How To Fix A Leaking Pool Light
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This article is intended for owners of swimming pool that have lights installed. Specifically I am talking about larger style pool and spa lights which have a niche installed into the pool wall. You can not see the niche if you have an inground pool. You would only see the light itself. Most full size pool lights use a niche, so that will be most of the existing pools and pretty much all of the older ones. New swimming pool installations are commonly using accent lights / pencil lights / nicheless lights which install into a regular PVC pipe just like a pool return. These do not have a niche, and are not the type of lights this article is aimed at. I mean, those lights have their share of leaking problems as well, to be sure, but this article is going to show you a repair that you can, and probably should do, if you have a large, niche style light in your pool.
The repair in this article will not involve any troubleshooting of electrical issues or involve touching the electrical connections for the light in any way. Still, if you are going to touch the light at all then you need to realize the risk is not zero. Who knows what the last person has done working on this light. There could be all sorts of dangers like underwater spliced wires in this light niche. There should not be, but who knows? Until you get in there you simply can not know. Which means, in order to remove the light from the niche you will need to understand the risk, and know how to turn off your pool light at the breaker. This is entirely as an added precaution, since again there will be no actual repairs happening with wires or connections. But if were are going to remove the light from the niche, you have to be prepared for everything so if you do not understand electricity or how to work with it, you should have someone experienced assist you with this repair. Turn off the pool light circuit and let's proceed.
Where is the pool light leaking? - It could be you have a different problem with your pool. It could be almost anything really...but in a great deal of cases where a pool light is leaking the leak will be somewhere in the electrical conduit which feeds the wire to the niche. The conduit might be PVC or older ones my be EMT or even aluminum, but in any case you have to assume water is filling up the conduit. It should not. Water should not be in the electrical conduit that feeds the light, because if there was water in there it would be stagnant and impossible to winterize against freeze damage. Most lights for swimming pools will come with a grommet that is supposed to be installed where the pool wire exits the inside of the niche. This rubber grommet with a hole in the middle for the light wire allows the light wire to leave the niche and run into the conduit feeding the light, without allowing water to openly access this same pathway. The only problem is that grommet needs to be installed when the light is installed, or you have to disassemble the connection, pull the wires...it is a whole can of worms best left avoided. There is an aftermarket product which is essentially the same thing, a tapered rubber grommet with a hole in the middle, but the grommet is two pieces instead of one piece, allowing for placement around an existing light wire without disconnecting anything. Here is an example of one of these split ring grommets: split rubber pool light grommet.
The pool light repair - As you can see with the rubber grommet above it is sized to the port size on the light niche, 3/4" and 1" commonly, but also sized to the wire passing through it, not to mention also containing a second hole for the separate grounding wire that some lights will have. With all these different configurations you might wonder how you are going to sort this out for your pool light...you probably do not know the answer to any of those questions unless you have removed the light from the niche and closely inspected the situation. This is why I recommend to existing pool owners with niche style lights to pick up some butyl tape. This product is perfect for wrapping around your pool light cord, right by where it exits the niche, and then jam the butyl tape around the light cord into the hole in the niche to seal against water escaping. Ideally you might be able to pull one inch or more of light cord out from the niche, wrap the butyl tape a bunch of times, and then stuff back into the conduit hole. The tape will not harden, and can be removed in the future. This is a very important feature of this repair. Never do something like repair epoxy which permanently prevents the light cord from being replaced. This simple trick with butyl tape is the perfect solution to eliminate leaks in any electrical conduit connected to your pool light. The repair will essentially last permanently, but without actually being a permanent repair. If you ever need to remove the butyl tape to service the light this should not be a problem. Just be sure to wrap enough tape around the light cord to completely seal the conduit hole.
So many pools leak in this way it is hardly even worth the time to investigate if yours might be with (difficult to see) dye testing. You are better off to just purchase the butyl tape and make the repair. If your pool light cord exits the niche without any sort of stopper, grommet or water stop, the chances are pretty high that you have a leak somewhere in the conduit that feeds your pool light. If you do not have one now, the chances are high you will develop one some day. So solve this problem in advance for a few dollars and a few minutes of work.
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Swimming Pool Steve is an award winning, second generation swimming pool and spa specialist from Ontario Canada. With over 10,000,000 views on the Swimming Pool Steve YouTube Channel, winner of the 2018 Pool & Spa Industry Leadership award and author of hundreds of pool and spa articles both online and in print Steve is committed to helping pool and spa owners as well as pool and spa industry workers learn more about the technical side of building, renovating, repairing and maintaining all types of swimming pools and spas. Follow Swimming Pool Steve on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
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