Emergency pipe burst

[WhitB08]

We kept our pool open to do an AA treatment and have had an extreme extended freezing with actual subzero temperatures here. Everything was running, and the equipment pad was insulated with insulation batting and tarps. We got 2° over freezing with cloudy weather for several hours this afternoon. as the top layer of ice melted on the pool, I noticed the water level was low. We are going into another 48 hour deep freeze and I wanted to make sure I had a good water level buffer to allow for up to a couple of inches of water freezing, so we added water. Before heading to bed I noticed the water had dropped again. Immediately I panicked. After uncovering the equipment pad for the first time, I saw one of the skinny pipes to a deck jet had several cracked spots and was spewing water. I turned a diverter valve off to that, but in turn that shuts off water to all other deck jets and my slide. Should I keep things running with that diverted off until we are out of this and go from there? The first picture is of my equipment pad with the explanation of everything the second image is right now after I diverted the water from the slide and deck jets and I’ll circle the pipe that burst. I don’t care about the deck jets at all. I am fine to cap those off and never use them. It’s unfortunate The slide is on the same valve. i would hate to have any issues that are below ground or concrete and not easily fixed on the slide. We are hovering at freezing until about 4 am when we drop to teens and then single digit lows until Monday when we go above freezing. Thanks for any recommendations.

 

[wireform]

I'd say dry the pipe well and in an emergency a good quality electrical tape wound smartly my keep it going.

 

[WhitB08]

I'd say dry the pipe well and in an emergency a good quality electrical tape wound smartly my keep it going.

Unfortunately we don’t have anything like that. we are also going right back into a similar 48 hour weather period that cracked it in the first place, plus the water is a much lower temperature (now 32] than where it started before the first extended deep freeze that it busted.

 

[wireform]

You can go into a local hardware store and buy the best tape for something like this as there's stuff on the market that can work miracles. Do what you can to get the water moving asap.

 

[WhitB08]

Went and got some tape as soon as the hardware store opened. I can see that the pipe for the specific deck jet that busted is all iced over on the concrete on the pool deck. I can scrape the ice off the surface, but it looks like that line is frozen. I don’t think it’s safe to try and open that valve back up. Anyone?

 

[wireform]

Close off the diverter valve before it and possibly cover the whole branch of pipe and somehow heat it up. They're probably all frozen.

 

[Bperry]

IMO, just shut it all down and wait a few days for it to thaw out and access from there. Whatever damage was going to happen has happened. Tomorrow looks like the bottom and it gets warmer after that.

 

[WhitB08]

With the diverter just before the slide plumbing turned off in that direction, what would happen if I went back to the slide and turned the valve back on there. Should it be on?

IMO, just shut it all down and wait a few days for it to thaw out and access from there. Whatever damage was going to happen has happened. Tomorrow looks like the bottom and it gets warmer after that.

Yeah, I was deciding between that and what I ended up doing, just diverting away from the burst. It was dark, freezing and I was soaking wet, so I opted to just divert, dry everything and cover it back up and cross my fingers until Monday. We actually got tape early the next morning and wrapped the burst pipe, but I was too scared to open it back up after letting it sit all night in well below freezing temps.I assume water is sitting in those pipes I diverted from, but the deck jets aren’t essential and I never use them. I would hate for the slide plumbing to be damaged though. High is only 17 today, but so far at least we’ve had sun. Tonight will be brutal.

 

[Bperry]

With the diverter just before the slide plumbing turned off in that direction, what would happen if I went back to the slide and turned the valve back on there. Should it be on?

Yeah, I was deciding between that and what I ended up doing, just diverting away from the burst. It was dark, freezing and I was soaking wet, so I opted to just divert, dry everything and cover it back up and cross my fingers until Monday. We actually got tape early the next morning and wrapped the burst pipe, but I was too scared to open it back up after letting it sit all night in well below freezing temps.I assume water is sitting in those pipes I diverted from, but the deck jets aren’t essential and I never use them. I would hate for the slide plumbing to be damaged though. High is only 17 today, but so far at least we’ve had sun. Tonight will be brutal.

Any pipe underground is probably fine. It’s the above ground stuff that’s a concern.

 

[WhitB08]

We’re thawing now, and as expected where I closed off the valve to the burst pipe which goes to the deck jets and slide I think the water on the other side froze and expanded, and while I don’t see any damage on those pipes, water is coming out of the top of that valve. I’ll be in a rush to try to repair this before we get to freezing temperatures again this weekend. As soon as the pool water gets a little warmer, I plan to cut the pump off and flip the breaker. Can I just replace the top part of this valve where it seems to be leaking? I’m going to start googling now. It’s a Trueseal waterway valve 602725 I think is the number.

 

[Bperry]

We’re thawing now, and as expected where I closed off the valve to the burst pipe which goes to the deck jets and slide I think the water on the other side froze and expanded, and while I don’t see any damage on those pipes, water is coming out of the top of that valve. I’ll be in a rush to try to repair this before we get to freezing temperatures again this weekend. As soon as the pool water gets a little warmer, I plan to cut the pump off and flip the breaker. Can I just replace the top part of this valve where it seems to be leaking? I’m going to start googling now. It’s a Trueseal waterway valve 602725 I think is the number.

Depends on how the valve broke. You’ll need to remove the cap and assess.

It would be a wiser choice to drain all of the above equipment and Plumbing and wait till the free freeze risk is over

 

[WhitB08]

Please bare with me. The plumbing is definitely daunting to deal with and my questions may seem obvious but
1. My Hayward remote still shows the pool water at 32. We are just above 40° air temp and should only drop to 38° tonight, but is it safe to turn the pump off now or should I wait until the water temperature is above 32°?
2. Do I need to do anything else before taking the lid off to examine? Is water just going to continually keep flowing out everywhere? My equipment pad is pretty much level with the pool deck it seems judging by the naked eye.

 

[WhitB08]

After more ice melting on the pad, it looks like it might be dripping from the very bottom in the center as well.

 

[WhitB08]

I’m not sure how this makes any sense, but my husband was able to take a break from work. We turned the pool off and took the lid, internal part and handle off the valve off and inspected it. We could see anything wrong or any visible cracks. He put it back together, and when we started the pump again, it’s not leaking? It was clearly leaking before and probably had been since this morning when we got above freezing or maybe even earlier. We had visible water loss in the pool. We’ll just keep observing it I guess.

 

[wireform]

There's a large thin gasket on the perimeter of the cover which get clamped down via the screws. Possibly one or two of the screws were less tight then some other, coupled with the cold temps allowed it to leak.