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How To Tell Where The Leak Is


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If it is the relief plug you can not pressure test it like plumbing. The only way I am aware of is to scuba dive and perform a dye test to see if water is leaking. Normally, the pressure from the water in the pool keeps this plug closed and it only opens if the pool is empty and there is pressure from underneath but perhaps there is a bad gasket or something. Have you ever let the water go down without adding water? The pool will leak until it reaches the source of the leak. A very common place to loose water is through the conduit in the back of the light niche. If the pool is leaking from the light the water will stop at the light. If it keeps going, look for a return line. If it goes beyond that then it may be in the main drain or the plug as you suspect. You could try the dye test at the light. You would have to take the light out and hold your breath long enough to squirt dye where the electric cord comes through the conduit. Its not easy to do without scuba gear. Good luck.

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Have a 33,000 gallon pool. Going down 1-2" every night? How can you troubleshoot where the leak is? I suspect the drain at the bottom of the pool, it is the valve that pops if the ground water gets too high?

what can you do to troubleshoot this?

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I had a pool installed late last fall just before closing for the winter. Since I opened it this year I have been leaking also; driving me crazy. Mine is a 12K Gal pool leaking 1/4" - 1/2" per day (with solar cover on - no evaporation). Builder pressure tested lines and found no leaks. GeeMan's post summarized my builder's assessment to the letter. He is sending diver out this week to check the static relief valve in the main drain as well as sealing the conduit at the light. I will let you know if they come up with any other interesting ideas.

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  • 2 weeks later...

ITechTeam,

Well, the diver made his visit. Replaced the relief valve with a solid plug and puttied around the light conduit. We have two main drains in the bottom, one with the relief valve and one that should simply have a solid plug. When opening the second drain he found that there was no plug at all, and it was basically filled with gunite from the original build. Diver cleaned out enough to get the plug in and we called it a day. I filled the pool back up and found that once again it was losing about 1” per day. My guess is that he didn’t effectively clean the gunite out and seat the plug. Bottom line we now have to drain it and take a closer look. This will also let the builder pressure test the main drains. Keeping my fingers crossed it is the plug and we aren’t going to do any excavating in our brand new patio!

Let you know what happened on your end. I will let you know how mine comes out

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Pool Builder made a visit again today.

Drained pool to just below the pool light. Say goodbye to 6000 gallons we just had trucked in 4 weeks ago. Suspects it is still leaking out through the electrical conduit for the light. Measured water level and will see tomorrow morning if it is still going down. If not Yahoo we may have found it. If still losing water he will pump the remaining water out, check the plugs in the two main floor drain and pressure test the lines for these drains.

Crossing our fingers. Swimming for the 4th of July looks unlikely, Bummer.

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Good news, once pool was drained below the light well the water level stabilized. Builder came out and built up epoxy/putty in area where light cord exits pool. Note to others that may try this, this he left the light out until expoxy cured so moving it around did not disturb the seal. He is refilling the pool today so I will keep my fingers crossed that the leak is really fixed. As a side note, now my 4 yr old is used to having a pool depth of 1 to 3 feet (she loved it!). I guess it is always something :)

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