Finished DIY gunite pool, problems?

[y0manda]

I finished filling my pool after 36 hours yesterday. when I got home from work my wife said she turned off the hose that was filling up the spa because it was overflowing. That was probably an hour before I had gotten home, and I noticed the water level in the spa was about 1" - 1 1/2" from even starting to flow over. I kinda put that in the back of my head and just enjoyed the spillways, sheer decents, waterfalls and SAN lights. well anyways. check this out I have a 4' raised spa over the pool and I checked the water level in the spa and it's down to the seats, a good 16". on a 5x9 spa. The water level in the pool seems to be the same as from what I can see. Would this be a problem that Needs to be corrected by the last crew that did the plaster? I noticed that they preped the fittings w/ a white plaster the day before they actually did the plaster, but they didnt do that on the spa.

[imfignewton]

If you ran the spillover into the pool for any length of time the leak in the spa would show up in pool level also. It sounds like a defective or missing check valve between the spa and pool. Another common leak on a spa would also be thru the light conduit but I would first see if its a check valve problem.

[y0manda]

thanks for your responce! I called my pool plumber this morning and he said possibly the same thing about a check valve. but what Is kinda concerning me right now is that when i filled up the spa with the filter pump the spa only filled up right below the tilem not directly beneith the spillover, thats because the water level of the pool is under the skimmer so it wont suck anymore water back into the spa. I do have a overfill drain on the pool so I am hoping that when the water from the spa went into the pool the pool overfilled and drained into the overfill. I turned on the auto fill to fill the pool back to the middle of the tile once its filled I will turn it off so that I can keep my eye on the water level again. BTW here is a picture

[y0manda]

OK I found the leak in my spa this morning when I woke up and noticed that the spa had drained again and the level of the pool was about 1/8" lower than where I had marked it last night before going to bed. so 8 or so hours later the spa had drained to the seats again and the pool 1/8" lower. The temperature here at night probably stayed in the mid 60's and the water temp in the low 80's. I drained the spa into the pool and removed the drain/pump covers and on one of them There was a nice gap between the two pipes where it wasnt filled in with plaster after inspecting the light nitch and the other drain/pump cover this one that had the gap between the two pipes really stuck out so I filled the spa just above the gap and was watching for any debri getting sucked into that crack. I didnt have any food coloring so I used Red gatorade (which didnt work) ran back and kept watching and then I saw some small debre getting sucked right into that crack between the two pipes. So today I am going to call the plaster guy and let him Know what is going on. Is there anything I should expect to hear from him or what he SHOULD do about this problem. I don't want him to mickey mouse something and say it's fixed. What should I make sure he does to fix this problem the correct way. Also should I now be concerned about the other fittings they way they plastered around them in the pool hence they opened the door to this type of problem? Thanks for any replies!

[imfignewton]

You need to check all the fittings in the spa and pool. Chances are very good that the other fitting will need to be water proofed.

1)chip around the fittings or pipe coming thru the concrete.
2)fill any large voids with hydraulic cement(Water Stop at HD)
3)caulk around were pipe comes thru the concrete, Vulkem 116(or similar)
4)finish by putting another coat of hydraulic cement level with pipe end

When chipping out around the pipes you do not need to remove a lot (1/2")
When you caulk(step 3) make sure concrete and pipe are dry.
Let the caulk sit for a few hours before putting on the hydraulic cement.
You do not need to put more plaster on a patch that will not be seen.

[y0manda]

thats exactly what I was thinking, A polyurathane caulk around the tip of the pipe where the plaster ends. Except I didnt really want to "void" my warranty or whatever those subs call it. so I left it be and they came out!. They found the leak with a syringe and food coloring, And fixed it with A+B putty epoxy. They guy that came over to fix it accidently left a whole package of the stuff behind. So I tried the putty on an old brick and about an hour or so later the stuff is hard and almost impossible to pick off the brick. It's been about 10 hours since the job and still the same water level. BTW that epoxy cures underwater, and on the lable of the stuff it's accually designed for pool leaks sticks to concrete, metal, pvc, wood, so just about anything. Great stuff.

[BADBRAD]

I used a+b putty on my ag pool skimmer that had cracks.That stuff is worth its weight in gold.