House lines and pool lines both, traced with equipment. And two free tests, told to you before anything is booked, that answer half the question at no cost.
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A pool that is dropping is the call we get most often out here, and it is also the one where people most often spend money before they need to. There are two tests you can run yourself, both free, and between them they answer most of what a first visit would.
The first separates evaporation from a leak. Fill a bucket with pool water and stand it on a step so it is partly submerged, which means bucket and pool are exposed to identical weather. Mark both levels, leave it a day or two with the pump running as usual, and compare. Equal drop is evaporation. A bigger drop in the pool is water going somewhere else.
The second narrows where. Watch it for a day with the pump running and a day with it off. Worse while running points at the pressure side, meaning the return lines. Worse with it off points at the suction side. That is a genuinely large amount of information for two days of doing nothing.
After that, it is equipment: pressure testing the suction and return lines and locating the failure. That part is pipework, and it is the same discipline as finding a leak under a house. What we do not do is shells, structural cracking, chemistry or filtration equipment. Those belong to a pool builder and a pool shop and we will tell you so rather than take the job.
Two days of doing nothing tells you whether there is anything to find. Ring us after that, not before.
Evaporation depends on weather, wind, surface area and whether it is covered, and on a warm windy week it is a genuinely significant number.
So a falling level is not evidence of anything on its own, and neither is a topping-up habit that has always been there.
The question is always whether it is losing more than it should, and that needs a comparison rather than an impression.
Put a bucket of pool water on a step, partly submerged, so both the bucket and the pool are in the same sun and the same wind. Mark both levels.
Leave it a couple of days with the pump running as normal and nobody swimming. If both have dropped by the same amount, that is evaporation and the pool is fine.
If the pool has dropped further than the bucket, the difference is the leak. It is a genuinely definitive test and it costs nothing.
Run the same test twice, once with the pump running and once with it off, and compare. Worse while running points at the pressure side, the return lines. Worse when off points at the suction side or the shell.
That single distinction narrows the search enormously before anybody puts equipment in the water.
It takes two days of doing nothing rather than any skill, which is why it is worth doing before you call.
Skimmer throat, shell fittings, the light niche, and the buried lines with their joints. Those are where the great majority of pool losses actually are.
The skimmer throat is the single most common, because it is a joint between two materials that move differently and it sits at the water line.
Structural cracks in the shell are much rarer than people fear, and they are usually the last thing checked rather than the first.
Which is why a pool leak frequently produces no visible wet area at all. The water goes into soil that is already garden and disperses.
On a sloping block it can travel a long way before it does anything noticeable, and what it eventually does is usually attributed to something else.
Pressure testing the pool lines individually is how that gets settled, and it is done without digging anything.
Everything off, and a creeping smallest dial means water is genuinely leaving on your side. That is the definitive test for the house, separate from anything to do with the pool.
Close the machine and the dishwasher too, and turn any irrigation controller off entirely rather than to a rest day.
If the pool has an automatic top-up connected to mains, isolate that before you run the test or it will fill during the measurement.
That is the question the second test answers. Close the hot water unit's inlet valve, leave everything else as it was, and read the dial again.
Movement continuing points at the cold side. Movement stopping points at the unit or the hot line running from it.
A relief valve that discharges continuously will give you a hot-side result without anything actually being wrong with the tank, so check that outlet before drawing conclusions.
A pool with mains top-up will not show a falling level at all, because it keeps refilling itself. The loss goes straight onto the water bill instead.
So on a pool with automatic top-up, the bucket test tells you nothing and the bill is the only symptom you will get.
Isolate the top-up, then run the bucket test properly. That is the only way to get a real reading.
What a burst costs is decided in the minutes between the failure and somebody closing the water. The repair afterwards is ordinary work. Those minutes are flooring and joinery.
In a period house that matters more, because original boards, plaster and joinery are not stock items from a warehouse.
Find the meter and check its tap turns on a dry afternoon, and make sure somebody else in the household knows where it is.
Not because they fail often, but because of where they are and how they go. Inside a closed cupboard, at mains pressure, with nobody watching, and all at once rather than gradually.
Around five years is the working life commonly quoted. Past that they are running on borrowed time whether or not they look fine.
It is a short job and a cheap one, and it is the single most effective thing on this page for avoiding a claim.
Water follows the fall of a joist, the back of a stud or the top of a slab and appears wherever it finally escapes. A ceiling stain can be metres from the fitting that failed.
In a house with a subfloor and fibrous plaster the travel can be considerable, and the visible damage is frequently in a different room entirely.
So the wet spot is a clue rather than an address, and cutting into it is frequently the wrong first move.
Acoustic listening picks up the noise a pressurised leak makes through structure and soil. Thermal imaging finds the heat signature of a hot water leak behind a surface. Pressure testing isolates sections until the one losing water identifies itself.
The sequence matters. Meter first to confirm loss, isolate to narrow the side, then locate to a point.
On a house with original finishes, that sequence is the difference between a repair and a restoration.
Fixed price agreed before anything starts. These are indicative 2026 ranges.
Water stopped and the situation stabilised, at any hour.
Suction and return tested separately, which is what makes the result useful.
Marked in position and depth, so any repair is targeted.
Acoustic, pressure and thermal, with nothing opened to find it.
Depending on the pipe, the material and how it has to be reached.
On a pool, the bucket and the pump-on-pump-off comparison. There is no point paying us to find out what two days will tell you.
Pool suction and return lines pressure tested separately, or acoustic, pressure and thermal inside the house.
Position and depth, so whatever happens next is targeted rather than exploratory.
What failed, where, and what it took, at the figure agreed before we started.
Shut it off at the meter and ring. A licensed plumber can be heading toward you while you are still on the call.
Call 1300 381 569What Killara locals ask us before booking a plumber.
Ask us yours
The bucket test, and it costs nothing. Fill a bucket with pool water and stand it on a step so it is partly submerged, so both are exposed to the same weather. Mark the level inside the bucket and the pool level outside it. Leave both a day or two with the pump running normally, then compare. Equal drop means evaporation and a healthy pool. A bigger drop in the pool means water is leaving somewhere.
Watch the loss with the pump running for a day, then with it off for a day. If it is worse while the pump runs, the pressure side is the suspect, which means the return lines. If it is worse with the pump off, the suction side is. Either answer narrows things enormously before any equipment comes out.
The skimmer throat, the fittings where lines pass through the shell, the light niche, and the buried suction and return lines and their joints. The lines are the part that is genuinely a plumber's work, because finding a leak in a buried pressure line is exactly the same discipline as finding one under a house.
For chemistry, filtration and equipment, yes, and we will say so. For a leak in a buried pressure or suction line, no. That is pipework, it is pressure tested and located the same way any other buried line is, and it is our work rather than theirs.
We do not resurface shells, repair structural cracking in them, or work on pool chemistry and filtration equipment. Those belong to a pool builder and a pool shop, and we would rather say that plainly than take the job and hand it back.
Turn the water off at the meter before anything else, then ring. How much a burst costs is largely decided by how long the supply stayed on.
Pressure testing pool lines is $300 to $600. Locating a leak in a buried pool line is $350 to $700. Locating a concealed house leak is $250 to $600. A burst repair is $300 to $900.
If it is the pool, tell us what the bucket test showed and whether the loss changes with the pump. If you have not done either, we will talk you through them rather than book a visit.
Free tests first, equipment second, and honest about what is not our work.
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