phone call from pool service friend today," Jimmy looking @ gunite pool on sunday and the customers light niche is rotted out, how do i replace it with a plastic niche and not drain the water?"
i told him diving was no problem but, sizing and sealing were important issues and, what about the conduit and the ground (inspection purposes).
i've never replaced a niche alone (always in remodels) so i told him i would ask the forum what they thought.
my thoughts were injection and hot patch for the niche installation and maybe a sleeve for the conduit.
any suggestions?
thanks

Here in Arizona when a stainless niche is installed in new construction, we are required to bond to pool cage from back of niche and use brass conduit. I've replace niches also during remodel, it's a headache and a half day of jackhammering. I can't even imagine doing it with pool full.
Lots of posts here indicate customer doesn't want pool drained. We have plenty of 100 degree plus days in summer and draining a plaster pool during that time almost certainly means delamination of plaster so we have to do some repairs with full pool.
I wouldn't even think twice about doing this one with full pool.

wolfe, thanks for the reply.
talked to my buddy after looking at the job (on google earth) and he had no idea of what he was getting into. this pool is surrounded by the house on three sides, all concrete decks flush to the foundation. the pool is laying @ 45 across the courtyard with the deep end towards the fence. GE scales it @ 8-1/2 ft.to the flower beds, 10ft. to the fence.
i told him to talk about fiber optics, and a partial drain for access.
i'll find out more tomorrow.
by the way, i use google earth all the time to preview jobs from the sky. it saves me time on irrigation and utility locates and leak jobs. on july 1 i was called on a job 75 miles away, looked it up while i was talking to the customer on the phone, figured out the most likely location and was only onsite 10 mins. and job done.
this was a school and the maint. head told me that they have spent thousands looking valves. WDBA with them.
thanks

We do have some awsome tools (like google) that make things easier. Of course now everyone has to hear my oldtimer stories about how we had to use a glass tumbler as our mic on jobs and before cell phones we had to find a pay phone that worked (about the 5th one checked)before we could call in for jobs...ah well.

drain the pool and fix it. somethings you just can do underwater. the flow of water will be so tremendous through the light niche hole its something that is better done by draining. dont risk it.

There is a material called "Liquid Metal" I see at Praxair where I stock up for pressure testing. It's similar to two part epoxy for plaster but is supposed to chemically bond to metal. Never used it but might work on a rotted niche and would only have to drain below it. Just a thought, check it out. Good luck.

pooltech, this isn't a repair it's a replacement but thanks for the reply.
talked to my buddy today and he told me that the pool was so green and nasty that he had an urge to get a tetinis shot the following morning.
we have had a ton of calls from people with no money and trouble pools and this was one of them.
as i explained to joel, we could bore and push a 11/2 pipe through to the backside of the niche then drop the level to just below the niche, bore the gunite and make the patch then fill the pool pull the f/o and do the hook up.
2 days 1 inspection but that's mute now.
still interested in any more input
thanks