Just before the Thanksgiving Holiday, we were asked to perform a swimming pool leak detection in Woodland Hills.
The customer was very concerned as the pool was losing water in a short period of time. An appointment was made. When we arrived, we saw the hose was in the pool and the water was running to fill the pool. Unfortunately, the homeowner was struggling to fill the pool. Although there were many structural cracks visible in the pool, we did not make any immediate presumptions and immediately got to testing everything. Even though the water level was not at the proper height, we assured the homeowner we were able to test the skimmer and suction line without water flowing in it. We performed a pressure test on the skimmer suction line, no leaks. We continued to test the main drain line, return lines, light niche and conduit. Again no leaks detected.
We then tested all of the structural cracks and confirmed his nightmare, that the structural cracks were leaking. The homeowner was in disbelief since he had a pool leak detection performed three months prior and was informed the structural cracks were the cause of the leaks. The same company who performed the leak detection made the structural crack repairs with epoxy and nothing else. The homeowner explained that the company told him they could not warrant the repair, but said the epoxy should “hold”.
We explained to the homeowner that epoxy was not the best choice for the repair. There was an excessive amount of structural cracks which needed to be stabilized. 
Epoxy is not able to stabilize a structural crack, it basically acts like glue. The homeowner asked the prior company if there was a better method of repair prior to performing the repair with epoxy. The previous company misinformed him by saying that due to the various locations of the structural cracks, epoxy was the best method. This was not the case.
We spoke with the homeowner in detail about repairing the structural cracks using the Torque Lock Structural Repair method and showed him one of the Torque Lock Staples. The homeowner was especially concerned with how we were going to install the Torque Lock staples in the radius of the pool. This was something that the previous company told him was unable to be done with any other method except epoxy. We assured him we were able to make the repair to the radius using the Torque Lock staples. We gave the homeowner an estimate for the repair and didn’t hear from him until after the Thanksgiving Holiday.
When the homeowner called us to schedule the repair, he told Celia, the Office Manager that he did his homework and was quite impressed with what he was able to find out about the performance of the Torque Lock staple. He said it also raised his curiosity when he compared other methods of structural repair and saw the failure rate compared to the Torque Lock Method.
Moral of the story: all hope is NOT lost when you need a swimming pool leak detection in Woodland Hills and have a swimming pool leak caused by structural cracks. Make Caltech Pools your first and only choice for swimming pool leak detection and structural repair.
