Pool leaking 12 cm per day?

[Chaichara]

This pool was clearly not built by a professional.

The tiling is shoddy - not even straight -  heaven knows what  it would look like if they were to build a 15  or 12 metre pool. There is no visual evidence that the tiles were laid correctly on properly applied special adhesive for pools. The pump and plumbing installation is frankly a mess. Admittedly the space is a bit cramped but at least correct quality of pipes and fittings should have been used -  and it's my guess that the builder has never heard of the special glue that must be used with PVC swimming pool pipes (and that's probably the issue with the underground leak) or even that 13.5 grade pipes were used -  they  certaily  weren't  for  some of the elbows. And what's with the cheap blue general purpose taps? Definitely not designed for pool use. The main drain seems to be missing its 5  -  10cm sump.

 

On another note,  the original price would be about right in the provinces for a quality job, but  quoted prices of 400K even in expensive BKK would be suspiciously high unless they are including a swim jet.

1 mio baht for this pool would be totally exaggerated, that kind of money gets a proper 10x4 built by a top professional company (well, perhaps just a little bit more in BKK, but as far as I know there are only 2 truly professional pool firms in BKK, and they are indeed expensive and they generally decline small jobs). Anyone paying (or who has paid) much more might be getting a good pool, but they are also getting well and truly ripped off.

[Valentine]

Do not discount the possibility the skimmer is not leaking just because the water does not stop dropping there. Could be you have more than 1 leak.

[sappersrest]

Ok looks like we have a leak on that we all seem to agree . Some times unless it is blatantly obvious it is usually difficult to diagnose the problems from afar, and it is not really helpful to the OP to be informed he has been sold a pup.

To the op before calling in the bulldozers and bring in a wrecking ball. my suggestion would be to carry out a simple dye test.

switch off pump etc.

equipment required .

A pair of goggles to make it easier to see what is going on.

One syringe.

potassium permanganate crystals to make a solution.

 

Make up solution and fill syringe.

slowly release solution around each fitting and suspect area and see if it is drawn in .Include all areas where floor meets walls.

 

 

[Valentine]

10 minutes ago, sappersrest said:

Ok looks like we have a leak on that we all seem to agree . Some times unless it is blatantly obvious it is usually difficult to diagnose the problems from afar, and it is not really helpful to the OP to be informed he has been sold a pup.

To the op before calling in the bulldozers and bring in a wrecking ball. my suggestion would be to carry out a simple dye test.

switch off pump etc.

equipment required .

A pair of goggles to make it easier to see what is going on.

One syringe.

potassium permanganate crystals to make a solution.

 

Make up solution and fill syringe.

slowly release solution around each fitting and suspect area and see if it is drawn in .Include all areas where floor meets walls.

 

 

I have used Hale Boy strawberry flavour using sappers method. Certainly can be found everywhere.

[ChomDo]

13 hours ago, dpdp said:

 

Clearly you will have to totally rebuild the pool.

Sorry but spending less than 1 million even of a small pool is not a smart way to go.

A pool is not cheap and it even happens that some people have problems when paying a high price, so how can you expect getting something good for the price of a motorbike ?

Sorry, no offense, but just trying to tell you that what happened is just normal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are you serious? Where are you taking these prices from? Are you saying someone would spend 1 million for a tiny pool in Thailand? Quite a normal price for a pool much larger than this one is 400,000b. Fist of all why would I have to have the whole pool rebuilt. If the leak is in the main drain I'll either have it permanently closed or use a removable tap. If the leak is in the return I will have it closed and build a new one. Hardly it leaks trough the structure but if so I will have to strip the tiles and do a proper coating and strips.

[ChomDo]

3 hours ago, Chaichara said:

This pool was clearly not built by a professional.

The tiling is shoddy - not even straight -  heaven knows what  it would look like if they were to build a 15  or 12 metre pool. There is no visual evidence that the tiles were laid correctly on properly applied special adhesive for pools. The pump and plumbing installation is frankly a mess. Admittedly the space is a bit cramped but at least correct quality of pipes and fittings should have been used -  and it's my guess that the builder has never heard of the special glue that must be used with PVC swimming pool pipes (and that's probably the issue with the underground leak) or even that 13.5 grade pipes were used -  they  certaily  weren't  for  some of the elbows. And what's with the cheap blue general purpose taps? Definitely not designed for pool use. The main drain seems to be missing its 5  -  10cm sump.

 

On another note,  the original price would be about right in the provinces for a quality job, but  quoted prices of 400K even in expensive BKK would be suspiciously high unless they are including a swim jet.

1 mio baht for this pool would be totally exaggerated, that kind of money gets a proper 10x4 built by a top professional company (well, perhaps just a little bit more in BKK, but as far as I know there are only 2 truly professional pool firms in BKK, and they are indeed expensive and they generally decline small jobs). Anyone paying (or who has paid) much more might be getting a good pool, but they are also getting well and truly ripped off.

I mean you're right about that! Of course there was nothing professional about them. If I'd list all the stupid things they did or how unprofessional they were, it would just be shocking. Lets just say for fun that the first team that arrived at our house thought they came to build a terrace not a pool! I am actually very surprised that they were still able to get it finished and at least looking great. Our space is extremely limited so of course the space would have been a challenge for any company. The space for the pool was roughly 3.5 x 2.5 m so the pool (2x3m) with all the pipes and pumps had to be fitted in this tight space. That's also why the pipes might look a bit messy. Didn't quite get what you meant about correct quality of pipes, fitting and general purpose tap? The drain is missing the sump. Unfortunately I know a lot more about pools now than during construction stage so I do also realise that a lot of things are missing or done wrong. Just to mention that our property's main pool has the same drain system (no sump) and tiles much more crooked than ours. Also what comes to the look and the tiles I usually notice at other pools (condos, resorts etc) have much worse quality of work than our pool. Of course if we didn't babysit these workers all day long things would look very different and ugly for sure!

 

Like I said the company that I'm not going to name here (even though I'm really tempted to) was pretty much the only one in BKK that was "specialised" in small pools and gave a reasonable price. The more known companies were not interested in building a pool of this size. They have a nice website with lots of good looking minipools around Bangkok and they came to our house in a professional manner and sounded like they knew what they were talking about. The owner lady's husband spoke English well and told me how he's going to do this and that. Well that was the fist and last time we ever saw them. After that we had I think 4-5 teams working with the pool. The team we got for the final stages after all the fighting with the owner seemed better and a bit more professional. This was their main team that had been busy with bigger projects so we were of course given the bad ones at first. Of course after 4 other teams fiddling around and doing all the wrong things it's not easy for the better guys to solve all the problems then. I mean this story is endless so I can't go into it too much but it was just a process of arguing back and forth with the irresponsible owner lady and she blaming everything on the workers she had sent to us.

 

I still like my pool and I think it looks great as long as this leak can be fixed. I just wonder is there such a thing as a reliable and really professional pool company in Thailand? Maybe there are and you pay twice the price but even with those ones you never know who they send to you. Are the individual workers really professional enough and know what they are doing or as usual in this country don't have a clue and don't care!

 

Right now I just need to find a company to fix the leak. 

 

 

 

[ChomDo]

12 hours ago, whaleboneman said:

That's your leak. If you chop this pipe at the pump and fit a temporary pipe into the pool you may be able to prove it for sure. Making a permanent repair will be more difficult but can be done.

You mean just because the lower return shoots a black cloud after not being used for a month could mean that it has a leak. In the beginning this same return was shooting quite large pieces of concrete and other crap. For the months I was using the pool it never shot out anything except clear water.

[whaleboneman]

When the pump is running, the pipe is pressurized and leaking to surrounding soil as well as pumping clean water into pool. When pump is off, pool water is leaking back through pipe and out to soil. Soil will also be getting into the pipe when pump is off but you probably don't notice anything until you turn the pump on and get a jet of dirty water momentarily.

[ChomDo]

10 hours ago, whaleboneman said:

When the pump is running, the pipe is pressurized and leaking to surrounding soil as well as pumping clean water into pool. When pump is off, pool water is leaking back through pipe and out to soil. Soil will also be getting into the pipe when pump is off but you probably don't notice anything until you turn the pump on and get a jet of dirty water momentarily.

Sure that makes sense too. Now I can't turn the pumps on to test because the pool is half empty. I'll have a "pool company" check the situation on Friday.

 

Right now the leaking rate is reducing all the time but it has been raining past few days so can't really say anymore. 

 

Here's the leaking rate for 4 days now

 

Day 1 (pool full): -10 cm

Day 2 (water level lowered to half): - 4 cm

Day 3: -2.5 cm

Day 4: - 1.5 cm

[Mattd]

2 minutes ago, ChomDo said:

Now I can't turn the pumps on to test because the pool is half empty.

You should still be able to turn the pump on, unless you do not have the option to isolate the skimmer from the circuit?

Normally each outlet from the pool should have an isolation valve.

It is becoming increasingly likely that the leakage is through a cracked pipe, as the leak gets less as the volume of water decreases, i.e. the head of water decreases, so the pressure acting on to the leak decreases.

Hopefully the pool company can find a solution without have to disturb the pool itself.

[whaleboneman]

Here's  simple test. Take a balloon or a condom and fill with air and jam it in the pipe that had the dirty water coming out. I think your pool will stop going down then (except for evaporation). I'm 99% sure that the leak is in that pipe. 

[ChomDo]

2 hours ago, whaleboneman said:

Here's  simple test. Take a balloon or a condom and fill with air and jam it in the pipe that had the dirty water coming out. I think your pool will stop going down then (except for evaporation). I'm 99% sure that the leak is in that pipe. 

A pool company is coming to look at it today so they'll do the testing. If it is really lower return that is leaking wouldn't that mean that both returns have to be renewed. Aren't they connected to the same pipe? Replacing anything will be very challenging since we have built a tiled concrete terrace all around the pool. Luckily we did leave a 30 cm space around two sides of the pool where the electric cables run just in case of problems. I guess if the return (or both of them) have to be closed and renewed, we would have to have the new pipe run behind the waterfall wall and enter the pool from the lamp side (that has the 30 cm space before concrete). That wouldn't be optimal for the circulation because both returns would then be on the same side and close to the surface. I guess it's still better than breaking the terrace and digging 1.2 metres deep.

[Chaichara]

Be sure to get a fairly accurate estimate for anything they do. You don't  want  a repeat of the earlier issues. If during the course of work,  they discover more problems, or the work is more complex than they thought, the cost could add up.

[ChomDo]

2 hours ago, Chaichara said:

Be sure to get a fairly accurate estimate for anything they do. You don't  want  a repeat of the earlier issues. If during the course of work,  they discover more problems, or the work is more complex than they thought, the cost could add up.

The guy was here for a few hours testing every spot by injecting food colouring. Could't find any source of leak below or at the top. They will be back tomorrow to continue with other testing. At least they won't charge anything if they can't find the leak. I will suggest closing the pipes with plugs if they can't find it tomorrow.  

[ChomDo]

They could not find any signs of leak anywhere. The only test they did was injecting food colouring but the guy was convinced that a leak that large has to show in the colouring being sucked in. They didn't charge anything since they didn't find the leak.

 

After they left I thought I'll still run a few test myself before calling another company. I filled the pool again, vacuumed it and run the pump for 2 hours. I wanted to see if there's really any difference in the leakage rate with the pumps running. Last week I didn't think there was much of a difference and I didn't want to keep filling the pool (to be able to run the filter trough skimmer). Anyway now I noticed that with having the pump on for 2 hours the water level went down 3 cm! With pumps off the leakage rate has been constant at 1 cm per 4 hours. So I guess this means that there has to be quite a leak in the return pipe? Now that I noticed this difference I will block the 2 return holes for the day and see if the leaking stops. Should have done this last week already but I thought the pool guy would have found out all this quick.

 

 

Edited October 3, 2017 by ChomDo
spelling

[ChomDo]

I'm getting even more confused now. After plugging the two return holes the leaking rate seems to be about the same as before. As I mentioned yesterday the leaking rate was 5 times faster with the pump on so I was sure leaking was going to stop when I close the return holes. I thought when leaking is so much faster with pump on it would mean a leak in the return pipe?

 

Do these test results make any sense to anyone? 

[grollies]

22 minutes ago, ChomDo said:

I'm getting even more confused now. After plugging the two return holes the leaking rate seems to be about the same as before. As I mentioned yesterday the leaking rate was 5 times faster with the pump on so I was sure leaking was going to stop when I close the return holes. I thought when leaking is so much faster with pump on it would mean a leak in the return pipe?

 

Do these test results make any sense to anyone? 

Suction pipe leaking?

[ChomDo]

3 minutes ago, grollies said:

Suction pipe leaking?

Oh you mean the main drain. I kind of excluded it once I noticed the leaking was so much faster with the pump on. How would the pump working affect the main drain? The leaking with the pump running for 2 hours was 3 cm (that would be like 36 cm a day). With pump off and returns closed or open it seems to be still be the same 1 cm per 4 hours.

 

I didn't find a suitable plug for the main drain yet but I didn't even think I would need to test it since I noticed the leak was so significantly faster with the pump running.

[ChomDo]

So the leak should be fixed now. Last week another pool guy (this was the 3rd one) came and he found the leak by just letting the pool drain and put his hand on the lower return. There was quite a suction from there indicating that water was flowing out of that pipe fast. I just wonder how the two other pool guys couldn't find it and why did the food colouring (that the fist guy tested with) not go into the pipe.

 

Before doing the work this guy blocked the lower return with clay and the water level didn't go down at all in 24hrs. Then he just cut the leaking pipe and blocked it and made new pipes going from the filter to only one return. So now we use only one return but at least the major leak is fixed. Quite an easy fix this time since no new pipes had to be built around the pool and no new holes had to be made into the pool wall. A pool of this size (2x3m) seems to circulate ok with just one return pipe. I would rather have two but not worth it to start a big reconstruction just for that.  

On 10/4/2017 at 8:45 PM, grollies said:

 

Edited October 16, 2017 by ChomDo