Collier County, Florida
Pool Leak Detection and Repair on Marco Island, FL
If you live on Marco Island and have a pool that is losing water and you cannot see why, you are not imagining it, and you are not alone. You are topping the pool off more often than you used to, the water line keeps dropping anyway, and nobody has been able to tell you why. That is the mystery we solve. Aqua Leak Detection works out of Nokomis, up in Sarasota County, and has been finding and fixing hidden pool leaks across Southwest Florida since 2003. Marco Island is one of our 25 cities. We will tell you exactly where the water is going, and what it will take to stop it.
Is it really a leak, or just a Florida summer?
Plenty of the calls we take turn out not to be leaks at all. In this heat a pool loses real water to plain evaporation, and an autofill can disguise either answer: it quietly keeps the level looking normal whether your pool is healthy or bleeding water underground, so the first sign you get is the water bill. Before you spend a dollar, do what we would do first.
The bucket test. Free, tonight, no tools.
- Fill a bucket with pool water and set it on a pool step, so it sits in the same sun and the same air as the pool.
- Mark the water level inside the bucket, and mark the pool's level on the outside.
- Turn off the autofill, and read both marks 24 hours later.
The bucket and the pool evaporate at the same rate. If the pool has dropped clearly further than the bucket, the difference is not evaporation. That is water leaving your pool, and it is time to call us. If the two marks track together, you have a Florida summer, not a leak, and you just saved yourself a service visit. Not sure what you are looking at? Call anyway. What we can tell you is that we would rather talk you out of a visit than book one you do not need.
What a pool leak usually turns out to be (and not be)
The picture in most owners' heads is a cracked shell and a jackhammered deck.
In our experience, the dramatic crack in the floor is the rare one. What we see on these calls is that the leak is usually small and usually on the plumbing side, at a fitting, a joint, a skimmer throat or a light niche, and usually nowhere near the spot the owner has been staring at.
Small also means findable without destruction. We pressure test the plumbing to prove which lines hold and which do not, and we use acoustic listening equipment to hear water escaping underground. Nothing gets opened on a hunch, because the guess is expensive and the test is not. You get the answer, and the exact cost of the fix, before any repair work begins.
What we see on Marco Island
We have been finding pool leaks in Southwest Florida since 2003. More than 100,000 of them. What follows is not research. It is ours.
The canals here did not happen by accident. In 1964 the Deltona Corporation bought about 10,300 acres in this area and drew up a master plan for an entire community, and the plan was to dredge and fill in order to create finger canals and to raise the elevation of some of the property. That is not a brochure talking. It is a federal court record.
Of 18,436 housing units on Marco Island, the 1980s is the single biggest build decade at 6,156 units, then the 1990s at 4,320 and the 1970s at 3,607. Only 648 units date to the 1960s at all.
The median year built for a Marco Island housing unit is 1988.
What we have found is that the canals here are older than the houses that sit on them, and the year on the deed has never once told us where a pool is losing water. We have opened up original work that was still perfectly sound and we have chased water out of pools barely old enough to have a warranty. We go by what a pool is doing this week.
What we see on these calls is that a good part of this island is ground somebody placed here on purpose, and made ground is not the same from one lot to the next the way natural ground tends to be. Two houses on the same street can behave like two different jobs. That is a reason to test rather than to predict.
What we can tell you is that the leak almost never announces itself. Most of what we find out here is small, quiet, and nowhere near where the owner has been standing and staring. Getting to it is a process of elimination with instruments, and no amount of walking the deck substitutes for it.
What we see on these calls is that the pools that lose the most water here are the ones nobody was home to watch. An autofill keeps the surface looking right for months while the meter quietly runs. If your place sits empty for a season, the first week back is the right week to test, not the last.
What happens when you call Aqua Leak Detection?
We work like investigators, because that is what finding a hidden leak actually takes. Our whole process follows what we call the Private I's: Investigate, Identify, Inform.
Investigate.
We inspect your pool as a complete system, from the tile line to the bottom drain; from the skimmers and returns back to the equipment. Using methods like pressure testing to isolate the plumbing, along with acoustic listening devices to hear water escaping underground, we gather evidence before we draw any conclusions. No guessing, and no tearing up your deck on a hunch.
Identify.
Once the evidence is in, we pinpoint the exact location and cause of the leak. Our 23-plus years in Southwest Florida let us catch the issues that others walk right past.
Inform.
We call you on the way to your property, and we call you with results before we leave. You get a clear explanation of what we found, what it will take to fix it, and what it will cost, laid out before any work begins, and a written report with photos lands in your email for your records. No surprises.
...using a proven process of elimination to find every leak, not just the obvious one...
The practical part, since Marco Island is a long drive south of our Nokomis office: we book the drive with it. A detection visit typically runs 1.5 to 3 hours, and if the first slot of the day works best for you, 8:00am to 9:00am is offered and guaranteed.
What it costs, and how we handle the money
The detection visit is a flat rate, and it covers the dive test, the pressure test, and same-day epoxy patchwork at no extra charge. Larger repairs are a separate quote, and that quote reaches you before any repair work begins, so you decide with the number in front of you. If a repair lands at a bad time, we offer financing through Wisetack, so a surprise leak does not have to be a surprise expense. And the guarantee is a promise in plain words: we will continue working on your pool until it is leak free. Leaks are what we do. We are not a general pool-cleaning company that also dabbles in leaks, which is how the work holds 4.9 stars across more than 2,200 reviews.
Marco Island pool leak questions, answered
We are away half the year. Can you work with our caretaker or property manager?
Yes. We call ahead, work with whoever holds the keys, and you get the finding, the photos and the exact repair cost by email wherever you are. The pool does not need you home. The decision still belongs to you.
Is it true most of the island is man-made ground?
The USDA soil survey maps the St. Augustine series across developed Marco Island.
That series formed in fill material, the fill being the result of dredging and filling operations along peninsular Florida, sandy material carrying loamy or clayey fragments.
What it means for your pool is ours to say: placed ground varies lot to lot, so we test rather than predict.
Everyone hears sinkhole stories from up north. What about Marco?
What we can tell you is that the sinkhole stories mostly come down from somewhere else, and on this island a sinkhole has never once been what we found under a leaking pool.
What Marco pools actually lose water through is ordinary and fixable: fittings, returns, light niches.
Does salt matter here?
Marco Island is a true Gulf barrier island. It is a city and barrier island on the Gulf Coast, about 20 miles south of Naples.
So salt air here is simply life. It changes nothing about how a leak gets found: test, prove, then fix.
Will you have to dig up my deck or my yard?
Not on a hunch, and usually not at all for the finding. We prove the location with pressure testing and listening equipment first. If the repair itself means opening something, you will know exactly where, exactly why, and exactly what it costs before anyone touches it.
My autofill runs constantly. Is that a leak?
What we can tell you is that a constantly running autofill is how a lot of real leaks first announce themselves, and it is also exactly what a hot dry stretch looks like. The fill hides the evidence either way. Turn it off, run the bucket test above, and let the marks tell you which one you have.
What does the visit actually look like?
We call you on the way, the visit typically runs 1.5 to 3 hours, and you get the finding, the exact cost of the fix, and a written report with photos by email before any repair work begins.
If a repair is needed, you are already with the team that does it. Aqua Leak Detection handles the full range of pool leak work on Marco Island:
- Pool Leak Detection
- Pool Leak Repair
- Pre-Sale Pool Inspections
- Line Clearing
- Pipe Elimination: Cut and Cap
- Light Fixture Replacement
- VGB Compliant Main Drain Cover Installation
One call, one specialist, from the first question to the last repair.
Ready to solve your Marco Island pool leak?
You do not have to keep topping it off and hoping. Let us find out where the water is actually going, and what it takes to stop it. Call Aqua Leak Detection and put a 23-plus-year Southwest Florida specialist on your Marco Island pool.
Phone
(941) 270-6138Office
121 Triple Diamond Blvd UNIT 13, Nokomis, FL 34275
Hours
Monday to Friday, 8:00am to 4:00pm