Finally Success!!! wingless' Repaired Underground Pool Plumbing Leak

[wingless]

The pool in my south Florida home developed an underground plumbing leak on the skimmer return line.

 

The normal repair for that problem is to smash the patio tile around the skimmer, break the concrete and dig down to expose then repair the problem.

 

The issue preventing me from implementing that repair method is I have zero matching patio tiles and none similar exist in the local stores.

 

The repair method I selected instead is to dig down in the nearby flower bed, then tunnel under the concrete patio, until the skimmer was reached for access.

 

The BIG problem w/ that method is that EVERY BIT of sandy soil in southern Florida is a congested mass of crisscrossing roots. I needed to yank, cut, saw over the entire tunnel to clear out the path.

 

My screen box was used to sift out the rocks and roots so that the replacement soil could be packed back into place. I filled trash barrels w/ the sifted soil. I ended up w/ 150 gallons of soil!

 

The problem was caused by soil settling and the skimmer / patio not budging. The 90° fitting was cracked where the sinking plumbing attempted to increase the angle.

 

Normal Schedule 40 plumbing fittings and pipe were used to correct the leak, after cutting off the broken parts.

 

Now my pool holds the water level and the automatic pool vacuum "robot" is again chug chugging along, keeping my pool nice and clean.