Pool Leak

[Quant]

Looking for some advice.

I read the advice on the website, but I decided to skip the bucket test because I have damp spots on the ground and am irrationally losing CYA. I live in Arizona so anything but bone dry dirt is strange and not natural so that is proof enough of a leak. The leak is bad enough so it is making it tough for me to keep CYA balanced but it is no blowing up my water bill. Water is cheap here.

Further, I am not putting effort into determining a pressure or suction side leak because I might have both given the location of the damp spots. Yes, I think I have two leaks.

Because I have I damp spots I decided to dig down into those to see what I found. All I found was more damp earth and not the pooling water I hoped to find to zero in on the leak.

In the attached photos I labeled some points:

1. This is a damp spot about 16 inches in diameter at the surface. Ground towards the pool and equipment is mostly dry. There is a lot more suction coming along this path than pressure lines. I suppose it could be either still but I feel like this might a suction side leak. I am not getting significant air into the pump while running. I dug down pretty deep and did not find any lines, but they must be close.

2 & 3. are over a large damp spot. I first dug #2 down to the suctions lines from the vacuum and skimmer hoping I would see pooling. Over a few days there was no pooling of water, but the ground stayed damp in only part of the walls of the hole and I realized I could use that to deduce a vector toward the leak which is how #2 got dug out over the pressure lines. It is dry on the surface toward the pool so I don't think it is a leak in the pool, but in the PVC lines.

P1 and P2 are suction side intake.

P3 goes off to the aerator and P4 is pressure side output.

I am not using the waterfall feature right now, the pump is dead, but it could be the source of a static leak I suppose.

My questions:

I have the card of a locating company but I am not sure they can get it that much closer than I have with my damp spots. Does it make since to keep digging holes to triangulate the source of the water soaking through the earth, or is a locator worth the at least $400 it will cost me.

Any advice is appreciated. I am just troubleshooting this with common sense not experience.

Please click on the image to go to Imgur and view all the pictures--TFP is not liking uploads right now.

https://imgur.com/a/egnsxqT

 

[Texas Splash]

Surprised you haven't found it yet with all that digging. If it were me, being a penny-pinching, DIY hard head, I'd probably put on my gopher hat and keep digging. However if a leak points toward the decking or under any concrete, I'd probably have to resort to the specialists who have the equipment to listen closely and pinpoint it down to a few inches.

 

[Quant]

I think that is what I was looking for. Encouragement that this digging was not misguided. The group is pretty soft so the digging is not bad.

There is no indication that the leak is in the direction of the decking so far.

 

[Quant]

What is this blue wire?

I dug it out more in the direction of the soil that stayed wet on the edges of the holes and did not find any smoking gun leaks. What I have now is a general direction back toward the pool and deck. What I did find was a gopher hole which might be feeding the water in a way that does no reflect the location of the leak. It is not clear to me that the leak goes under the deck but I am digging at the edge to determine that.

There was a blue wire laid along with the PVC lines coming to and from my equipment. It broken and one side of seems to have all the insulation carefully chewed off by a critter. The wire follows the gopher hole. By its gauge and how it was laid, it has to be low voltage, but any idea what this is for? Maybe something with the defunct salt system? Picture below is hole 2 and 3 from my previous picture set dug wider into a single hole.

Should I just keep digging toward the damp soil? I dropped a hole yesterday at the edge of the deck to see if how it dries but I am worried the soil under the deck won't dry well so it might need to sit for a coulpe day for the direction of the leak to become evident.

Comments on leak hunting welcome. I am as blind as the gophers doing this.

 

[Texas Splash]

I'm not sure about that wire either. You don't show any automation. What is that large box next to the equipment pad?