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Rustic PoolsVinyl pool specialists · since 1978, home
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HomeServicesLeak detection

Leak detection

Losing water? We’ll find the hole.

If your in-ground vinyl pool is losing water and you think there’s a hole in the liner, give us a call. We find holes with an electronic leak detector, then patch them.

Leak detection gear on the driveway: the detector case and the clear dome that covers the pool light during a test

First, a free test you can do

Leak or evaporation? Try the bucket test.

Set a five-gallon bucket on the second step and fill it to the pool’s water level (a concrete block inside helps it stay put). Over two or three days the bucket loses water to evaporation, and gains it from rain, at the same rate as the pool.

As long as nobody splashes water out and you don’t backwash, if the pool drops more than the bucket, you have a leak. Enter what you measured:

Pool size (optional, for gallons)

Move the sliders to match what you measured.

How it works

A tiny current, a high-pitched ring

The rod on the end of our telescopic pole sends a small electric current into the water from one end. The current travels through the water until it finds a ground, and a hole in the liner is a ground. The other end of the rod picks it up, and the headset we wear rings at a high pitch.

Screws around the faceplates and steps also go to ground, so the detector rings near them too. Over a hole it rings at a higher pitch, and that’s how we tell the difference.

A top-down pool. A leak detector on a pole sweeps back and forth across the floor; its pitch rises a little near the screws of the faceplates and highest over a small hole in the liner.

Press play to sweep the pool.

The process

A leak hunt, step by step

From our own leak detection photos.

  1. Covering the pool light before a leak test, a technician kneeling at the pool edge
    1. We cover the light, because it acts like a ground.
  2. Assembling the leak detector on its telescopic pole beside the pool
    2. All the equipment goes together.
  3. Sweeping the pool floor with the leak detector on a long pole
    3. The whole pool is swept with the detector, looking for holes.
  4. A small hole in the blue liner, found by the detector
    4. The detector finds a hole.
  5. Brushing vinyl glue onto a liner patch
    5. Glue goes on the patch.
  6. The patch pressed over the hole in the liner, underwater
    6. The patch goes over the hole.
  7. The detector tip held over the hole in the liner
    7. Beeps tell us exactly where the hole is.
  8. Dye drawn toward a hole in the liner, showing water escaping
    8. A dye test shows how big the hole is.

Things to watch out for

Lights and ladders fool detectors

Metal screws and a ladder in the pool both go to ground, so the current runs to them instead of to a hole. We have ways of working around them: the light gets a sealed cover and the ladder comes out.

With the light covered and the ladder out, the current heads for any hole in the liner. The screws around the faceplates and steps still ring, but a hole rings higher, so we can tell them apart.

The plastic cover over the pool light; the caption on the photo says it seals the light from the electricity
The pool light, covered
Lifting the ladder out; the caption on the photo says a ladder left in the pool acts like a leak by attracting the current
The ladder comes out

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Call (916) 989-6630