewer rates are very expensive here -- costing over 2/3 of our water bill. In our community, if we call them and give the the measurements of the pool they will forego the sewer cost and it saves us enough I make sure every year to call them and tell them (yep, we drain every spring and refill our pool).

 

[Bama Rambler]

A lot of places will forego the sewer charges for a pool once or twice a year if you call them.

I'd do the bucket test for the leak. That'll diffentiate between how much is evaporating and how much is leaking.

 

[phonedave]

Our sewer rates are very expensive here -- costing over 2/3 of our water bill. In our community, if we call them and give the the measurements of the pool they will forego the sewer cost and it saves us enough I make sure every year to call them and tell them (yep, we drain every spring and refill our pool).

Ours uses Winter and Fall average consumption to compute serwer charges for the entire year.

They figure in the spring and summer water is going onto lawns and into pools, and not into the sewers.

I have no idea what they do for people who are on wells but on city sewers.

Never realized how nice that is of them.

-dave

 

[Colleen]

Our community used to offer the waive of sewer on a pool fill up and deduct meters, but keep in mind, I live in the suburbs of Chicago. They think we all have an endless pit of money that we can "share" with them so we don't need a break on water. My average monthly water bill without any outside watering, just showering/living etc. is $175/mo. My bill for the pool fill and leak thing is probably about $1k right now. I can't wait to move and leave skid marks in this state.