How to see how much water your pool is losing a day. Pool leak detection.

Pool bucket test - pool leak detection

If you suspect your pool is losing water faster than normal, the fist step is to find out how much water you are losing. Pools can lose water through a number of ways (evaporation, wind, ambient temperature variances, splashing caused by water features, etc.). Due to normal water loss, we need to find out how much water loss is normal, and how much is a leak. This is where a bucket test can be very helpful and easy to perform.

The bucket test is simply a way to measure the water loss in a pool compared to water loss in an enclosed capsule (a bucket in this case) that is exposed to the same environmental conditions listed above. The difference between the water loss in the pool and the water loss in the bucket is the amount of your water loss due to a leak in general.

Lets go over the steps for how to complete a 24-hour bucket test (we will perform two of these):

• Find a day where rain is not expected to arrive within the next 48 hours or so. If it does rain, this can change the results of your test.

• Shut off your pool equipment and make sure that it does not come back on for the next 24 hours.

• Get a 3 gallon or 5 gallon bucket that does not have any leaks in it, some duct tape or a marker and a rock or something heave that does not absorb water.

• Put the rock, or the heavy item into the bucket to keep it from floating or moving.

• Fill up the bucket about 3/4 of the way with water from the pool and place it on a step or location in the pool where the water that is in the bucket, is near the level of the water in the pool.

• Let the water settle in the bucket and the pool and then mark the level of the water inside the bucket as well as the water level on the outside of the bucket (see photo above for an example).. This is your baseline measurement. You may want to take photos so you can reference them later.

• Wait 24 hours and come back and measure the different between where the water was on the outside of the bucket (pool level) and where the water is on the inside of the bucket compared to your mark there (this is our normal water loss level).

• The difference between the water drop inside the bucket from the start and 24 hours later is considered normal water loss. The amount of water loss on the outside of the bucket is your pool water loss. The difference between these two numbers is the amount of water your pool is losing each day under static (non running) conditions.

  • Example: if the inside of your bucket lost 1/4" over 24 hours and your pool level lost 1" over 24 hours, then your pool leak under non running conditions is 3/4" of an inch above normal water loss.

• Now, do the same test again, but do it with the system running for 24 hours and check your measurements again. If the pool leak loss during the running test is GREATER than the water loss during the static test, you most likely have a pipe leak or a leak on the return side of your system or spillovers.

Check out our blog post about next steps after you identify you have a leak where we talk about next steps.