Cracked canister - recommended fix

[kchacker]

Pool noob so be gentle. I noticed bubbles coming out of my in-floor cleaning jets. I tracked down a crack in what appears to be an in-ground leaf canister. The yellow arrow from my awesome MS-Paint skills indicates the leak. It is not the lid but the line coming into the canister.

How should I go about fixing this? Do I need the canister in addition to the basket on the pump or should I just shoot it straight to the pump? Other suggestions? In the 8 months I've owned the pool, there has been little debris in the canister that is cracked and next to nothing in the pump basket.

I'm not much of a plumber but I'll take a swing at fixing it if it won't be too laborious. I'm handy but there isn't a lot of room there to be putting in PVC joints and don't want to be hacking up the lines.

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[jblizzle]

I would think there is no need for that added canister. Might be easier to just remove it. Looks like you would have to unscrew and replace the fitting going into the front of the motor. I am not sure if you have enough pipe by the 3-way valve though. If not, the fix could end up being a little more tricky.

 

[kchacker]

Thanks for the advice, I was thinking the same thing. It is tight in there and I'm not sure I can get a full insert on PVC at the 3-way. I don't want to have to cut it all off but I may. Any tricks to solving that problem? There aren't a lot of parts in here that move.

 

[jblizzle]

Looks like a coupling was used on the outside of the 3-way valve. The other method to connect to the valve is using a pipe directly into the valve (likely with 1.5" PVC instead of the 2"). Then immediately use a reducer fitting and 2" coupler to go back up to the 2" pipe. The problem is there is no way to know if this will work without cutting off the existing coupler to see if there is already pipe that was inserted and cut off for a previous repair.

If that will not work, you could use a RAM bit to drill out the pipe inside the valve and then do what I wrote above.

Or, you could use an "inside" fitting called a pipe extender. Ideally inside the 2" pipe so that you do not restrict the flow too much.

You should cut the canister out leaving as much pipe by the valve as possible and then look in it to see what option might work before cutting off more of that pipe.

On the pump side you should just need a new screw in fitting and I might suggest putting a union fitting where the canister is now to ease the install.