Pool problems, do it right the first time.

Lately it seems, we have been getting lots of calls to sort out pool leaks and plumbing issues. While we do not want to turn away work, it poses many problems for us, when we do not know how the installation was done.  For some reason, problems most often crop up in tiled pools. Not sure why that would occur, unless it is easier to hide a bad pool build under the layer of tiles. If you are using a contractor that does not have a lot of experience building pools, you had better make sure you are watching carefully. We are just working on a leaking pool where the “contractor” buried the piping for the jets under the cap of the pool, in concrete. That is bad enough in itself, but in this case one or more of the jets were not installed properly and were leaking. It is not easy to find a leak or repair one, when it is under 12 inches of concrete. Not only that but this particular pool appears to have more than one leak, which makes the whole process a slow and methodical check of levels to find leak sources. With tile pools we most often drain the pool completely and let it dry, we look for areas that remain damp much longer than surrounding surfaces. Most often water has become trapped beneath poorly bonded tiles or the tile is covering a crack in the pool surface. Now we fill it again and look for bubbles rising out of the tile joints, indicating that air is being displaced by water penetrating cracks and crevices. The other way we check for leaks, is with a special dye that can show water migrating into the pool surface at areas of cracks or leaks at fittings. Once the leak is located we use various methods to repair the issues. If it is a plumbing leak, that is an easy fix, provided it is not under concrete. If it is a leak in the pool itself, that is a much larger issue and if the pool is tiled, most often we need to remove all the tile to see exactly how the pool was finished and then re finish the pool in a specialty product we use called Pool Master. This prevents future issues being hidden under tile and we can warrantee our job, providing the pool itself is soundly built.

If a pool is constructed properly, the plumbing is done right the first time and the plumbing components made of quality materials, it should last many years without any issues, other than routine maintenance.