Hi TFP Folks, and thanks for taking the time to read this. I am a bit at my wit's end.
I bought a house in 2022 that had a 30,000 gallon in-ground pool. The prior owner told me that they used to have a caretaker floor system for cleaning the pool, but didn't like it and when they re-did the liner with pebbletec (or something similar) they had all of the little valves sealed over. This is important apparently because it also required some change to the main drain.
A few days before closing the pool last year I noticed it was losing a significant amount of water. The pool guys who were supposed to close it came out and did a dye test, which indicated a leak in one of the return lines located about a foot below the skimmer basket. Once the water drained below the level of the return lines, it didn't drain further. I was told by basically everyone I called that the only company that does leak detection is American Leak Detection - who I have called many times and apparently am on a waitlist of scheduling in May / June (initially April / May), since they don't test leaks during the winter/early spring seasons. I hired a pool company this year due to other factors (new baby, work, general headache this leak has been). They told me they could open the pool off of the main drain until the leak could be detected. They opened the pool today and water was flowing through the returns (some of which were plugger from when they closed it) for a few minutes and then stopped shortly after they left. Once I noticed no water was coming out of the return lines and the pump was still running, I turned it off (as the pressure in the filter was very low). I emailed them and they said that, b/c of the caretaker system, the pool cannot in fact be run off of the main drain. Fair enough. I assume this means there is no other way to return water to the pool except the 5 returns near the surface (one or more of which have a leak). As background, it appears that the return lines all meet up somewhere underground (under grass, thankfully) and then feed into the pump/filter.
The problem is, I was lead to believe that in order to detect the leak, the pool needs to be full (let alone balanced and heated to 75 degrees, per ALD - as it was just opened the water is far from balanced and there is debris in the pool/cloudy, greenish water). I am on well so I can't just keep filling the pool up in order to get it balanced (let alone keep it full to the point where the leak can be detected). I am going to try to get the water level up so I can at least run the pump/filter for a little bit, but if the water drains at the same rate it was draining in the Fall, then even with the hose in the pool it won't be able to keep up.
I am really just at a loss of what to do next. The pool company I hired has been pretty helpful in trying to answer questions but they don't do leak detection and offered me two solutions: let it sit until the leak can be detected (I don't think this is an option given the conditions of the leak detection company that the water be balanced) or continually feed it water so that it can get to balanced (I don't think this is an option for the aforesaid reason that the leak rate is greater than the rate I can feed water into the pool from the hose). The only thing I can think of is a water delivery service - but even then, that would be a one time thing and once it is drained out again, I would just need them to come back.
Any insights / help would be hugely appreciated. This has really got me bent out of shape, as I am new to pools generally (although I have tried to learn as much as possible and have maintained it for the past two summers).
I bought a house in 2022 that had a 30,000 gallon in-ground pool. The prior owner told me that they used to have a caretaker floor system for cleaning the pool, but didn't like it and when they re-did the liner with pebbletec (or something similar) they had all of the little valves sealed over. This is important apparently because it also required some change to the main drain.
A few days before closing the pool last year I noticed it was losing a significant amount of water. The pool guys who were supposed to close it came out and did a dye test, which indicated a leak in one of the return lines located about a foot below the skimmer basket. Once the water drained below the level of the return lines, it didn't drain further. I was told by basically everyone I called that the only company that does leak detection is American Leak Detection - who I have called many times and apparently am on a waitlist of scheduling in May / June (initially April / May), since they don't test leaks during the winter/early spring seasons. I hired a pool company this year due to other factors (new baby, work, general headache this leak has been). They told me they could open the pool off of the main drain until the leak could be detected. They opened the pool today and water was flowing through the returns (some of which were plugger from when they closed it) for a few minutes and then stopped shortly after they left. Once I noticed no water was coming out of the return lines and the pump was still running, I turned it off (as the pressure in the filter was very low). I emailed them and they said that, b/c of the caretaker system, the pool cannot in fact be run off of the main drain. Fair enough. I assume this means there is no other way to return water to the pool except the 5 returns near the surface (one or more of which have a leak). As background, it appears that the return lines all meet up somewhere underground (under grass, thankfully) and then feed into the pump/filter.
The problem is, I was lead to believe that in order to detect the leak, the pool needs to be full (let alone balanced and heated to 75 degrees, per ALD - as it was just opened the water is far from balanced and there is debris in the pool/cloudy, greenish water). I am on well so I can't just keep filling the pool up in order to get it balanced (let alone keep it full to the point where the leak can be detected). I am going to try to get the water level up so I can at least run the pump/filter for a little bit, but if the water drains at the same rate it was draining in the Fall, then even with the hose in the pool it won't be able to keep up.
I am really just at a loss of what to do next. The pool company I hired has been pretty helpful in trying to answer questions but they don't do leak detection and offered me two solutions: let it sit until the leak can be detected (I don't think this is an option given the conditions of the leak detection company that the water be balanced) or continually feed it water so that it can get to balanced (I don't think this is an option for the aforesaid reason that the leak rate is greater than the rate I can feed water into the pool from the hose). The only thing I can think of is a water delivery service - but even then, that would be a one time thing and once it is drained out again, I would just need them to come back.
Any insights / help would be hugely appreciated. This has really got me bent out of shape, as I am new to pools generally (although I have tried to learn as much as possible and have maintained it for the past two summers).
Maybe add some pictures so we can debug what it is.