How Fast Does Your Pool Lose Water?

Continuing with the diagnosis of your pool leak you should start to monitor the rate of water loss in your pool. The rate of water loss is a good indicator for what might be causing the leak. Specifically, if you are able to monitor the rate of water loss closely enough you can begin to make assumptions about the leak. The best way to monitor the rate of water loss in your pool is to mark the water level on the face of the pool skimmer with a pencil. A small tab of electrical tape can also work however the pencil allows for more detailed marks.

What you hope to discover by monitoring your water loss is the possibility that external factors are affecting how much water you are losing. What you might discover is that the pool loses water only on certain days. An example of this could be that swimmers in the pool are causing more splash out than you realized. You would probably only notice this if you were watching and marking the rate of water loss on your skimmer on a daily basis. Another example might be that your filter is leaking water through the backwash line periodically. Basically you are looking for any signs of abnormal rates of water loss. In theory if you have a leak in your pool then you should be losing water at more or less a constant rate. It is important to note that pool leaks can be elusive and you should not put too much emphasis on one specific symptom of the leak. Gather as much information as you can and you will have a much better chance of tracing the leak back to the source.

If you have a suspected leak in your pool then one of the first tests that you should conduct is simply to monitor the rate of water loss for 24 hours as the pool operates normally. The fill the pool back up to the same level that you started at but this time turn off your pump for 24 hours. Does the rate of water loss change depending on whether the pump is on or not? While this is not a definitive answer to the leak location it is certainly a big symptom that you want to take note of. If the rate of water loss in the pool does not change regardless of the pump condition then this would make me lean towards a structural leak in the pool. If the pump being on or off changes the rate of water loss then this is a very strong indicator that you have a leak somewhere in the plumbing system.