Bucket Test Results

[matthanna]

I'm new to pool ownership and curious to hear the group wisdom's take on the results of my bucket test. I was seeing some bubbles in the return line and wasn't sure if they were from my SWG or not. This is after 2.5 days. It's been overcast and mild in Atlanta, so minimal evaporation - the water in the bucket didn't really drop much at all. I estimate that the pool lost about 1/4" more than the bucket did. It's hard to see, but the sharpie mark for the starting pool water level is over the vertical blue text, inline below the bucket water level mark.

This works out to about 30 gallons per day. Is this the type of thing that you have to learn to live with when you own a pool, otherwise you go insane? Or is there no such thing as an acceptably small leak? It's a 2.5 year old pool.

 

[Bperry]

I'm new to pool ownership and curious to hear the group wisdom's take on the results of my bucket test. I was seeing some bubbles in the return line and wasn't sure if they were from my SWG or not. This is after 2.5 days. It's been overcast and mild in Atlanta, so minimal evaporation - the water in the bucket didn't really drop much at all. I estimate that the pool lost about 1/4" more than the bucket did. It's hard to see, but the sharpie mark for the starting pool water level is over the vertical blue text, inline below the bucket water level mark.

This works out to about 30 gallons per day. Is this the type of thing that you have to learn to live with when you own a pool, otherwise you go insane? Or is there no such thing as an acceptably small leak? It's a 2.5 year old pool.

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Even a small leak is unacceptable but I’m not sure losing 1/4” over two days is indicative of a leak and could be evaporation. The bucket test works a little better if you sink the bucket deeper underwater so the wind hits both water bodies about the same amount.

 

[jsygrls]

FWIW, #1 Best Pool Evaporation Calculator for Water Loss Control in 37092 zip code (a WAG on the zip code} current rate 0.05" /Day.

 

[matthanna]

Even a small leak is unacceptable but I’m not sure losing 1/4” over two days is indicative of a leak and could be evaporation. The bucket test works a little better if you sink the bucket deeper underwater so the wind hits both water bodies about the same amount.

I know, it's so marginal. I was hoping it would work to setup the bucket on the first step, but it was too deep. I'll have to see if I can rig it up differently or find a taller bucket.

I suppose an interim solution would be to fill the bucket almost to the lip so that the water in it is more exposed to the wind.

 

[matthanna]

FWIW, #1 Best Pool Evaporation Calculator for Water Loss Control in 37092 zip code (a WAG on the zip code} current rate 0.05" /Day.

Hmm, that's interesting. That's definitely within the margin of error of how much the water in the pool dropped.

Now that I think about it, I have an autocover - I guess I could close the autocover, mark the water level in the skimmer, and come back a few days later to see if it stayed exactly the same. There should be almost 0 loss to evaporation when the autocover is resting on 99% of the surface area of the pool. That should work, right?