The Adventures of an aging Poolboy

[WRT]

Well, it seems some time ago the old man had a bit of a mishap with his spa pool. He'd purchased a plug for the feed going from the pool to the pump, a rubber plug around 2" across and around 1.5" deep, with a nut and bolt arrangement through the middle to tighten it in place. To this day I am still unsure as to how the need arose for the use of this plug, but it was decided one day to attempt to fit this plug into its intended hole.

And this was where the mishap occured. Apparently, the plug should be put in place and tightened while the spa's pump is switch is in the OFF position. This important fact was lost on Dad, and the afforementioned plug was last seen as the suction whisked it from his hands and sent it in a pumpwards direction at around warp 9.

According to Dad, over the next few seconds, as he frantically raced for the pump's off switch, there were a few rattles and a varying amount of suction that would inidicate that it had successfully navigated a couple of the bends in the pipe before becoming lodged in an unknown location somewhere midway between pool and pump.

Now with the pump off, Dad did everything he could think off to dislodge the plug, he's tried poking it out with lengths of wire and hose, and also tried to pressurise the pipe with his water blaster in an attempt to force the plug in either direction. All of these attempts failed. Miserably. Along with his attempt to curse the plug out of hiding.

The pool sat unused and neglected for the next few years, but now that Dad is looking to sell his house the need has arose for something to be done with the now useless spa pool that is occupying prime position in the patio.

There are two basic options, as far as we can see. The first is to try to locate said plug, and extract it (with extreme prejudice). This option is a tricky one, as the exact location of the plug is unknown, other than it being somewhere in the midst of around 10-15m of well buried piping, that runs below coblestones and under a low deck - neither of which will be easy to tear up or gain access to.

The other option is to rip the whole arrangement, pool, pump, pump house, pergola, decking and cobbles out of the ground and replace it with something less, err, "antagonistic". A nice soothing water feature, perhaps. Or perhaps something different, as the association with water (and therefore plumbing) might not go down so well at this point in time.

To add to the problem, Dad is now well into his retirement, and so the available funds for this project are not sufficient to deal with a large scale endeavour.

So here is the part were we ask for help. Is there anyone out there in KB land that can offer some practical advice on how we can go about extracting this plug from it's hiding place? Or should we just give up and rip the whole lot out?

Bear in mind two things - the whole arrangement is so well integrated with it's surroundings that if we have to dig pipes out of the ground to get to this, then we might as well just keep going and rip the whole lot out. The other thing to bear in mind is that he is doing this with the intent to sell the property, and therefore wants the property to be as valuable as possible.

And no, before anyone suggests it, he's not the sort who will just fill the pool back up with water and leave it for the new owner to discover the problem of their own accord.

[BNZ]

Put a filter on the pump intake (if it doesnt have one allready) and turn it on. Worst case scenario you kill it, then you rip it out like you had possibly planned allready.

If your gonna rip it out you might as well start it up and see what happens?

[The_Dover]

have you tried reversing the pump and blowing the sucker out?

[Sniper]

That is incredibly funny, and yet a bugger to think of a fix.

[WRT]

Unfortunately, he's already tried that. The suction isnt quite enough to pull the plug any further. We had thought about trying to reverse the flow of the water to push it back out again, but cant see any way to do this either.

[BNZ]

Unfortunately, he's already tried that. The suction isnt quite enough to pull the plug any further. We had thought about trying to reverse the flow of the water to push it back out again, but cant see any way to do this either.

Swap the pipes where the exit/enter the pump

[The_Dover]

find a solvent that degrades rubber but wont damage the pvc pipe and melt the bastard out.

[WRT]

BNZ - that was our thought as well, but the thing is that its all fixed in place, I guess we could do it by chopping the pipes off where the come into the pump house and then re-plumbing new pipes to the appropriate place tho.

Is there any way that we can reduce the size of the plug? Are there any acid like products that will attack the rubber of the plug without affecting the pvc of the pipes? Although this could be playing with fire, we'd need to make sure it was well rinsed out afterwardst to ensure none of it came in contact with the pump.

I guess we are kind of hoping for the sort of lateral thinking like "let the air out of the tires" when there's a truck wedged under a bridge.

[WRT]

find a solvent that degrades rubber but wont damage the pvc pipe and melt the bastard out.

Nice one, that's just what I was typing up at the same time - anyone know of something along these lines?

[Motu]

BNZ - that was our thought as well, but the thing is that its all fixed in place, .

I can't see how the whole thing could be welded into place....how could the pump be serviced? So remove the pump and reverse the pipes...make adapters etc.Then you can reverse flush.

[The_Dover]

toluene, turps or naptha (use petrol??) should do it. check what the pipes are made of first though and try and keep it away from the pump.

[Disco Dan]

go and purchase another plug, and test it with some houshold solvents and see what will melt it before trying it inside the pipe!

think about what is good for melting rubber!

always try some 'drano' and seal one the end of the pipe, gas it makes may be enough to dislodge it.

Do you have an air compressor? may work also? Would need huge amount of pressure and risk cracking the pipe work..

yeah petrol should melt rubber, but be careful as the petrol will leach into the plastic walls of the piping and you may get residual chemicals show up in the spa water for years to come!

Any way you can thread something all the way through the pipe to the other end, attach something to it then pull like smeg?

[WRT]

Motu - it can be done, the prob is that the pump is mounted in a particular location and orientation, which means a fair bit of replumbing and possibly jury rigging a new frame for the damn thing while we run it to try and push the plug out. Still, its got to be easier than ripping the whole lot out of the ground and relandscaping, thats for sure.

Dover - could work, anyone know of a store where they will be able to tell us what products will melt rubber but not PVC? What's toluene? Is that something you can purchase over the counter?

[WRT]

Any way you can thread something all the way through the pipe to the other end, attach something to it then pull like smeg?

This one could work, maybe float a thin line down there and then gradually work our way up to a thicker rope with a big knot in it maybe . . . good thinking!

Basically, I'm gonna go over there this weekend to give him a hand, if we have a few ideas to try then we can work our way through them and see what what works.

[Bussaman]

This may dislodge it.