If your pool is losing more than about a quarter inch of water a day, you have a leak rather than evaporation. H2O Leak Pros is the leak detection division of Alan Smith Pools, and we find the source before anyone opens a deck or digs a trench. We have been serving Orange County homeowners since 1981.
Most jobs start with a call and a visit within the same week. If the shell itself has failed rather than the plumbing, that becomes a pool resurfacing and replastering project, and we will tell you that plainly instead of patching something that will not hold.
We locate the leak before anyone digs
This is the part that saves homeowners money.
Plenty of leak calls turn into exploratory demolition: open the deck, look, open more deck. We do not work that way. Detection comes first, the source gets confirmed, and only then does anyone pick up a tool. You get a written report telling you where the leak is and what fixing it involves, so you can decide with real information in front of you.
How we find it
Five methods, used in order, each one narrowing the search.
Visual inspection. The shell, the fittings, the equipment pad and the ground around the pool. A surprising number of leaks are visible to someone who knows where to look.
Dye testing. With the pump off and the water still, dye released near a suspected point draws into a crack too fine to see.
Pressure testing. Each plumbing line is isolated and taken to pressure on its own, so we can tell you which line is failing rather than guessing at the whole system.
Electronic listening and sonar. Water escaping a pressurized line makes a sound that travels through concrete and soil. The right equipment hears it and pinpoints the location.
Leakalyzer. Measures water loss precisely enough to confirm that the repair actually worked, which is the step most companies skip.
Where Orange County pool leaks usually start
After four decades in these neighborhoods, the list is short and predictable.
The skimmer is the most common source by a wide margin. The joint where the plastic skimmer meets the concrete shell separates over time, and ground movement accelerates it. Light conduits are next, at the fitting behind the pool light. Return lines and main drains loosen where they connect. Underground plumbing fails at joints or at a spot where a line was nicked during earlier landscaping or construction work.
Then there is the shell itself. Hairline cracks in plaster are often cosmetic. Structural cracks in gunite are not, and they are the reason a leak should never sit through a season.
Why waiting costs more
A pool leak does not stay a pool leak.
Water moving through soil undermines the deck, which is how homeowners usually notice the second symptom: cracking and settling around the pool. It can reach footings and hardscape. It washes out the base beneath the shell, which turns a plumbing repair into a structural one. All the while the pool is losing treated, heated water continuously, and the chemistry never holds because every top-up dilutes it.
The repair you put off in October is a bigger repair in March.
Where we work
We cover Orange County, including Anaheim, Anaheim Hills, Irvine, Huntington Beach, Mission Viejo, Yorba Linda, Fullerton, Santa Ana and Aliso Viejo.
Not sure you have a leak yet?
Run the bucket test first. It takes twenty minutes to set up, 24 hours to read, and costs nothing. Our step by step guide to finding and fixing a pool leak walks you through it.
If the test says you are losing water, call us before you start opening anything up.
Talk to us
Alan Smith Pools has been building, resurfacing and repairing pools in Orange County since 1981. H2O Leak Pros brings that same crew and that same equipment to leak work specifically.
Schedule a leak detection or call (714) 628-9494.
Leak Detection – Contact us for a free estimate
