Pool And Spa Plastering
Water leaks are always trouble, but when it comes to Swimming pool water leak, it becomes even worse, considering water on Swimming pool haves already chemicals related to water purification, causing the waste to be greater in dollar value since is not just water been wasted, but also expensive chemicals adding value to the lost and making lost be much mean full…
How to Notice a Pool Leak?
Swimming pools should lose a bit of water, these due to evaporation, and usage (example:water splashing when kids jumping in and out of pool) also the lost is greater on swimming pools that have water features, such as waterfalls, rain-falls, slides, and Natural stone waterfalls, these absorb a significant amount of water specially on hot days. Its normal to lose up to 2” inches of water in average pool size under 20k gallons pool, in much larger pools, (in width) the lost shouldn’t be much more noticeable, also in cold days discarding waterfalls and other factors the water level should stay consistent for a lot longer, adding water to the pool no more than twice a week is normal, having to add more than twice in a month in cold days may be a sign of breakage somewhere in the water routing system.
TROUBLE SHOOTING FOR LEAKS:
If your pool haves signs of water leakage somehow, you have few options: in the economic side, you can hire a leak detection company. Or try narrowing the question of positive or negative leak problem. We will suggest some methods of troubleshooting before spending a chunk of money on a company that may end up telling you; Your pool has no plumbing leak.
Visual Inspection:
First of all, discard all visible leak around equipment, most valves have gaskets or “O-rings” these will often fail, due to no lubricant or just getting to old. If your equipment haves a Back-wash option, also consider installing a two-way shut-off valve after the multi-port valve or just simply cut the end of the pipe and then running the Filter pump in filter-mode, with the line open to insure there is no water flowing through that line, (there shouldn’t be no water flowing unless in backwash mode.
Equipment Test:
Once all visible connections and gaskets are discarded, you may proceed to a equipment on/off test: If your pool is equipped with waterfalls, slides, cascades, sheer dissents or fountains, add the correct level of water to pool, using a marker or masking tape, mark the waterline, then monitor the scheduled run-time for filter pump, then at the end of the run-time, mark the waterline again, repeat at least 2 days, after noticing a drop on the waterline, record the time in hours for the result, then re-fill the pool again, and repeat with pump off, and record the results, then compare, if this are different, the problem is on plumbing, if the results are exactly the same then the leak may be on surface of somewhere in the structure of the pool.
Where to look for structure failure:
Around Jets is very common for plaster crews to fail to seal perfectly around the fixtures, this is very common and it has caused many cases around pools in Texas, especially on Jacuzzis, the chances are higher on raised spas. Skimmers, where it meets the tile or plaster, these areas on the skimmers are common due to deck or pool shifting, in this case the whole skimmer might have to be replaced.