Pool leak repair in Los Angeles

Most in-ground pool leak repairs in Los Angeles land between $500 and $1,500, and published figures for the city run from a few hundred for a fitting to around $4,000 where plumbing has to be cut and re-run. Ours follows what is leaking, not how much water you are losing: a skimmer throat or a return fitting is a few hundred dollars of labor plus parts, done from inside the pool. What we do not do is charge for the visit that finds it — several companies here bill $450 for the diagnostic alone, and in our area ours is $0.

We do both, and that is the point of the page. Detection and repair get separated by companies that only own the listening equipment, and the result is a report, a bill, and a second contractor who drains the pool again. One visit, one crew, one pool draining where the fix is reachable.

Often, yes. A skimmer throat, a return fitting, a light niche and most shell cracks below the waterline are repaired by a diver or with the level dropped a few inches, not by emptying the pool. Draining is reserved for work that needs a dry surface — a long crack, a floor fitting, or an interior that is being replaced anyway. Emptying a pool in Los Angeles has its own risk: a shell with a high water table under it can lift.

A bucket test settles it in a day. A pool here loses roughly a quarter of an inch to evaporation on a hot week, more with a heater running and no cover. Put a bucket of pool water on the step, mark both levels, come back in twenty-four hours: if the pool dropped further than the bucket, water is going somewhere. Losing more with the pump running points at pressure-side plumbing; losing more with it off points at the shell or the main drain.

On plaster, usually yes. A patch is new material against a surface that has had years of sun and chemistry, and it will read as a repair until the whole interior is replaced. On tile it is less obvious, and on a pebble finish it depends on the aggregate. We would rather tell you that before the work than have you find it when the pool refills.

The skimmer throat, by a wide margin. It is a plastic box cast into concrete, the two move at different rates, and the joint between them opens — which is why a level that falls to the bottom of the skimmer mouth and then holds there is the most familiar pattern in this trade. Light conduits come next, where the water travels the pipe rather than the niche, then return and main drain fittings, then the shell itself. The first three are repairs from inside the pool, not excavations.

Almost always, and usually for a good deal less than people expect before they know where it is. Skimmer throats, return fittings, light conduits and single shell cracks are repairs, not replacements. Two things do not get patched: plumbing that has already failed in two places, where re-running the line costs less than the third visit, and a crack in an interior that is due anyway — that one belongs in the resurfacing rather than under it.

Something is open, and at that rate it is usually a fitting rather than a hairline crack. An inch a day is about 320 gallons on a 16×32 ft pool, roughly four times what ordinary Los Angeles evaporation takes. Losses that size come from a skimmer throat, a return or main drain fitting, or a plumbing line that has let go; a fine shell crack normally loses less, and loses it at the same rate whether the pump runs or not. Two bucket tests, one with the pump on and one with it off, say which one you are paying to repair.

Pool Care LA is R R Pools, California contractor licence #970493, classifications C-53 and C-61/D-35, current to 29 February 2028, with a $25,000 bond. Verify it at cslb.ca.gov — it takes thirty seconds, and it matters more here than on a pad repair, because this work opens decks, shells and buried plumbing. Where the leak turns out to be a house line rather than the pool, we say so instead of quoting it.