The Leaking Pool – Part 2 – Fixing the Leaks

Having found that the autofill was leaking how to fix them was the next problem for Mr. Fixit.
To describe how the leaks occurred and how they were fixed needs a description of the autofill, so here goes. Consider the autofill to be a bucket with a controlling ball cock, not unlike a toilet tank. The water comes in at the top and goes out at the bottom through sealed entrance and exit and the water controlled by a floating ball cock that keeps the water level in the autofill and pool exact.
The leak on the pool side had been caused by a piece of concrete being lodged in egress pipe. This had been noticed by the installers but instead of getting it out they drilled another hole through the top of the pipe, unfortunately, they also drove it through the bottom. However, it only leaked a little, hardly noticeable in the overall evaporation that takes place in hot weather.
On the inlet side, they had not allowed for any movement of the soil and had only just by a couple of turns joined the inlet pipe to the autofill. so over a couple of years the soil around the pool moved causing the inlet pipe to leak more and more and this leak causing more erosion until it the outlet pipe started leaking more and more. Now as this was under water this caused the pool to leak but then it auto filled causing more erosion and more leakage. Only when we stopped auto filling did the cycle stop.

To correct the poolside leak Mr Fixit removed the blockage and inserted another smaller pipe in the hole. He then created a false bottom in the autofill tank and pushed the pipe through. Finally he sealed the false bottom and the pipe to make them watertight.

This was the connection through the autofill tank.
A further L shaped connection at the left hand end went into the pipe in the concrete.


The Inlet leak was fixed by taking out a tile at the side of the pool and excavating through the concrete until all the pipe was exposed. Then by taking all the individual bits off he found that there was not enough of one of the connecting pipes connecting to another pipe. He refurbished what he could, bought some parts and an extension. Over one or two hours he carefully fitted everything back together and ensured a watertight fit. It was nearly over.
The addition of an extension caused a problem, the ball cock float did not fit, but cutting a piece off (it was made of polystyrene) he mad it fit. This, however, caused the ball cock to not float correctly. He found another piece of (polystyrene) and fitted this and hey Presto it all worked. Replacing all the excavated concrete with sand and a broken tile and the job was a good ‘un.
From this point it just need filling in.

Thanks Mr. Fixit.