O.T. Nagging pool line leak

I'm losing about half the volume of a garden hose, but only while the skimmer is running.

There has to be more to retirement than lying around a pool, digging gravel out of holes with a trowel.

Oh yeah, I already know the best alternative is to fill it with cement, but the three potential buyers all want the pool...

So I'll watch the system for a day or two, then think about filling everything back in and mixing up some concrete to restore the decking.

Thanks for all of your advice.

BTW Nat, the pool lady had never heard of Stop Leak even though it is all over the Internet.

Thanks for the suggestion.

I remember fixing a broken line about twenty years ago. It was deep beneath the concrete at a T junction. No fun at all. The same one may have failed due to my bad plumbing.

BTW: I have turned off the bywash drain (which empties into the municipal sewer) and so the water shouldn't be able to escape that way.

I think it pretty well has to be that T-connection, 5 feet below the concrete. I'll block the lines and pump some air into it this week and listen. But first I'll ask my pool lady about the stop-leak.

Thanks.

The one time about twenty years ago I successfully found a leak a physician friend suggested he would listen with a stethescope while I pumped air through the pipe, so I put plugs in the returns at the pool, took the line off the skimmer, and inserted a plug in the back end with a tire valve added in its centre.

It's a good thing I had my son add the air from the basement while I watched, because I wouldn't have wanted to miss this one: a spectacled, white haired physician on his knees with a stethescope pressed to the concrete, listening. Behind him, a geyser of mud erupted from one of the holes I had cut. The leak was between the holes. The air was effective, and in this case, quite spectacular.

Trouble was the hole was in the pipe almost 5' underground, and my wife had to sit on the back of my knees so that I could reach the fitting to replace it.

I just wish there were an easier way.

They make a rubber bellows that is for drain cleaning, comes in several pipe sizes.

They work by water pressure. Attach a garden hose to bellows, stick the bellows in the pipe, turn water on thus swelling out the bellows to tight fit the pipe bore, then shoots a pressure water stream to unclog the pipe.

So buy two of them, install bellows in both ends of the pipe, turn the water on, then look for leaks between the bellows.

T_Bone

I'll give it another week and then mix some cement to cover the dry holes.

Thanks for all of your advice.

Rod