Pool Leak Detection and Waterproofing in Cairo

Seven facts behind the most accurate pool leak detection company in Cairo

Accurate means the spot we open is the spot that leaks. Each of these can be checked before you agree to any work.

1. A location before a hammer. The leak gets a location first, and only that spot gets opened. A deck or a terrace that never leaked stays exactly as it is.
2. Engineers on our own staff. Structural, hydraulic and MEP engineering sits inside the company. The shell, the buried pipework and the wiring behind a light niche each go to the engineer who knows that part.
3. Our own site teams. The people working on your pool are our employees, on our payroll.
4. Findings on paper. Where the water leaves, why it found a way out, and what has to come up to stop it, all written down before a price is agreed.
5. Two waterproofing names you can look up. Sika and BASF Master Builders Solutions. The system gets chosen for your pool, and its name goes on the quote.
6. A written warranty. On pools we build: 25 years on the structure, 10 on the waterproofing, 5 on the electromechanical works, in writing. On a repair to another company's pool, the term is agreed per job and written on the quote.
7. Nothing billed that was not done. Anything the detection turns up beyond the agreed scope gets quoted in writing first.

Twenty five years on Egyptian pools, from one Nasr City office

We started in 2001. Twenty five years on, the name on the warranty and the number on the phone are still the same. The office is at 15 El-Lewaa Mahmoud Samy Basha, Al Mintaqah as Sādisah, Nasr City, Cairo Governorate 10506, Egypt. Office hours are Saturday to Thursday, 9am to 5pm. Closed Friday.

A ten year promise on waterproofing is worth the paper only if the company behind it still answers in year ten.

Building pools is the core of our work, so the engineers looking for your leak know what sits behind the tile and under the deck.

Normal loss in a Cairo summer, and loss that means a leak

Hot dry air, long hours of sun and wind take some water off every open pool in Cairo, every day. Splashing, backwashing and hosing down the deck take more. None of that is a fault, and none of it needs anything opened.

A leak shows up as loss on top of that. Two patterns make it worth a call: the level keeps falling at its summer rate after the heat breaks, or the loss jumps from one month to the next with no change in use.

The one test that separates the two

A bucket of pool water standing on a step loses water to the sun and the wind at the same rate as the pool around it. If the pool falls further than the bucket over a day, the difference is water leaving through the structure or the pipes.

Switch off any automatic top-up first, or the pool refills while you measure, then bring us both numbers.

The leak gets a location before anything is broken open

A pool holds water in two places, the concrete shell and the buried pipework that feeds it, and the fittings where the two meet. A leak in each one is a different job with a different price. So the first thing we establish is which of the three is losing water, and where.

These are the places water usually gets out of a pool:

• The skimmer body and its throat, where the shell is cut open for it.
• Light niches and the conduit running back from them.
• Return fittings, the main drain and the pipe joints behind them.
• Construction joints, and the line where the floor meets the walls.
• The waterline, once the grout there has washed out.

Once the leak has a location, you get it in writing. If the cause is a line under the paving, the paving over that line is all that gets lifted.

Overflow, infinity and knife-edge pools

On these pools the water also runs through a channel, a balance tank and the pipework between them. From the tile line, a balance tank losing water looks exactly like a pool losing water, so the whole circuit gets checked before the shell is blamed.

Waterproofing specified for the pool it goes on

Waterproofing that holds is a set of layers chosen together and laid in order, with every joint and every pipe through the wall detailed. We use Sika and BASF Master Builders Solutions systems. Which system, and how it is detailed, depends on the pool: its structure, its age, whether it sits in the ground or on a roof, and what the ground around it is doing.

A crack that is still moving opens again through any coat painted across it, so the cause of the crack gets dealt with before the shell is sealed.

When the ground pushes water in

Where groundwater sits high against the outside of a pool, the pressure runs the other way, from the soil into the shell. A barrier designed only to hold water in can be pushed off its base from behind, tile bed and all. That is one reason the specification comes after the site visit, once the ground around your pool has been seen.

Rooftop pools over flats

A rooftop pool sits on a slab with homes under it, so its leak ends up in someone's ceiling. On a roof, the waterproofing, the drainage around the pool and the slab carrying it get looked at together, by our structural engineers and the team doing the waterproofing.

Rooftop work is scheduled individually, around the building and the people living in it.

For building owners and managers

If you own or run the building, you answer to the families under the pool.

You get one contact for the job, findings in writing that your owners or residents can read for themselves, and any work beyond the agreed scope priced in writing before it starts. Anything that closes the roof or the pool gets planned with you first.

After the leak is found, a repair or a renovation

One failed fitting, one cracked joint or one broken line is a single fault. It goes to a one-off repair on that spot, with the waterproofing closed back over it.

Where the waterproofing has aged out across the whole shell, sealing one spot spends money twice. The waterproofing, the finish and often the pipework get renewed together, as a renovation of the whole pool with its own survey and its own quote.

The written findings say which of the two your pool needs before any figure is discussed.

Leaks in pools other contractors built

We take on pools other contractors built, with the drawings or without them. The leak still gets a location, the cause still goes on paper, and the waterproofing still gets specified for the pool in front of us.

You hear what is sound, what is losing water, and what it takes to stop it.

Measured against the brush and the chisel

The cheapest offers for a leaking pool come in two kinds. One brushes a coat of something over the old tile and leaves the leak where it was. The other starts chiselling where the leak might be, and opens a deck that may never have leaked.

Against those you get a location first, our own engineers, a named waterproofing system, and the findings, the price and the warranty term on paper.

Where our teams trace leaks across Greater Cairo

Our teams leave the Nasr City office six days a week. Before you compare any swimming pool company Cairo has on a leak, check that its teams can reach your area for the visit and come back for the work.

Outside Greater Cairo, a leak job is confirmed once we have seen the site.

Who should not call us about a leak

If the bucket and the pool dropped by the same amount, the sun took the water. You need nobody, and a pool cover will cut the loss.

If you want a price for a leak over the phone, we are the wrong company, and we will say so on the first call.

And if all you want is a coat brushed over the old tile, with nobody finding the leak first, we will turn the job down.

How the price is decided, after a free site visit

Four things set the figure, and each one has to be seen at the pool.

1. Where the water leaves. A fitting, a buried line, a joint in the shell or the whole waterproofing.
2. What has to come up to reach it. Tile, coping, paving, planting, or nothing at all.
3. The pool itself. Its size, its type, and whether it has an overflow channel and a balance tank.
4. The waterproofing it needs. One spot sealed, or a full system, and whether the pool sits on a roof.

A leak without a location has no honest price, so we come and look first. The site visit costs you nothing, the consultation is free with no obligation, and every figure on the quote comes from our own rate book.

Call or WhatsApp +20 102 626 1818 and book the visit for this week.

Five readings to take before you call

Two days, a bucket, a marker and a tape measure.

1. The level on the tile. Top the pool up to normal, switch off any automatic top-up, and draw a line at the waterline with the time beside it.
2. The bucket on the step. Stand it on the first step, fill it to match the pool, mark the inside, and compare both drops after 24 hours.
3. Pump on, then pump off. Run one day each way and note both drops. The difference tells us whether to start with the pipework or the shell.
4. Where the level settles. Stop topping up and the water falls to the height of the leak, then stops. Note whether that is at the skimmer mouth, at a light, or below every fitting.
5. Damp around the pool. A stain on the ceiling of the flat below, a wet patch on a terrace wall, or a strip of garden greener than the rest.

Send us the reading and we will find the water

Tell us how far the level dropped, with the pump on and off if you have both numbers. After the site visit you get the location, the cause, the waterproofing system and the price, all in writing. If you say no, you owe us nothing.

Call or WhatsApp +20 102 626 1818, email info@arcgroup-eg.com, or book the site visit through our contact page. The office is at 15 El-Lewaa Mahmoud Samy Basha, Al Mintaqah as Sādisah, Nasr City, Cairo Governorate 10506, Egypt. Office hours are Saturday to Thursday, 9am to 5pm. Closed Friday.