Service
Pressure testing
Pressure testing is how a suspicion becomes a fact. Each line is isolated and brought up to pressure on a gauge, and a line that will not hold is the line with the problem. It is a step inside a leak detection visit rather than a service you would book on its own, and it is not always needed — if the loss is visibly at the shell or a fitting, there is nothing to test. It forms part of detection visits across our Florida service areas.
Isolate, pressurise, watch the gauge
Lines are plugged and tested one at a time rather than together, because a pool that loses water tells you nothing about which of five runs is responsible. Suction, return, main drain, skimmer and any water feature each get their own test.
A line that holds pressure is ruled out, and that is as valuable as finding the one that does not. It is what stops a repair being attempted in the wrong place.
A line that fails tells you which run is losing, not the exact point along it. That is the honest limit of the test, and it is where acoustic locating takes over: the failing line is pressurised so the escape makes a followable noise, and the point above it is marked. Testing narrows the search from a whole pool to one run; locating turns that run into a spot.
What happens next depends on what failed. A line that will not hold is a repair conversation; a system where every line holds means the loss is at the structure, the fittings or the equipment, and the visit moves there instead.
What a pressure test settles
- Which line
- Suction, return, main drain, cleaner line, tested separately and named specifically.
- Whether it is the plumbing at all
- If every line holds, the loss is structural or it is evaporation. Both change what happens next.
- How badly
- How fast a line drops off pressure indicates the scale of the breach, which informs whether it is a splice or a replacement.
- Whether a repair worked
- The same test afterwards is how a repair is proven rather than assumed.
Tell us what it's doing.
Describe what you are seeing and we will tell you what it sounds like and what a visit would involve. If it is dropping fast, call. You will reach a three-person, owner-led team.
Questions people ask
Is pressure testing separate from detection, or part of it?
Usually part of it. It is listed on its own because it is sometimes the whole job: confirming a line after a repair, or checking plumbing before a renovation.
What does a pressure test actually tell you?
Which line is losing, and just as usefully which lines are not. It is a pass or fail on each run rather than a map of the pool, and that is exactly what it is good for — turning five possibilities into one.
Can pressure testing find the exact spot of the leak?
Not by itself. It identifies the failing line. Finding the point along that line is a separate step using acoustic equipment on the pressurised line. Anyone who tells you a gauge alone gives them a spot is overstating it.
Does every pool leak need a pressure test?
No. If the loss is at the shell, a visible fitting or the equipment pad, testing the plumbing proves nothing you did not already know. It earns its place when the plumbing is genuinely in question.
What happens if a line fails the test?
We locate the failure point along that line, mark it, and tell you what the repair involves. You are not obliged to have us do the repair.
Can pressure testing damage old plumbing?
Testing is done at appropriate pressures. If a system is old enough that we have a concern, we will raise it before testing rather than after.