Wellen Park is one of the fastest-growing communities in Southwest Florida, and that means a lot of brand-new pools going into brand-new backyards. So when a homeowner calls us a few months after closing and says “my pool is losing water, but it’s basically new,” we understand the confusion. New construction is supposed to mean new problems don’t happen yet. Unfortunately, that’s not quite how pools work.

Here’s what we tell every new Wellen Park homeowner who suspects a leak.

New Ground Settles — and So Does New Plumbing

A newly built pool sits in freshly graded, freshly compacted soil. As that ground settles over the following months, it can shift underground plumbing lines just enough to stress a fitting or a joint that wasn’t fully cured. Combine that with fittings and glue joints that are still “breaking in,” and early leaks in new pools are more common than most homeowners expect — they’re just rarely visible from the surface.

“It’s Just Evaporation” Isn’t Always True

Southwest Florida summers push a lot of water loss through evaporation alone, so it’s easy to write off a slow drop as normal, especially in a pool you don’t have a baseline for yet. If you’re topping off more than about a quarter inch a day, or more than once a week, it’s worth getting an actual answer instead of guessing.

Why Documentation Matters More Than You’d Think

If your pool is still under a builder’s warranty, an independent leak detection report becomes your evidence. Builders and their pool subcontractors have an obvious incentive to call a new-construction leak “normal settling” and move on. A static dye test, pressure test, and acoustic inspection from an independent company gives you a factual, dated record of exactly where the water is going and why — something you can hand to a builder instead of just a complaint.

What We Actually Check

On a new pool, we pay close attention to the spots that are most likely to show early stress: skimmer throats and fittings, return lines, main drain connections, and any equipment pad plumbing that was run through freshly disturbed ground. We use the same static dye testing, pressure testing, and acoustic listening equipment on a six-month-old pool that we do on a thirty-year-old one — the process doesn’t change, only what we expect to find.

If you’re in Wellen Park, Venice, or anywhere nearby and your new pool is using more water than it should, don’t wait for it to get worse or take the builder’s word for it. Learn more about our Venice-area leak detection service, or call us at 941-599-3921 and we’ll come take a look.

When people think about pool leaks, they usually picture a crack in the shell somewhere under the water. In our experience working on North Port pools, though, a surprising number of leaks actually turn out to be coming from somewhere much easier to overlook: the skimmer, the equipment pad, or the underground plumbing that connects everything together.

These spots don’t get much attention because they’re either out of sight or easy to mistake for a different problem. Here’s what to know about each one.

Skimmers: A Common but Easy-to-Miss Culprit

The skimmer is where the pool shell meets a separate fitting that was set into the deck when the pool was built, and that joint is a common place for cracks to develop over time as the deck and shell settle at slightly different rates. A cracked or separated skimmer throat can leak steadily without ever being obvious from a visual inspection, since the crack is often below the waterline and hidden behind the skimmer basket.

A telltale sign is a water level that consistently stops dropping right around the skimmer opening, rather than continuing to fall. If that’s what you’re seeing, the skimmer itself — not the main pool shell — may be where the water is going. In many cases a full skimmer replacement ends up being the most reliable long-term fix, since patching a cracked skimmer body often doesn’t hold up the way replacing it does.

The Equipment Pad Hides Leaks in Plain Sight

Pumps, filters, heaters, and the maze of valves and unions connecting them all live on the equipment pad, and every one of those connections is a potential leak point. What makes equipment pad leaks tricky is that they can look like pool water loss even though the water never actually left the plumbing system — it’s escaping at a fitting, a pump seal, or a valve before it ever gets back to the pool.

Signs to watch for around the pad include damp or stained concrete underneath the equipment, a musty smell near the pump, or noticing the ground nearby staying wet even during the dry season. Because the equipment pad has so many individual components, this is one area where isolating the exact source before doing any repair really pays off.

Underground Plumbing: Out of Sight, Not Out of Mind

The pipes running between the equipment pad and the pool itself are buried, which means a leak there can run for a long time before it becomes obvious. North Port’s newer developments still have plenty of pools old enough for original plumbing to start showing wear, and ground movement from our seasonal rains can stress buried pipe joints over the years.

Underground plumbing leaks often show up as wet or unusually green patches of lawn along the pipe run, a drop in water pressure at the returns, or air bubbling into the pool when the pump kicks on. Because you can’t see the pipe itself, confirming a plumbing leak — and figuring out which specific line is affected — usually requires pressure testing rather than guesswork. If plumbing turns out to be the source, underground plumbing repair is typically far less invasive than most homeowners expect, since it doesn’t always require digging up the entire yard.

Why It’s Worth Ruling These Out First

Skimmers, equipment pads, and underground lines account for a meaningful share of the leaks we find on North Port pools, and none of them require draining or excavating the whole pool to diagnose. Before assuming a leak means a major shell repair, it’s worth having these more accessible areas checked first — the fix is often simpler than homeowners expect once the actual source is confirmed.

If you’re in the North Port area and want more detail on how we approach this, our North Port leak detection page covers the process in more depth.

Not Sure Where to Start?

If your pool is losing water and you’re not sure whether it’s the skimmer, the equipment, or something underground, that uncertainty is normal — it’s exactly why proper diagnosis matters before any repair begins. Reach out and describe what you’re seeing, and we can help you figure out the most likely next step.

Bradenton has some of the oldest pool stock in our service area. Plenty of backyard pools here were built decades ago, back when construction methods, plumbing materials, and even the concrete mixes used for gunite shells were different from what’s used today. That age is exactly why we see more leak calls from Bradenton’s older, established neighborhoods than from newer developments.

If your pool has been in the ground since the 80s or 90s — or even earlier — here’s why it’s more likely to develop a leak, and what to keep an eye on.

Structural Cracks Build Up Over Time

Every pool shell shifts slightly as the ground underneath it settles, expands, and contracts through Florida’s wet and dry seasons. In a newer pool, that movement is usually absorbed without issue. In an older shell, decades of that same cyclical soil movement can eventually produce hairline cracks in the gunite or in the plaster finish. Those cracks don’t always show up where you’d expect — they can run along old construction joints, around light niches, or near the steps, and they’re not always visible from the water’s surface.

Once a crack reaches through the shell, it stops being cosmetic and starts being a water loss problem. That’s when a pool crack repair is worth looking into rather than just topping off the water and hoping it stabilizes.

Plumbing Materials Have Changed

Underground plumbing in older Bradenton pools was often installed with materials and joint techniques that aren’t used in new construction anymore. Over enough years, those joints and fittings are more prone to developing small leaks than the plumbing going into pools built in the last decade. Because those lines run underground, a leak can persist for a long time before it’s obvious — you might just notice the pool needs topping off more often, or a patch of the yard that stays damp longer than the rest.

Older Equipment Pads Add Their Own Wear

It’s not just the shell and the plumbing. Pump housings, valves, and the fittings around the equipment pad all have a service life, and on an older system those components have simply had more years to develop small leaks of their own. A leak at the equipment pad can look similar to a leak in the pool itself — water loss, a running pump, a damp spot near the filter — which is part of why pinpointing the actual source matters before any repair work starts.

Signs Worth Paying Attention To

• You’re adding water noticeably more often than in past years
• Cracks appear in the pool deck near the shell, especially ones that seem to be widening
• Discolored or stained plaster in one specific area, which can indicate water moving behind the surface
• A section of lawn or landscaping near the equipment pad or plumbing runs that stays wet without an obvious source
• Tile that’s coming loose or grout that’s crumbling along the waterline

Why Guessing at the Source Doesn’t Pay Off

With an older pool, there are simply more possible places for a leak to be hiding — the shell, the plaster, any of several plumbing lines, or aging equipment. That’s why the first real step isn’t patching the first crack you find, it’s confirming where the water is actually going. Pressure testing the plumbing is how we isolate whether a leak is in the pipes versus the shell versus the equipment, so the repair that follows actually addresses the problem instead of just the symptom you happened to notice.

We work on a lot of these older Bradenton systems and are familiar with the way this housing stock tends to develop problems over time. If you want more detail on the area, our Bradenton pool leak detection page has more specifics.

An Older Pool Doesn’t Mean an Expensive Problem

Age raises the odds of a leak developing, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the fix is complicated. Plenty of older pools just need one crack sealed or one plumbing joint repaired to be watertight again for years. The key is catching it and identifying the actual source early, rather than letting a small leak run long enough to undermine the deck or erode soil around the shell. If you’ve noticed any of the signs above, get in touch and we’ll help you figure out what’s going on.

If you own a pool in Sarasota, you already know the water level drops on its own during the warmer months. Between the sun, the wind, and the humidity swings we get on the Gulf Coast, some water loss is completely normal. The hard part is knowing where “normal evaporation” ends and an actual leak begins — and a lot of local pool owners go months without knowing the difference.

We hear a version of the same story often: a homeowner notices they’re topping off the pool more than they used to, assumes it’s just a hot summer, and doesn’t think much of it until a water bill or a cracked deck tile makes it obvious something else is going on. Here’s how to tell which one you’re dealing with.

Start With the Bucket Test

This is the simplest way to separate evaporation from a real leak, and you can do it yourself before calling anyone. Fill a bucket with pool water and set it on a step in the pool so the water level inside the bucket matches the water level in the pool. Mark both levels with tape. Wait 24 hours, then compare.

If the pool’s water level has dropped roughly the same amount as the water inside the bucket, you’re most likely looking at normal evaporation — the bucket loses water to the same sun and wind the pool does. If the pool has dropped noticeably more than the bucket, that difference is a strong sign you have a leak somewhere in the shell, plumbing, or equipment.

Signs It’s More Than Evaporation

Beyond the bucket test, a few other clues tend to show up around Sarasota properties when a leak is developing:

• Wet or unusually soft spots in the yard, especially near the equipment pad or along the run of underground plumbing
• The water level stalls at a specific point, such as right at the skimmer opening, rather than continuing to drop
• Cracks or lifting at the tile line or deck, which can be a sign the surrounding soil has shifted from water escaping underneath
• Air sputtering from the return jets when the pump is running
• A water bill that’s climbed without an obvious reason, particularly if you’re on a well or use an auto-fill line, since that can quietly mask a leak for a long time

Any one of these on its own isn’t necessarily proof of a leak, but a couple showing up together is worth paying attention to.

Why Leaks Are Common in Sarasota Pools Specifically

Sarasota’s soil and building history both work against pools over time. A lot of the area sits on sandy, shifting soil that moves more than homeowners expect, and ground movement is one of the most common causes of stress cracks in a pool shell or plumbing joints. Add in our rainy season, when saturated ground puts extra pressure on buried pipes and structures, and it’s easy to see why leaks tend to show up — or get worse — during the wetter months.

Older neighborhoods around Sarasota also have plenty of pools with decades-old plumbing that was never designed to be inspected without excavation. Small leaks in those systems can run for a long time before they surface as a noticeable problem.

What to Do If You Suspect a Leak

If your bucket test and a couple of the warning signs above line up, the next reasonable step is narrowing down where the water is actually going. That usually starts with pressure testing the plumbing lines to isolate whether the leak is in the pipes, the shell, or the equipment, since each of those is diagnosed and repaired differently. Guessing at a repair without that step often means paying to fix the wrong thing.

This is exactly the kind of troubleshooting we handle for pool owners throughout the area — if you want to read more about how the process works, our pool leak detection page walks through it in more detail, and we also have information specific to leak detection for Sarasota pools.

When to Call a Professional

You don’t need to wait until the problem is obvious to get it checked out. If your bucket test shows a clear gap between the pool and the control bucket, or if you’re seeing wet spots, cracking, or a rising water bill, it’s worth having someone take a look before the leak has a chance to undermine the deck, erode soil around the shell, or drive your water usage up further. If you’d like to talk through what you’re seeing, feel free to reach out and tell us what’s going on — we’re happy to help you figure out the next step.