New pool owner on year three. Opened the pool for this first time ourselves this year 8 days ago. Found we had lost quite a bit of water over the winter and thought it was due to a tear in the cover (basically a large plastic tarp held down by water bags). When draining the water from the cover it smelled of bleach, which led us to believe the heavy snow on the cover in the pool pushed the water up out the tear onto the cover.
Filled up the pool last week and everything has been running smoothly until waking up this morning to see the drained pool.
At this point I'm guessing the winter water loss and last night's loss were due to a leak in suction side plumbing drain line since the water line in the winter was below the skimmer, return jets, and spa jets leaving the drain as the only available exit point. However, TFP's leak detection article Leak Detection - Trouble Free Pool states a suction side leak occurs only when the pump is off and last night the pump was running, albeit only at 800 RPM. We THINK the ground feels soggy where the suction side plumping runs between the pool and pump, but difficult to tell between the mulch being thicker in some areas and yesterday's rain.
1) Safe to assume this is a suction side leak and start digging?
2) Range of potential cost to have a professional take care of this and do I call a pool company or plumber?
3) Do I need to check for any equipment damage due to the water getting below the skimmer with the pump running until I turned it off this morning?
Filled up the pool last week and everything has been running smoothly until waking up this morning to see the drained pool.
At this point I'm guessing the winter water loss and last night's loss were due to a leak in suction side plumbing drain line since the water line in the winter was below the skimmer, return jets, and spa jets leaving the drain as the only available exit point. However, TFP's leak detection article Leak Detection - Trouble Free Pool states a suction side leak occurs only when the pump is off and last night the pump was running, albeit only at 800 RPM. We THINK the ground feels soggy where the suction side plumping runs between the pool and pump, but difficult to tell between the mulch being thicker in some areas and yesterday's rain.
1) Safe to assume this is a suction side leak and start digging?
2) Range of potential cost to have a professional take care of this and do I call a pool company or plumber?
3) Do I need to check for any equipment damage due to the water getting below the skimmer with the pump running until I turned it off this morning?
