HomePool leak detection

Pool Leak Detection
in Krugersdorp

Pool leak detection in Krugersdorp starts with a bucket on the top step, because sun and wind take water from every pool. If the pool drops faster, the shell, the fittings and the buried pipes are tested one by one until the lost water is found.

Book a plumber
An empty pool freshly painted blue, with the skimmer mouth and a return inlet set into the far wall

Leaking, or just evaporating?

Every pool loses some water to the weather. These signs point to something more, and each one narrows down where.

  • It drops faster than a bucket beside it. Water is leaving through the shell or the plumbing, not into the air.
  • It drops faster while the pump runs. The plumbing: the return pipes, the filter, or the valve on top of it.
  • It drops just as fast with the pump off. More likely the shell or a fitting set in it: the skimmer, the main drain, a light, a crack.
  • It stops dropping at one level. The leak sits at that height, often the skimmer mouth or a light.
  • Soft lawn or sinking paving beside the pool. Water escaping into the ground, usually from a buried pipe.
  • Wet ground between the pump and the pool. The equipment or the pipes running to it, which is the first place worth looking.

On dolomite land, the rules say where pool water goes. A leak ignores them

The dolomite building rules deal with swimming pools directly, and Mogale City's by-law adds its own line on pool water. A leaking shell or pipe sends the water somewhere none of them planned for.

A pool holds more water than anything else on a residential erf, and it is usually topped up through the same meter as the house. When it leaks, the loss goes into the ground beside the shell or under the paving, and a hosepipe or an automatic filler quietly puts it back. The pool looks full; the ground around it is taking the difference.

On an erf in Mogale City's Dolomitic Overlay Zone, created by clause 23 of the Land Use Scheme, that matters more than the water bill. The minimum precautions for dolomite land deal with pools by name. Residents are asked not to put in a swimming pool without permission, building control officers are expected to enforce any restriction on pools, and backwash is to go into the stormwater or drainage system the local authority requires. The same list wants natural ponds within 10 m of any structure made impervious, and no water left to dam up on the property.

Mogale City's own Water Services By-laws add a line of their own: clause 110.1 says no drainage installation may be built to let in water from any other source, swimming pool water included. The national building regulations bar pool water from the street or a neighbour's property without the municipality's written permission. Where backwash should go on your erf is therefore a question for Mogale City. What none of these rules contemplates is the pool emptying itself, a little every day, into the ground beside the shell.

The reason that matters is the one the Council for Geoscience gives for every wet service on dolomite. Leaking water-bearing services and ponding water are both on its list of sinkhole triggers, because water working down through the soil cover carries that soil into voids in the rock. A slow pool leak is a steady supply of exactly that water, in one spot, for as long as the filler keeps up.

Not every Krugersdorp erf is dolomitic, and on quartzite a leaking pool is mostly a cost problem. The test that separates a leak from evaporation is the same everywhere, though. It needs a bucket and a few dry days, and it is the first step listed below. If the pool loses more than the bucket, the next question is whether the water is going through the shell or through the pipes, because that decides who repairs it.

If your pool needs topping up more often than the weather explains, run the bucket test before anything else. On a dolomitic erf, treat a failed test like any leak into the ground, and ask Mogale City where backwash may go before you pick a spot for it.

Section through a swimming pool: a bucket standing on the top step holds water at a higher level than the pool around it, which shows the pool is losing more than evaporation; beside the pool a return pipe under the paving leaks at a joint and the water soaks into the ground bucket on the top step: its level drops with the sun and wind, and nothing else the pool has dropped further than the bucket dashed: where both started pump a return line leaking under the paving soaks into the ground unseen
A section through a pool, drawn to show the test and the risk, not any property.

How a pool leak search is priced

The search and the repair are separate prices, and shell work that belongs to a pool builder is named as such.

Always part of it

  • Reading your bucket test result, or setting one up with you
  • A check of the skimmer, returns, lights and main drain
  • The pump, filter and valve checked for leaks and air
  • The finding shown to you before any repair is priced

What moves the number

  • The size of the pool and how its pipes are laid out
  • Whether the buried lines need pressure-testing
  • Access: paving, decking, a pump room or a boxed-in filter
  • Whether the leak turns out to be in the shell or the pipework

What you get in writing

  • Where the water is going, with the readings that show it
  • The plumbing repair needed, priced on its own
  • Shell work named as shell work, with photos for a pool builder

From a falling pool to a proved repair

The first step costs nothing and settles whether there is a leak at all.

  1. Run the bucket test

    A bucket on the top step, both water levels marked, the auto-filler off and the pump on its normal times. Read it after two or three days without rain or backwashing, and put the result in the form.

  2. Pump on, pump off

    The test is repeated with the pump running and with it off. A bigger loss with the pump on points to the plumbing; otherwise, the shell.

  3. Fittings, then pipes

    Dye at the skimmer, the lights and the returns; the buried lines isolated and pressure-tested one at a time.

  4. Repair, then recheck

    The repair is priced and done, the pipes are retested, and the bucket test runs again to show the loss has stopped.

Pool leak questions

Cost first, then how to tell a leak from the weather.

What does pool leak detection cost in Krugersdorp?

The first test costs nothing, because you can run it yourself: the bucket test on this page. If it shows a leak, the search is priced on the phone from the pool size, the way its pipes run and what the bucket showed. Any repair is a second price, in writing, once the leak has a location.

How do I tell a leak from evaporation?

Put a bucket on the top or second step, standing in the pool but with no pool water getting into it, and fill it until its level matches the pool's. Mark the two lines. Turn the automatic filler off, skip backwashing, and look again after two or three days; rain or a windy spell means starting over. The weather takes from the bucket and the pool alike, so a pool that ends up lower than its bucket has a leak.

Why does the pool only lose water when the pump runs?

That points to the pressure side: the pipes carrying filtered water back to the pool, the filter, or the multiport valve on top of it. When the loss stays steady with the pump running or stopped, look instead at the shell itself and what is built into it: the skimmer, the main drain and the lights.

Will the pool be emptied to look for the leak?

No. The tests are done with the pool full and working, because a leak can only be traced while water is moving through it. Emptying a pool is a decision for a pool builder, and it raises the question of where all that water may go, which only Mogale City can answer for your erf.

Who repairs the leak once it is found?

Pipes, valves and fittings are plumbing, and that repair is priced on the spot. A crack in the shell, a failed tile line or worn marbelite is pool-builder work. Then you get the finding in writing, with photos, to hand to whoever does the shell, so nobody has to search a second time.

Where should the backwash water go?

Ask Mogale City before choosing a spot, because the rules pull in different directions. The municipality's by-law keeps swimming pool water out of the sewer, and the national building regulations bar it from the street or a neighbour's property without written permission. On dolomite land the building precautions want backwash taken away by the stormwater or drainage system the local authority names, not left to pond. Whatever the answer for your erf, keep it away from walls and paving.

My water bill went up. Is it the pool or the house?

Find out before paying for a search. Switch off the pool's automatic filler, close every tap in the house and read the water meter twice, an hour apart. If it moved, the leak is in the house plumbing, which the leak detection page covers. If it held, run the bucket test on the pool.

Is a leaking pool more serious on a dolomitic erf?

Yes. Water soaking into the ground is what the dolomite building rules exist to prevent, and a pool can lose a little every day for months before anyone notices. If your erf is in the Dolomitic Overlay Zone, treat a failed bucket test as a leak into the ground: find it, fix it, and watch for new cracks in walls or paving near the pool.

When the water is going somewhere else

If the pool holds but the bill still climbs, or the ground near it has moved, start here.

Book a pool leak search

Your name, a number and the suburb are enough to start. If you have run the bucket test, add the result and we phone you back to talk it through.

We use these details only to answer this request. See the privacy notice.

Where we come out

We come to the house: there is no counter or yard to visit. Krugersdorp and the suburbs around it are the core of the area, with the outlying parts of Mogale City by arrangement.

Book a plumber

Krugersdorp and close by

  • Krugersdorp North
  • Krugersdorp West
  • Monument
  • Noordheuwel
  • Kenmare
  • Rant-en-Dal
  • Silverfields
  • Mindalore
  • Wentworth Park
  • Dan Pienaarville

Further out in Mogale City

  • Muldersdrift
  • Featherbrooke
  • Cradlestone
  • Kagiso
  • Azaadville
  • Magaliesburg