It's natural for any pool to lose a little bit of water due to splashing or evaporation, but sometimes it loses a lot more than you’d expect. The issue is that there is a hole. It is easy to fix a hole in your pool. The difficult part can be finding where this hole is.
There are a couple of methods to help you find a hole in your pool. This article will go through the methods that you can do to find the hole in your pool and possible ways to fix them.
Check Your Equipment
The first thing you need to check is the equipment of your pool. Look at your filter, pump, heater and pipe valves.
Also check the ground around your pool. Look for wet areas such as wet soil or sunken and eroding areas. Look over everything for tears or separations around all your fittings, skimmers, lights and corners. If everything looks ok, then you will know that the hole is in the pool itself. However it is also important to check your equipment to make sure.
Confirming A Leak
If you think that your pool is leaking then, mark the level of your pool water with some form of marker. This could be a piece of tape or a grease pencil. Mark the pool water level and come back in 24 hours to see the water level.
Your pool can lose 0.6cm or ¼ inches of water a day. If your water level has dropped any more than this then you know that there is a leak somewhere.
How To Find Where The Leak Is
Method One
Once you have confirmed that there is a leak somewhere in your pool, you need to find where it is. First thing you need to do is turn the filtration system off and notice where the water stops dropping.
However if you have a liner pool and the water is dropping readily. You need to stop this test by adding water immediately. You then need to proceed by calling a pool professional to sort out what is wrong.
Skimmer Or Filtration System
If your water stops at the bottom of the skimmer opening, then the leak is mostly likely in the skimmer.
However it could also mean that the leak is in the filtration system. If you think the leak is in the filtration system, you need to check if you can see any air bubbles in the water, in the return line when you turn the pump back on. If there are air bubbles, then the hole is in the suction side of the filtration system.
Light
If your water stops at the light, then the leak is near the light housing.
Drain
If your water goes below your light then there may be a hole/leak at the bottom of the pool by the drain.
If you suspect a leak in any of these areas, then you should look for something that may look like a gap, crack or tear. You might have to physically get in the pool to get a closer look.
Method Two
If you have an idea of where your hole might be then turn your pump off and wait until your water is still. You can also do this after doing method one, to find out where the hole is exactly, if you can’t see it straight away.
After that put a couple of drops of dye test solution on the pH indicator. Then all you need to do is watch to see if the dye is sucked into a hole, gap or tear in your pool.
Method Three
Both methods should help you find where your hole might be that is causing your pool to lose water. However if you struggle to find where your hole in your pool is, that might be a sign that you need to call out a pool professional. As they have technology that can accurately find holes that we can’t see.
Fixing Holes In Your Pool
Most holes, tears and gaps in your pool can be easily fixed. How you treat your hole depends on where it is in your pool and the type of pool that you have.
If you have a hole in your skimmer, this can be easily fixed with pool putty. It is quite common for the plastic skimmer and pool to separate, but it is one of the easiest holes to fix.
If you have a linear leak, you can fix the hole by using a vinyl liner patch kit. If the hole is underwater then you just need to use a wet patch kit.
However not all holes are so easy to fix. If there is a hole in a pipe or drain then you may need new parts. You could try to fix it yourself but you should be careful as you don’t want to ruin your pool by doing the wrong thing and causing more issues.
Conclusion
As long as you carefully look over every inch of your pool, you should hopefully be able to find the hole and problem. Also you should check your equipment and then look over your pool itself.
Turning off your pump and seeing to what level your pool water goes to, is a good indicator at where a hole may be. Then to make sure, you can add food coloring or dye to the area, to see if the water gets sucked up.
Small holes are quite simple to fix by using a patch kit. Just remember if you are fixing a hole that will have water on it, then you need to make sure that your patch kit is waterproof. Although, if you are struggling to find where the hole is or how to fix it then it is best to call a professional.
A professional has advanced tools to properly make sure where the hole is and can make sure the hole will be fixed properly, so it doesn't happen again.
