My pool ownership experience spans my entire life having grown up with one and owned one for many years as an adult. Having a leak will inevitably happen if you own a pool long enough. Knowing how to find it and fix a tear in your pool liner are important skills for any pool owner to have that could save you hundreds of dollars. Of course there are services available for hire to come out, diagnose the issue, then fix it. However, in most cases, the cause of the leak is not serious, and you should be able to fix it yourself. I’ll walk you through a few simple steps to determine where the leak is coming from, and a very easy way to fix a leak in a pool liner.
Is My Pool Actually Leaking?
The first step is to determine if you actually have a tear in your pool liner. As summer rolls on, conditions change and the rate of evaporation can increase in dry hot weather. Increased activity in the pool with excessive splashing, and prolonged drought conditions can all lead to pool levels dropping faster than “normal”. If you are an pool owner and love your pool, you will have a feel for this, and will probably notice if the level is dropping faster than it should.
How To Tell If Its Just Evaporation:
The water in your pool is constantly evaporating. If the weather has been excessively hot, the rate of evaporation will increase and you may not have a leak at all. There’s a simple trick to determine if this is the case. Take a 5 gallon bucket and fill it about half way with pool water. Place the bucket on one of the steps in your pool to where it’s about half way submerged. Turn off your filtration system and plug all of the inlets and returns. On the inside of the bucket, take a marker and mark the level of the water in the bucket. On the outside of the bucket, mark the level of the pool water and let it sit for 24-48 hours. If the pool level drops an equal amount of the bucket water, it’s just evaporation.
Auto Top Off System
If this is the case, you simply need to keep an eye on the level and re-fill it as necessary. You can also add simple system to automatically top off your pool to keep the level very constant. There are auto top Top Off Systems for pools that are easily installed. This one from Rola Chem should work well for most pools:
VIDEO: HOW TO Fix A TEAR IN YOUR POOL LINER
Step by Step Instructions:
- Make sure the pool is vacuumed thoroughly. Debris lying on the surface makes it more difficult to find a tear in the liner.
- We had the advantage of scuba gear, but it’s not necessary, it just makes inspecting the liner much easier as you don’t have to hold your breath.
- When you find a leak, squeeze a few drops of a leak detecting dye directly on the tear. There are many dye products out there to detect leaks, but I’ve always found blue food coloring works well. Advice blogs may tell you to avoid food coloring because it can’t be filtered out of the pool. However, if you are using a few drops of blue, you will never notice it, and it will not discolor your water – just use it judiciously.
- Gorilla Tape for Pools! I’ve patched my pool many times over the years using patch kits with glue. They work, but I was amazed at how easy it was, and how well this Gorrilla tape worked. We were able to cut it under water and apply it directly to the tear. It adhered extremely well.
- Watch our Short Video above for a quick look at how we found and patched 2 fairly significant holes in the liner.
Be sure to Check out our article:
Homeowner Essentials: Common Sense Tips All Homeowners Should Know!
Hope you found this useful!
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This Post Has One Comment
Great run down of find and repair a leak in a pool liner but what do we do if the liner has stuff on top of it like stairs and seats?