Where your pool is actually losing water

Your water level dropped three inches this week. That alone doesn't mean a leak. Gulf Coast summers push evaporation past a quarter inch a day on a hot, windy afternoon, and a full sun deck in Clute or Freeport loses more than a shaded pool tucked under oaks in Lake Jackson Farms. A drop of an inch or more in 24 hours with the pump off, repeated over two or three days, is a different story. That's when we test instead of guess.

We built this business around one idea: tell the homeowner exactly where the water is going, in writing, before any repair gets sold. No repair gets recommended without a pressure reading, a dye reaction, or both pointing at the same spot.

The two tests, in order

Most pools that "just lose water" are doing one of two things: pushing pressurized water out through a plumbing joint, or letting still water seep through a crack in the shell, skimmer throat, or light niche. Pressure testing finds the first. Dye testing finds the second. Running only one is how a lot of leaks get missed, and how homeowners end up paying twice.

1. Intake and history

   We ask how fast the water is dropping, when it started, whether the pump schedule changed, and whether any equipment or plumbing was touched recently. Fifteen minutes on the phone narrows the search before we ever drive out.

2. Bucket comparison

   A marked bucket sits in the pool, filled to the pool's own water line. Over a measured period, we compare the drop inside the bucket (pure evaporation) to the drop in the pool. The difference is your leak rate.

3. Pressure test, line by line

   Test plugs isolate the skimmer line, main drain, each return, and the cleaner line one at a time. A gauge on each line shows whether it holds pressure or drops. This is how we find a leak that's buried and invisible from the deck.

4. Dye test at suspect points

   Skimmer throat, light niche, steps, tile line, return fittings, and any hairline crack we can see. A slow stream of dye pulled sideways into a crack confirms the shell is the source, not the plumbing.

5. Dive inspection, if the shell calls for it

   When pressure and dye point to the floor or a deep-end wall, we get in the water and inspect directly, checking the deep-end break and step bonds where clay movement stresses gunite hardest.

6. Written report, same day

   Marked photos, the exact location, and a repair price before you're asked to book anything. You keep the report whether you hire us for the fix or not.

What makes a leak hard to find?

Some diagnostics take twenty minutes. Others take longer, and it's worth knowing why before you call.

• Two leaks at once. A plumbing joint and a shell hairline running together read as one bigger number and can send a first pass in the wrong direction.
• Root intrusion. Mature pecan and live oak trees on older Lake Jackson Farms and Bailey's Prairie lots push on buried PVC over decades, cracking a fitting slowly instead of all at once.
• Intermittent shell cracks. Brazoria County's expansive clay swells when it's wet and pulls back when it dries, so a hairline crack can seal itself shut for a week after heavy rain and open back up in a dry spell. Testing during the wrong week can look clean.
• Unpermitted re-plumbing. Equipment pads get swapped or moved without an as-built diagram, so a line runs somewhere the last owner never mentioned.
• Hydrostatic push. A high water table can press up under an empty or very low pool hard enough to pop tile or crack plaster from the outside in, which looks like a leak but isn't one in the usual sense.
• Old patch layers. Gunite shells from the 1960s through 1980s often carry two or three cosmetic patches stacked over the real structural gap, which have to be worked through, not around.

Call before you drain anything

Draining a pool to look for a crack is usually the wrong first move. An empty gunite shell in high-water-table soil can float or crack under hydrostatic pressure within hours, and a drained vinyl or fiberglass shell can shift out of its bed entirely. Pressure and dye testing find most leaks with the water still in the pool. If a dive is genuinely required, we tell you exactly why before it happens.

Common questions