The instruments
Five instruments, each built to answer one question about where your water is going. Here is what they do — and why we name the method, never the brand.
A pool can lose water for a dozen reasons, and each instrument answers a different question. Evaporation measurement tells us whether there is a leak at all. The pressure-test rig tells us whether it is in the plumbing or the shell. The acoustic ground microphone pins a buried line. Dye confirms a specific point. The dive reaches what the surface tests cannot.
Used in sequence, they narrow the answer to the actual source — not the first thing that looked likely. For the step-by-step of how that runs on the day, see how a diagnostic works.
Each card is one instrument, the question it answers, and what it rules in or out.
Where, exactly, is a buried line leaking?
Water escaping a pressurised pipe makes a sound. We sweep the ground above the pipe run with an acoustic ground microphone and listen for where that sound peaks, pinning a buried leak to within a small area. That is the difference between a targeted dig and trenching the whole yard on a hunch.
Locates an underground line leak to within a small area.
Is the leak in the plumbing or the shell?
We seal and pressurise the suction and return lines separately and watch whether each holds. A line that bleeds off pressure has a leak underground; a line that holds is ruled out. It is how we separate a plumbing leak from a shell leak before deciding where to look next.
Separates a plumbing leak from a shell leak.
Is this a leak at all, or just the weather?
Above 38°C in a Perth summer, evaporation alone runs about 5–8mm a day. We measure the pool's real loss against the day's conditions, so we know whether the drop is weather or a genuine leak before anything else happens. A pool dropping a centimetre a day in mild weather is losing water somewhere it shouldn't.
Tells a real leak apart from normal evaporation.
Is water moving through this fitting or crack?
At a suspected fitting or hairline, a fine dye released into still water shows movement the eye would otherwise miss — drawn toward the gap as water escapes. It is a precise confirmation step, not the whole diagnosis: it tells us a specific point is moving water, which the pressure test and the dive then put in context.
Confirms movement at a specific fitting or crack.
What can only be found from inside the water?
Some leaks are only findable below the surface — a cracked fitting, a failed main-drain seal, a hairline split under the tile line. On Tier B the technician inspects the full shell and every fitting at depth on an air-supplied breathing apparatus, closing the gap a poolside test leaves open. This is the part most providers skip.
Reaches shell, fittings and main drain at depth (Tier B).
We chose our acoustic detection equipment after testing the major industry-grade options. We don’t publish the brand, because the equipment doesn’t make the diagnosis — the technician does. We have seen too many operators lean on a brand name; we would rather be judged on outcomes.
So on this page you will read “acoustic ground microphone” and “air-supplied breathing apparatus”, not a model number. What matters is the question each one answers and the order we work through them — that is what finds the leak.
The dive is PADI Open Water certified, at dive depths well within the requirements for residential pool inspection (max ~2.5m). The breathing apparatus is air-supplied, the inspection is methodical, and the technician covers the full shell, the fittings and the main drain — not a quick look at the waterline.
The dive is included on Tier B. Find no leak on Tier B and we refund $100.
Book a fixed-price diagnostic this week, or look at the two tiers first.