The pool project

November 12, 2013

During the summer, we realized our pool was losing more water than it should on a daily basis. We got a leak detection company out to the house, and sure enough, we had leaks in the hot tube and in all the plumbing pipes leading to the pool house. A significant amount of work would be needed to get everything fixed, and the pool would need to be drained for a few weeks to do it. We scheduled the repairs to be done mid-October. Then the night before LJ's birthday (and thankfully after his party on the 12th), Austin got a huge rainstorm. Our house got around 12 inches of rain in under 10 hours- and our pool looked more like a swamp when it was over :(

It seems all the dirt from the hill just washed right into our pool. There is a drain in the area below that was clogged by leaves and dirt, but as soon as we move them, it drains within 2 minutes! We now know that several other drains have been covered with dirt, and this is the cause of all the flooding.

While this was pretty upsetting to see, the timing worked out well because we had already planned to drain our pool the following week for repairs (and it would have had to be drained to be cleaned with the amount of dirt in it- which would have been very expensive!). So one week later, Austin Pro Leak got the pool drain, a little cleaned up, and started working on repairs.

Unfortunately, less than 2 weeks into repairs, we had another huge rainstorm! The pool went from empy to almost half full again! The picture below was taken about 1.5 days after the storm- a lot of the water had drained out and so much dirt remained behind!

I took several pictures of their mid-way progress... they pulled down all the plaster in the hot tub and re-did all the plumbing. Then they had to re-plaster the hot tub (which would probably have been needed in a few years anyway - as will the pool still).

They also repaired cracks in the spill way of the spa, re-grouted the spa, installed all new plumbing lines to the pool, and reinforced the waterfall by securing the rocks (afraid of dogs and children walking across these in years to come and want them to be safe!). We know the pool will likely need to be re-plastered within about 5 years, but hopefully we will not have any other problems for a long time!!!

Two and a half weeks after the company started their repairs (and after a heavy duty cleaning/ restaining), they were just about finished and able to start filling the pool back up with water. I could not believe how long this took... probably about 60+ hours of water running into it to get it full!! I do not want to see our water bill this month!!

The only thing we still have to figure out is how we are going to finish the decking around the pool. Since it is composed of stamped concrete, we are not able to match the stamp very well where they cut in to replace the pipes. I think we will just get the company to do textured concrete around, and then if we want, we can change it in the future.