Leaving pump off for over a week

gevdog

0
Jun 7, 2018
32
Southern Ontario
I have a 16x32 chlorinated inground pool with a sand filter. I developed a crack at my pressure gauge which I have someone coming to replace the valve. Problem is they won't be able to get to it for another week. I don't want to leave my pump off for that long, especially since it's upwards of 28 degrees celsius in the daytime. I was wondering if I should try running the pump anyway with water dripping from the crack, or if I should leave the pump off for a week until it gets repaired? Not sure what would be worse for the pool and/or plumbing
 
Depends how large the drip is.

How do you chlorinate your pool?

You can pour liquid chlorine in the pool daily and stir the water with your pool brush.
 
A small electric sump pump or pool cover pump (avail at big box store) with a garden hose to a further point in the pool will mix chemicals well and keep pool in good shape.

With that said - can you not replace the pressure gauge? Can you show a picture? It may be a simple part you can grab from Amazon and be back up and running quickly.
 
Even if you can't get a replacement gage right away, most are 1/4 npt. You can put a pipe plug in its place.

I can understand running with a broken gage, it could fail even more and be a larger leak. and you may not be around to notice it either. If the leak is not to bad and the leaking water isn't an issue, run the pump when you can keep an eye on it. Otherwise you will likely have to deal with an algae issue after you get the gage replaced.
 
It's leaking at about 2L per hour, so not too bad. I can easily keep it topped up with the garden hose. Spent all day making up a contraption to funnel the trickle into a bucket so it's not all over the floor of my pump house. The crack is in the moulding of the valve housing itself so a new gauge wouldn't help. Probably over tightened the gauge. I've been running the pump for a few hours now, so far it's still leaking just a trickle. My concern now is if the crack gets bigger under pressure and the leak goes from a trickle to a geyser
 
I would not expect a catastrophic failure in that area, but that is no guarantee. I would stay run it when you can keep an eye on it.
 
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