Mysterious Water Leak in Conduit?

[fourtitude]

I noticed water on the equipment pad recently and it looks like it's coming from a PVC conduit. I presume this conduit is for either the pool or spa light (hopefully the latter since I've been trying to determine a leaking hot tub). Is it normal to have water in the conduit for a pool/spa light? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated since I'm unsure of where this PVC pipe is coming from? It does end up in an electrical box mounted about the pool level. Attached is a picture of the pad with the leak. The leak is occurring in the vertical PVC pipe coming up through the concrete equipment pad in the second picture.

 

[jtech1]

Lights mounted in a wet niche do have water in the niche and in the conduit from the niche. For new pools, the deck box the conduit goes to must be a certain height above the pool so that water does not enter the box. It is also a good idea to use some duct putty to seal the conduit in the deck box/junction box so moisture does not affect the wiring connections.

How far above the water level if the junction box? Is the water coming from the box or from a crack in the conduit somewhere else?

 

[fourtitude]

Thanks for the response. Depending on if this is the conduit from the raised spa light or pool light, probably between 12 - 18 inches. Water was coming from the PVC adaptors that I tried to epoxy (as seen with the white epoxy in the first and second pictures), which was unsuccessful. Leak appears to be coming from the PVC at the base of the pad (second picture). We had a couple of really bad freezes this year so I don't know if there is a cracked PVC pipe under the pad caused by the hard freezes. I spoke to a local pool company and they had no idea what I was talking about. Based on previous service with them, I don't think they really know what they are doing. Is this a simple fix? Hoping that jack hammering the pad and rebuilding won't be required.

 

[jtech1]

You said the junction box is 12-18 above water level? So, the point where you epoxied is at or below the pool water level? ie. the pad is below water level? If so, and you did not lower the pool level when winterizing, the leak could very well be from freezing. If that's the case, I would not even consider messing with the pad... if you can figure out which way the conduit runs and dig until you find it, you can reroute it around the pad to the junction box.

 

[fourtitude]

I definitely did not winterize, since I'm in Central Texas and we usually don't get a lot of hard freezes like we did last year. Where I epoxied is probably below the spa level, so this could be the mysterious leak that I've been trying to track down. Started out small but got worse as I moved the PVC to epoxy. I'll have the discussion with the pool company tomorrow, but this sounds like a fairly simple (but time consuming) fix that I can probably handle myself. Thanks for the assistance and I'll post updates on this fix.