new setup drained on second day, why, now what?

[michaelm40]

So its my first time setting up. I got my liner in on Sunday and added 4 inches of water, and I just left the excess liner hang over the boards.
Ice was forming Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. I still had 4 inch depth of water on Tuesday night.
Wednesday morning I awoke to find no water left and about 1.5 inch thick slab of ice in the rink laying on the bottom of the liner.
The yard in the one corner is drenched, I'm assuming this is where the water ran when it drained.
I broke up the ice in that corner and can't find a hole anywhere in that corner or along the wall boards.
My guess is there must be a puncture somewhere under the ice for it to drain that quick, why after two days is odd.
We are expected to have high/lows of 30/7, 15/8, 36/23, 38/22, and 23 / -8 over the next 5 days with 4 - 7 inches of snow.
I was thinking about trying to fill it again tonight right over the ice and snow and hoping it plugs.
Any thoughts?
Mentally I just can't get past removing all the snow and ice and looking for a hole. seems like ten steps back.

[Joe]

Ugh, sorry to hear. Probably the worst of situations...a leak after ice has formed and cold weather is coming.

Any chance you can source a new liner quickly? Local lumber yards or Home Depots often have 40x100 sheets of clear 6mil plastic, you'd only need a third of that. If I were you, and if that much water drained out, I'd get the old liner out of there and start over.

Your alternative is, as you said, to try to find it. Some have used food dye, but you'd need to add water to give the dye something to float around in. Apparently the dye makes its way to the hole, but I've never once done this so I'm not sure how well it works. And even if you found it, you'd need a suitable patch (Nicerink patch tape or E6000 works best). I wonder if maybe an animal (deer?) walked through your rink or something. I agree that it's odd for it to hold water for two days and then drain.

[michaelm40]

Hi Joe. Thanks
Deer walk through my yard all the time but I would of expected the ice to be broken if one of those buggers got in there. It's like a gopher got me :(
It's bizarre I had a solid 16X24 slab of ice lying on the bottom of the plastic liner. There was some water under it 1/4 or 1/2 inch or so but not much.
I even took all the cardboard left over from xmas and used it to wrap the edge of the board where it meets the ground to try and prevent the liner from pinching under. I don't see any rips along the edges.
I bought a 35 X 55 liner so I could go bigger next year. I could cut it or go get a 20 X 100 at lowes. Doesn't leave me much room to overhang but enough I suppose.
Would it make any sense to lay the new liner right over the current slab of ice?

[soupy01833]

If you flood over the top the water will just find it's way to the bottom and leak out the hole. That is probably not an option. I have heard others just place a liner over the slab and fill. That is an option..

One more thing is to create an ice wall all around the perimeter with slush. This will freeze and let the water stay on top.

[Joe]

The benefit of having the water find its way underneath but then drain out is that if you do the food coloring trick, you may be able to find your hole and repair it. I'd be hesitant about putting a new liner down and filling on top of old ice, because once that ice melts your new liner will drop (during a warm spell, perhaps). If your liner snags anywhere on the boards as it drops, it may rip. If you're going to do this, I'd suggest destroying and removing all the current ice (and the liner) and starting over on grass.