Topic
Most suspected leaks are evaporation. Prove it before you dig.
7 guides on this topic
Water between the motor and pump body is the shaft seal, and it can't wait. The lid, the middle joint, the ports and the drain plugs each mean something else.
The free 24-hour test that separates a real leak from ordinary evaporation, the five things that quietly invalidate it, and how to read the answer.
Why a skimmer stops pulling, where the air is getting in, and how to tell a cracked skimmer from a leaking faceplate before you start digging.
How to find and patch a liner leak underwater, what shortens liner life, and how to know when patching stops making sense.
Grinding, screeching, rattling and gravel-in-a-bucket all point at different failures. Here's how to tell them apart before something expensive breaks.
Bucket test, dye test, and how to tell a plumbing leak from a shell leak. Most suspected leaks turn out to be evaporation.
A proper diagnostic tree for a pump that won't prime or won't hold prime. Cheapest causes first, with the tests that actually find the air leak.