evaporation question.

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fkong777

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May 19, 2009
114
Los Angeles, CA
my pool is losing about 1" of water every 2 weeks or so.
I have 14000 gal in ground just finished in Dec 09
Been using the spa in the weekend.

Pool is mostly in the sun and it is somewhat windy in my area.

Do you think the evaporation and water lost is normal?
 
bk406 said:
fkong777 said:
Do you think the evaporation and water lost is normal?
Click to expand...

Absolutely.
Click to expand...

On a sunny and/or windy summer day my pool can lose an inch of water with no swimmers or splash out; only evaporation. With doggies in and out of pool for hours on end even more. We have had much lower temps than normal for months which still continues. For three, going on four months we have had far less sunny days than normal. Dogs are not swimming much yet, but pool loses about 1/4 a day right now in mid-March. There are no leaks.

gg=alice
 
Depending on where you're located (you can add that to your profile) 1/2" per week isn't much at all.

We're in South Alabama and in the heat of the summer without rains we can lose 1" a week or more. I bet in Arizona they can lose more than that.

If you want to make sure it's evaporation and not a leak you can do a bucket test.

Take a bucket and fill it about 2/3ds full of water. Sit it on the top step and either mark the water level or measure it precisely. Then mark or measure the water level in the pool. The next day measure how much the level in the bucket and the pool has dropped. Compare the two and they should have the same amount of drop. Don't run fountains or such during this time.
 
You can see annual evaporation rates across the country in this map. Note that this is for unheated water that is just in an open pan exposed to air and wind in that area. This is annual loss where the loss in summer is higher due to the higher average temperatures. Also, heated pools have a higher loss. Even ignoring these effects, 50" per year would be nearly an inch per week. In a hot arid climate the loss rate can easily be more than double (i.e. > 2" per week).

Using a pool cover is the best way to virtually eliminate this evaporation and also to retain heat in the pool.
 
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