Replacing Elbow On In Ground Pool Return

[Jaydoubleyou]

Hello everyone,

I'll start with a little background. Three years ago, I bought a house with a 20' x 40' in ground pool. It needed a liner, so I measured, purchased and installed one with a friend of mine. Since, I've replaced various pieces of the pump, filter and surrounding plumbing. This year, my motor had seized, and while I got it going again, the bearings were shot and it was screeching, so I installed a new one.

With the new motor (exact same specs as the old one), the pressure went up to what it should always have been and made a leak near one of my returns very obvious. It was leaking so much that the pavers above were getting wet and in a day, I was losing inches of water. I dug down to see exactly what the problem was and what I found was that the elbow that feeds the return was leaking where the threads screw into the return. I purchased the exact same part but made of PVC and am ready to start installing it. My question is, what am I not thinking of? Do I need to glue anything?

I'm trying to post a couple photos, but don't see how. Maybe I can follow up with them. Just in case, the pipe is black slightly flexible pipe, the old elbow is ribbed on the end that connects to the pipe with two clamps on it. The other end of the elbow is threaded and connects to the return assembly.

Thanks in advance for any help. I'm a stubborn do it myself type person so paying to have this done is, at this point, out of the question.

[Jaydoubleyou]

This is yesterday, before I dug out the pipe more. The leak was coming from where the elbow and the return assembly meet.

[Jaydoubleyou]

Argh, how do you post photos? Is it because I'm on a mac?

[waterbear]

You need to upload the photo to a site like picasa, photobucket ,flicker, etc. or to you own public webpage and then just put the URL of the photo into your post, It will appear as a ling. You can also click on the insert photo button at the top of the editor and insert the photo URL there if you want it to appear inline in the post.

[Jaydoubleyou]

Luckily, I figured out how to replace the part before I had time to sign up for one of those services. Thanks for the reply. I'm going to poke around and see if others have asked any of the other questions I have before I post my questions.

[waterbear]

Thanks for the reply. I'm going to poke around and see if others have asked any of the other questions I have before I post my questions.

Usually, that is the fastest way to find the answers to your questions. Most questions get asked again and again and the answers are there if you just search for them. If you do decide to post a question the more info you can give us the better. Tell us about your equipment (and pics always help) and about your pool surface and current water test results and method of testing if you think it might be a water balance issue.