At the end of last summer, in a desperate last-minute move, I went around the pool with some putty meant to stop leaks in fiberglass pools, boats, tubs, etc. and to my surprise, it worked. We have literally been looking into removing the pool and either just living without one or starting from scratch and installing a new one. After looking into it and realizing it would cost of at least $75,000 and probably closer to $100,000, we decided maybe we didn't need a pool that badly. It is really disappointing to me, at one point we had it all, RV, boat, pool, hot tub, and now I am struggling to keep this stupid pool that just seems to leak and there wasn't much to do about it.
My thought was that the leak was in the plumbing, when the water would come down, it always seemed to stop around the height where the water inlets and the skimmer box are located. Logically, it would seem that the leak would then be at those places, that is where PVC tubing is cut into the fiberglass, it makes sense. After plugging all those points of contact, and I did at the start of spring, it was still leaking. I had noticed the small spider vein cracks on the fiberglass, but I assumed they were just cosmetic, if they were leaking, the water should go all the way to the bottom because those spider vein cracks are all over. Right when I was getting ready to throw in the towel, I decided I would patch up the larger cracks at the water line where it always stops, almost in line with the water inlets. This worked, it was great, from last October thru the winter and even as far as May, the pool was holding water all the way up to the top, and I did overfill it once and the water seemed to stay in it. Until the actual swimming season began.
Like Lucy waiting for Charlie Brown to kick the ball, once it was warm enough to actually go and enjoy the pool, it started leaking again, and as of yesterday, the pool was about half full. Again, the Mijo rarely shows any interest in using it, so I am never in the mindset that it must be fixed. Still, Wife and I were talking about it, and yesterday she inspired me to go out and try to patch it up once again, maybe we can get a couple months of usage, if I happen to patch the right spots.
I went and bought three new packs of the putty, it is meant for this job, and I have used it for years, so I know it works. The little packs are about $7, I ended up using two last night, and I bought an extra one, just in case. At this point, I have been filling the pool overnight, it is around 8:00am and it still needs another few hours of filling to get it where it needs to be, then we can determine if my patches worked. If anything, we could at least use it for the day.
No comments:
Post a Comment