My swamp cooler finally stopped leaking after 3 weekends of chasing the wrong part
Our swamp cooler started dripping down the side of the house back in May, and I figured it was just the pad. I replaced the pads, checked the water line, even resealed the pan, and it still leaked every time the pump kicked on. Turns out the real problem was a hairline crack in the overflow fitting near the bottom, which I only found after filling the pan with a garden hose on the third Saturday and watching water seep out the back. A $6 fitting from a shop on Central fixed what 3 weekends of guessing could not. Has anyone else had one of those cracks hide in plain sight, and how did you finally spot it?
Spent a whole Sunday last summer convinced my leak was the water line, so I wrapped it in tape like some kind of plumbing genius and called it fixed. It kept dripping, of course, because the crack was hiding in the overflow fitting just like yours. What finally gave it away was leaving the pump off and filling the pan by hand, then watching a tiny wet line crawl out from a spot I had stared at ten times already. A five dollar part and five minutes of work beat two weekends of me playing detective. Those hairline cracks are sneaky because they only show up when water sits still long enough to find them.