San Diego pool leak repair | Finding and fixing the leak

The first step we needed to take with this San Diego pool leak repair was to remove all of the soil around the affected area. This will allow us access to the pipes that lead back to the swimming pool. Again this was a tough pool repair due to the fact that all of the pools plumbing was centered around this small area. As we would reach a new pipe, we would need to be very careful not to damage anything that does not need repair. Removing soil around the affected area is pretty standard.

The tougher aspect is when you are trying to access each pipe and it is surrounded by concrete. The section of pipes that lead directly to the pool skimmer, auto fill and water feature are embedded in roughly 16-24 inches of concrete. This is the shell or structure of the swimming pool. Once we reached this point, we needed to start using a chisel or jack hammer to remove the concrete. With most San Diego pool leak repair projects it is not that common to find so many pipes set in one area. That is why most of these pool leak repairs are much easier to identify and repair.

Once we find where the leak is coming from in the swimming pool, we can make all necessary repairs. This pool leak happened to be around the return plumbing of the water feature. That means that there was a small crack where the pool plaster finish covers the pipes. These water feature pipes are three inches around and the area of pool plaster that was leaking was only about a half an inch wide. That little bit of space between the pool plaster and the pipe caused the swimming pool to lose an inch or more of water each day.What we did with this San Diego pool leak repair was to chip out the existing plaster around the pipes. This allowed us to open up a big enough area so the pool repairs made would make a good bond. Once we had the area exposed, we were able to repair the pool plaster around the pipe. This was done by applying new pool plaster into the hollowed out area and then properly finishing the plaster around the pipe. This helps ensure that the pool leak is stopped and should not leak in the future.

This pool leak was due to the initial installation of the swimming pool plaster. When troweling the area around the pool pipes, they did not pay enough attention to make sure the pool plaster was packed well around the pipes. In turn we needed to remove part of this customers yard and chip out a large section of concrete. This can also happen when the ground settles or even when we have small earth tremors. So, if you notice that you are losing more water than normal, you might have a pool leak. If you believe there is a pool leak, you can test yourself to try and determine what is wrong. First you would turn off the pool equipment and fill the pool to a desired level.  Then you would turn off your pool equipment for a few days to see if you still lose water. Then you would refill to a certain level and run the pool to see how much of a difference there is. That will let you gauge if it is a leak in the pool equipment. Another is to do a bucket test. You would fill up a bucket of water to the same level as the swimming pool water. Leave pool off and see if the pool loses more water than the bucket. If it does your losing water. One last thing that can be done is to have a pressure test performed or to have a pool leak detection performed.