Skimmer & Throat
The joint where the skimmer box meets the shell is the single most common find, because two materials are moving against each other every season.
Home / Pool Leak Detection
Pool leak detection in Alberton should start with a bucket and 24 hours, not with a quote. Highveld air takes a serious amount of water off an open pool, and the bucket test separates that from a real leak for free. Once we know the loss is genuine, we pressure-test each line and dye-test the fittings so one spot comes up rather than the whole surround.
Run the bucket test first if you can, and tell us the result. Knowing whether it loses more with the pump on or off narrows the search before we even arrive.
Fittings first, pipework second, shell last. That is the order things actually fail in, and it is the order we look in.
The joint where the skimmer box meets the shell is the single most common find, because two materials are moving against each other every season.
The conduit behind a pool light is a straight path out of the pool, and a leak there gives no surface sign at all.
Each line isolated and pressure-tested separately, so we know which one is losing before anything is opened up.
Weeping unions, perished seals and a pump drawing air. Air in the basket is a suction-side leak and it is often the easiest one to put right.
Tested along with everything else, because a slow loss at the deepest point looks exactly like evaporation and never shows on the surface.
Marked on the ground and agreed with you before any paving comes up, because reinstating it usually costs more than the repair.
A pool on the Highveld loses a genuinely surprising amount of water to the air. Altitude, dry winter conditions, strong sun and open exposure all push evaporation up, and a pool with no cover and no shade will drop visibly over a week in perfectly good working order. So the first question is not where the leak is. It is whether there is one.
The bucket test answers that properly, because it compares your pool against a control standing in the same weather. Put a bucket on the top step and fill it with pool water until the level inside matches the level outside. Mark both, on the bucket and on the pool. Switch the pump off, and then leave it alone for a full 24 hours with nobody swimming and nobody topping up. Come back and compare the two marks.
If the pool and the bucket have dropped by the same amount, that is evaporation and your pool is sound. If the pool has dropped further, the difference between the two is your leak, and you now know it is real and roughly how fast. That is a genuinely useful number to start from, and getting it costs you a bucket and a day.
Then run it once more with the pump on, because that comparison points us at half the system before we arrive. A bigger loss with the motor running points at the return lines and their fittings, because nothing in that half of the system carries pressure until the pump is turning. Losing more with the pump off points at the suction side or the shell, where the pool's own water head drives the loss. Roughly equal either way usually means a fitting or the shell rather than the pipework.
What happens when we arrive: each line gets isolated and pressure-tested on its own, the fittings get dye-tested with the water still, and the light niche, skimmer throat and main drain surround get looked at specifically because that is where pools actually fail. The leak gets marked on the ground and agreed with you before anything is lifted. In a garden where the paving is the expensive part, locating properly is not a luxury, it is the whole saving.
24 hours and a bucket. It either saves you a call-out or makes the one you book far more efficient.
Prove it, narrow it, mark it, then open one spot.
We will talk you through the bucket test rather than sell you a detection you may not need.
Each circuit isolated and pressure-held on its own, so we know which one is losing.
One spot agreed with you, because reinstating paving costs more than the plumbing.
Shell and marbelite work is a specialist pool trade. We say so instead of having a go.
Evaporation, the bucket test, and where pools actually leak.
The detection is a fixed price quoted before we arrive, and repairs are quoted separately once we know what is leaking. Before you spend anything, run the bucket test described on this page, because it takes 24 hours, costs nothing and settles whether you have a leak at all. A surprising share of the pools we are called to are losing water to the Highveld air rather than to a fault, and we would rather tell you that for free than charge you to discover it.
More than most people expect, and Highveld conditions push it up: an open pool in dry, sunny, breezy weather at this altitude loses noticeably more than the same pool at the coast. The number varies too much with weather, wind exposure, shading and whether the pool is covered for us to publish a figure we could defend. That is exactly why the bucket test exists. It compares your pool against a control sitting in the same weather, which is the only honest comparison.
Stand a bucket on the top step of the pool and fill it with pool water so the level inside the bucket matches the level outside it. Mark both levels. Switch the pump off and leave everything alone for 24 hours, with no swimming and no topping up. Then compare. If both levels dropped by the same amount, that is evaporation and your pool is fine. Where the pool has fallen further than the bucket, that gap is the leak, measured rather than suspected.
That question narrows the search enormously, so run the test both ways. Losing more while the motor runs implicates the pressure half of the system, meaning the return lines and the fittings on them, since none of that is pressurised until the pump starts. Losing more with the pump off points to the suction side or to the shell itself, which is when the pool's own water head is doing the work. Equal either way usually means the shell or the fittings rather than the pipework.
Fittings before pipes, in most cases. The light niche, the skimmer throat where it meets the shell, the return eyeballs and the main drain surround are the usual finds, because those are joints between different materials that expand and contract at different rates through a Highveld summer and winter. After that, the buried pipework between the pool and the plant, particularly at the fittings rather than along the runs. Cracks in the shell itself are the least common of the three.
Only where the leak actually is, and only once we have located it. The point of pressure-testing each line separately is to establish which one is losing and roughly where, so the break-out is one spot rather than a trench following the pipework on a guess. Reinstating paving usually costs more than the plumbing does, which is the main reason we would rather spend the time locating than digging.
Quickly, and on two bills at once. You are paying for the water you top up, and you are paying for the chemicals you keep adding to water that then leaves. In a metro that manages demand with pressure reduction and reservoir throttling, a pool quietly consuming municipal water around the clock is also the kind of thing worth fixing on principle. If the loss is significant it is also worth checking the meter, because a pool leak and a household supply leak can look identical on a bill.
We repair the plumbing side: return and suction lines, skimmer and main drain connections, light niche conduits and the fittings where they meet the shell. Structural repairs to a concrete or fibreglass shell, and re-marbelite work, are specialist pool trades and we will tell you when that is what you need rather than attempting it. Either way you get the location and the diagnosis, which is what you need to get that work quoted.
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Pool losing water in Alberton? Send your bucket test result through and you will get one fixed figure back for the detection.