Replacing fallen tiles

[mackguy]

Now that my SLAM is over, and mechanical failures seem to be resolved I wanted to move onto another "to do"

A good chunk of the waterline tiles have come off (before I bought the house), I retrieved 14 or so in-tact from the bottom of the pool and have a stack of unused tile in my garage. Simple, square bathroom like tile.

Is there anyway to reattach the missing tiles without lowering the waterline? I'm not worried about it looking perfect as the missing section is an area you don't see unless you're in the pool, and there's no discernible leakage, but would like to at least reattach the tiles.

Any thoughts here?

 

[mackguy]

Anyone? Or did I end up in the wrong subforum?

 

[otter86753]

Congrats on completing the SLAM! I am sorry nobody has responded. I have no expertise in this area, but hopefully someone else will chime in that does.

 

[smracing]

Lower the water to a few inches below the tile. Scrape or grind off the original thinset. Install with any quality modified thinset, or a standard thinset with acrylic polymer instead or water. (that's I what I do). Use sanded grout for 1/8" + grout lines, unsanded for smaller. Nothing different from tiling a shower.

 

[mackguy]

So the short answer here is there's no way to do it without lowering water level?

 

[gwegan]

You need to lower the water. Sorry.

 

[gilbee]

So the short answer here is there's no way to do it without lowering water level?

You can certainly try anything you want---it's gonna be a mess either way, since when you scrape off the old adhesive, you'll end up with much of it in your water...without the tile bonding surface being clean and dry to begin with, you're really just asking for those tiles to come off again, and sooner than it took the first time. For what it's worth, taking the water down a couple inches below the tile line shouldn't take long, and shouldn't be a ton of water...also should not be a water table issue, though you will need to shut off your skimmers and only draw from the main drain if you have one since they will draw air if you don't.

 

[mackguy]

I'll have to get some pictures later to show what I'm dealing with. I was hoping one of the underwater type epoxies would work.

Sounds like maybe a winter project..

 

[mackguy]

Here we go

 

[gwegan]

You want to drop the water level down a few inches -- remove all the tiles and clean up the concrete. Then you need to put some grout in those cracks so you have a clean surface to apply the thinset.

My bet would be this is a five to seven year solution at best -- I suspect expansion and contraction of the deck will affect the tiles and limit your tile life.