Start by paying attention to how fast the water drops. In Houston’s summer heat and wind, losing roughly a quarter inch a day to evaporation is normal; consistently losing more than that, or watching the level fall day after day, points to a leak rather than the sun. The simplest way to know for sure is the bucket test below  it separates evaporation from a true leak in 24 hours, right at home.

The bucket test is a simple at-home way to tell a real leak from ordinary evaporation:

1. Fill a bucket about three-quarters full with pool water.
2. Set it on a pool step so the bucket is partly submerged.
3. Mark the water level inside the bucket and the pool’s level on the outside.
4. Leave both alone for 24 hours — no swimming, no rain, pump running as normal.
5. Compare the two: if the pool dropped more than the bucket, that gap is your leak. If they fell about the same, you’re mostly losing water to evaporation.

A healthy pool loses up to about a quarter inch a day to evaporation, and a little more during peak Texas heat or windy stretches. Once you’re topping off every few days, adding an inch or more a week, or the autofill never seems to shut off, you’re past evaporation. The faster the level falls, the bigger the leak — and the more water you’re literally pouring into the ground.

Watch for soggy or oddly green patches around the pool, new cracks in the deck or shell, air bubbles pushing back through the return jets, a pump that loses its prime, shifting coping stones, and water bills that creep up for no clear reason. Any one of these can have another explanation but several together are a strong sign that water is escaping where it shouldn’t.

A lot of it comes down to the ground your pool sits in. Houston’s expansive “gumbo” clay swells when it’s wet and shrinks when it’s dry, and that constant movement stresses pool shells, plumbing runs, and fittings until they crack or pull apart. Add years of heat, the occasional hard freeze, and normal wear on skimmers and return lines, and you get the leaks we find most: plumbing-line leaks, shell and tile-line cracks, and failures at the skimmer, light niche, and fittings.

Most pool leaks fall into three groups. Plumbing leaks occur in the buried suction and return lines, usually where ground movement, root pressure, or aging fittings have stressed a joint  we isolate and pressure-test each line to find them. Structural leaks are cracks in the pool shell itself; picture the pool as a bucket, where a single crack lets water out, and we confirm these with visual and dye testing. Equipment leaks turn up at the pump, filter, heater, or valves on the pad, and are often the easiest to spot once the system is running. Knowing which type you’re dealing with is half the job, because each one is found and fixed differently.

We start non-destructively. Using electronic listening equipment, pressure testing on the plumbing lines, and dye testing at the shell and fittings, we isolate the system piece by piece until the exact leak reveals itself — instead of guessing or opening things up on a hunch. Pinpointing the precise spot first is what lets us repair only what’s broken, not your whole pool deck.

We can, but a clean, clear pool gives us the most accurate and fastest results. Algae and cloudy water make dye testing and underwater inspection much harder, since we rely on seeing exactly where dye gets pulled into a crack or fitting. If your pool is green, it’s worth getting it cleared up first — and if that isn’t practical right now, tell us and we’ll advise on the best way to move forward for your situation.

No. Finding the leak is a non-invasive process that leaves your pool, deck, and yard exactly as they were. Digging only enters the picture at the repair stage, and only at the precise point we’ve already located. When excavation can’t be avoided for a buried pipe, we keep the opening as small as possible and restore your landscaping, concrete, or decking to the way we found it.

It helps to meet you at the start so we can hear what you’ve noticed and confirm access, but you don’t have to hover over us the whole time. As long as we can reach the pool, equipment pad, and any gated or locked areas — and reach you by phone if a question comes up — we can complete the inspection and walk you through what we found afterward.

Keep the pool filled to its normal level so the leak behaves the way it usually does, and leave the equipment running as normal in the day or two beforehand. Clear easy access to the pump and filter, unlock gates, secure pets, and jot down what you’ve seen — how fast the level drops, where it seems to stop, anything unusual. The more “normal” your pool is acting when we arrive, the faster we find the problem.

Most residential inspections run anywhere from about an hour to a few hours, depending on the pool’s size and how many leaks turn up. A single, simple leak goes quickly; a pool with several suspects across the plumbing, shell, and fittings takes longer to test properly. We’d rather be thorough and certain than fast and wrong  a missed leak just means another service call later.

Both. We’re a detection and repair company, so once we’ve pinpointed the problem we fix it   plumbing leaks, skimmer and fitting failures, shell and tile-line cracks, and more  without you having to find and schedule a separate contractor. One team takes you from “something’s wrong” all the way to “it’s handled.

Don’t wait. A hairline crack or minor leak rarely stays minor — left alone, it quietly drives up your water, chemical, and energy bills, erodes the soil around and beneath the pool, and can undermine decking, walls, and liners until you’re facing a far larger structural repair. Catching it early is almost always the cheapest path; the longer water escapes, the more it costs you in every direction.

Yes. Every repair we make is backed by a two-year warranty, so if a leak we fixed acts up within that window, we come back and make it right. We can stand behind the work because we take the time to find the true source first — guessing causes callbacks; precise detection doesn’t.

Yes — Orbit is insured, and our technicians specialize specifically in pool leak detection and repair, not general pool cleaning. That focus matters: leak work is its own craft, and you want someone who does it every day near your pool and your home.

Then we tell you straight and point you the right way. Sometimes the culprit isn’t the shell or buried plumbing at all, but a leaking pump, filter, valve, or heater connection at the equipment pad. We check those too — being clear about where the water is actually going means you spend money fixing the real problem instead of chasing the wrong one.

Absolutely — it’s one of the smartest small investments a buyer can make. A standard home inspection rarely includes a real pool leak test, so problems stay hidden until you own them, and a neglected leak can mean thousands in repairs that should have been the seller’s concern. A focused pre-purchase leak inspection tells you exactly what you’re buying and gives you real leverage to negotiate before you sign.

It depends on your pool, the type of leak, and how much testing it takes to pin down — so we give you a clear, upfront price before any work begins, with no surprise add-ons later. What we can promise is that finding a leak early almost always costs far less than the water, chemicals, and structural damage of letting it run. Call us and we’ll talk through your situation and what to expect.

We cover greater Houston and more than thirty surrounding communities — from The Woodlands, Spring, and Cypress out to Katy, Sugar Land, Pearland, League City, Kingwood, and beyond. Not sure whether you’re in range? Just ask; chances are we’re already working in your neighborhood

Yes — in-ground gunite and plaster pools, fiberglass, vinyl-liner pools, attached spas, and commercial pools at apartments, HOAs, and businesses are all in our wheelhouse. Each kind of construction hides leaks differently, and because we work across all of them, we know where each tends to fail and how to test for it.

We make paying genuinely easy and secure. We use Square’s encrypted payment links, so you can pay by major credit or debit card through a trusted checkout — no checkbook, and no reading card numbers over the phone. Handle it right from our website when you book, or simply tap the secure Square link we email you once the repair is finished and you’ve seen the results. Convenient, safe, and as painless as the fix itself.

Because leak detection is all we do — and we back it with a two-year repair warranty and a five-star track record across Houston. General pool companies dabble in leaks between cleanings; we arrive with the equipment, the method, and the focus to find the exact problem the first time, then fix it. That’s the difference between a real answer and another guess.