Pool Repair – The Complete Guide for Palm Beach County

If you’re at the point where you’re researching pool repair, you’ve probably already noticed a natural process taking place: your pool is either starting to degrade, or it needs a fresh look.

With enough time, water will always wear down stone. Just like seawater seeping into a leaky boat, the water in and around your pool is constantly looking for weak spots, wearing down your pool’s structure and systems. Even homeowners who properly maintain and service their pools will inevitably face a service issue. Having your pool professionally repaired may seem pricey, but it’s part of the deal for every pool owner at some point.  And, if you learn what to look for when choosing a pool repair professional here in Palm Beach County, it makes the process a lot easier.

Typical Pool Repair Issues

Swimming pool systems are complex, with dozens of moving and non-moving parts working together. For starters, you may find it helpful to understand the three main categories when it comes to pool repair:  Structural, Mechanical, and Electrical.  

Structural – over time, small (even microscopic) faults in the physical structure of the pool will worsen, and lead to deformations that look bad, or even worse, cause severe physical damage. Typical structural issues include:

• Shell cracks
• Bubbles/blisters
• Tile fractures/loose tiles
• Coping fractures/loose coping
• Deck fractures/cracks
• Liner leaks
• Pool needs resurfacing
• Plumbing repair/replacement
• Drain failure

Mechanical – whether it’s a car, a boat, or a set of pool equipment, all mechanical systems have service lifespans.  Depending on how your pool has been maintained, the lifespan of your pool equipment might even be shortened through lack of proper pool maintenance 

• Pumps
• Filtrations systems
• Salination systems
• Heaters
• Skimmers
• Suction lines

Electrical/Lighting – while electricity and water don’t usually go well together, most modern pools have built-in lighting systems. Typically, we see service calls for these items:

• Upgrade from regular to LED bulbs
• Flooded electrical conduits
• Decaying electric wiring/circuits

Types of Pools We Repair

Our vetted contractors are trained to handle repair of the following types of in-ground pools:

• Concrete
• Vinyl
• Fiberglass

When to DIY Pool Repair vs. Hire a Professional?

While you may see some DIY repair kits at your local hardware store, or hear a tall tale from a friend or relative who resurfaced a pool all by himself, many homeowners choose to work with an experienced professional for anything beyond routine maintenance. Here’s why:

1. Extremely high cost of mistakes: if you don’t properly repair a relatively minor problem properly, it will lead to a much more costly repair later. For example, let’s say you notice a hairline crack on your coping. The DIY in you wants to just get a little cement and patch it up. But the small crack can be a sign that water has seeped under the coping… and a few months later the small crack you “repaired” is now a web of concrete ruptures and loose tiles that requires full re-tiling and re-coping, and possibly an excavation to fix the expansion joint between coping and pool deck.
2. Inexperience: as a homeowner, we hope that you rarely have to deal with pool repairs and certainly not duplicate repairs. This means each time you face a pool repair, you are facing it for the first time. But no matter how thorough your DIY manual is, there’s a level of understanding that can only exist after performing the same repair dozens of times. If a new issue is discovered during the repair, only a seasoned pool repair veteran will know how to address it on the spot.

Emergency Pool Repair

If you are experiencing any of the following situations, there’s a good chance you may need an emergency pool repair. Any time water is escaping the confines of your pool liner, there’s a chance it is eroding structural components of your pool or home. Failing to make appropriate repairs immediately may lead to monumental costs down the road.

• Water level drop of over ¼” per day
• Visible cracks below the water line
• Pool pump failure

If you notice any of these, we encourage you to seek the help of a pool repair professional immediately.

Cost of Pool Repair

While the average cost of pool repair is about $8,000 to $10,000, the price varies considerably with the size of pool and the type of work. A simple pump replacement may cost under $1,000 whereas a full resurfacing would be under $10,000.  A full rebuild can cost $20,000 or more. Our vetted pool repair contractors will analyze your specific situation and provide you with a full quotation and repair plan for your approval.

Pool Repair vs. Pool Maintenance

Maintenance is the regular ongoing upkeep of your pool systems. The most common items on the maintenance checklist are maintaining the water quality (salinity, pH balance, etc.) and keeping the pool system clean (cleaning the skimmer and other filters, cleaning the pool bottom, removing debris, etc.). Other less frequent maintenance includes periodically applying sealant to concrete and other porous surfaces and doing sealant/caulk touch-ups across the various joints.

Pool repairs are hopefully infrequent fixes of components which have broken or deteriorated with time. While maintenance can be performed by the homeowner or your neighborhood “pool guy”, pool repairs should be performed by an experienced contractor.