Is My Pool Leaking?
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If you want to know if your pool has a leak the short answer is yeah, probably. Pool leaks are actually pretty common for a variety of different reasons and the ramifications of long term leak damage is very significant. This is why it is so important to be able to answer the simple question "is my pool leaking?" and the surprising truth of the matter is that the vast majority of swimming pool owners can not answer that. We are going to change that right now. It is easy to know whether your pool is leaking or not. You can do it yourself and you do not need any special equipment or tools to do it. Best of all, the answer you get will be absolute. Black and white your pool is leaking or it is not. Enjoy this because seldom will you get such straight forward answers when dealing with swimming pools. This is one of the few rare times you do.
Evaporation in swimming pools will change from pool to pool, and also from season to season. The temperature that you keep your pool water also has a lot to do with your rates of water loss from evaporation in addition to whether you cover the pool at night or not with either a solar blanket or automatic safety cover. Even the liquid solar blanket products used regularly would make quite a difference to your rates of water loss from evaporation. In order to know whether your pool is leaking or not, definitively, is to measure evaporation and compare it to the water loss in your pool. If your pool loses more water than evaporation then you know, with certainty, that your pool is leaking. At that point there are a few more easy tests you can conduct to learn more about how much water is leaking and where the leak is located but let's start with the very first step you need to take.
How much water should my pool lose to evaporation? - This is actually a very complex question which would be extremely hard to answer since every swimming pool is unique. Instead of trying to answer such a difficult question you are better to lean how to measure the difference between evaporation and unexplained water loss in your pool. Measuring this is very easy and extremely accurate, and removes all of the challenges associated with how each pool is unique. Nobody can realistically tell you how much your pool evaporation should be. This is why you have to measure it yourself using the bucket test.
Pool evaporation "bucket test" involves setting a bucket or open top container on a ledge or step in your pool such that the bucket is partially submerged in the water. You can weigh it down with something heavy in the bottom like a smooth rock. Fill the bucket with pool water until both the bucket and the pool have precisely the same water level. It is best to do this when the water in the pool is calm and still to get the right water level as accurately as you can. I also like to mark the water level on the face of the skimmer with pencil or a piece of electrical tape so that it is easy to measure how much water is lost in 24 hours. Let the bucket sit in the pool overnight, up to 24 hours and note the water level in the pool versus the water level in the bucket. If the pool water level is the same as the bucket there is no leak in the pool. If the pool water level is lower than the bucket there is a leak in the pool and more diagnostic steps are required.
How much water is normal to lose in a swimming pool? - It is not normal to lose any water in a swimming pool once you have accounted for and removed evaporation from the equation. If the pool water level went down faster than the bucket water level this means the pool is leaking and you should take more steps to find it. There is more you can do on your own but at some point it might be a good idea to bring in a pool leak detection specialist. I like to endorse leak detection companies that only do leak detection. Every pool company says they do pool leak detection but in my experience this is rarely true. A real leak specialist is certainly the call to make when you know your pool is leaking water. One inch of water loss in a 20x40' swimming pool is equal to 500 gallons of water, so you can easily see why losing even a few inches of water (extra) per week is a really bad thing for both your water bill and the health of your swimming pool. In an ideal situation where a swimming pool has no leaks the water loss in the pool should match exactly that of the rates of evaporation, as measured by the bucket test.
If you have concluded that your pool is in fact leaking water somewhere the next step would be to refill the pool and redo the bucket test. In the initial test the pump is (presumably) running the entire time the bucket test is happening. You were able to measure the water loss totals from the marks on the skimmer. So this time you are going to test the evaporation in the pool but this time with the pump off the entire time. How much water is lost over 24 hours now? If the rate of water loss changes when you repeat the test with the pump off this indicates that the origin of the leak is likely within the plumbing system of the pool. If the rate of water loss is the exact same over 24 hours with or without the pump running this means that likely the leak is located within the structure of the swimming pool somewhere. Even this small amount of information is extremely helpful in diagnosing pool leaks and knowing where to focus your efforts in locating the leak location whether you continue on your own or decide to bring in a professional at this point to take the next steps for you. If you want to try to find the leak in your pool on your own then you can read this more detailed pool leak detection guide.
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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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