Recycled Rubber Pavers around pool

Sep 12, 2007
10
Fort Worth, TX
Hi-

I haven't seen any discussions about rubber pavers like the Envirotile sold at Home Depot http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc...splay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053.

We've had our pool for four years which had the original 1970's plaster job. Plaster coming up, algae ingrained in the walls, leaking. Yeah, we were the people that bought a foreclosed house and thought, "Oh boy! A pool. How fun. The kids will love it", even though the thing was a green moat when we took ownership.

So, this year we had my 'estimated cost' in cash on-hand to get the thing fixed...or bury it. New tile, coping, plaster, dig out & replace cracked skimmer. Had to pass on getting the decking worked on as my 'estimated cost' was a little low.

Here is a link to my flickr set http://www.flickr.com/photos/51876298@N00/sets/72157626461670010/ of some pics of where it was a couple weeks ago and where they are now in the process. As of today, they have removed the tile and coping and actually used a 40k psi water blaster to remove the plaster. It is an awesome job of removal and I'm stoked about how well the new plaster should adhere to the gunite.

The concrete decking is basically a 38" wide sidewalk around the kidney-shaped pool with some additional area for where the diving board and water slide used to be along with a walk back down to our patio. The pool company will install new coping and mastic between the existing decking and the new coping. I've thought about a DIY of 1/2-inch pavers to keep the height shift to a minimum. Then I saw the rubber pavers at Home Depot which seems like an ideal solution because I will not have to do any more work on the concrete. Oh, by the way, the concrete used to have a layer of pea-gravel on it that hurt to walk on. It was rough and so filled with dirt that weeds grew out of it. It took me about a year to get it up with some tool my dad lent me that he called a Mule.

As the pics show the concrete is in bad shape and still has a layer of thinset in areas that the pea gravel was laid down on that needs to come up. I think doing any sort of bonding agent and thinset or concrete treatment is out because of the condition. These rubber pavers basically are like a 'floated floor'. We picked 4 squares up and it became evident that with the shape of the pool I'm gonna have a lot of waste since the pavers are 18" square. Still, it is intriguing as are some of the other recycled paver solutions I'm finding online.

Anyone have any thoughts or experiences with them?

Thanks!
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While I haven't seen it done, it sounds like it should make a good job. I bet you won't have as much waste as you think. A little planning and using cut off pieces on the opposite side of the pool and you'll be surprised how many of the pieces you'll be able to use.

Post more pics as mentioned by Mark.
 
@Mark
Thanks! And yes...it is quite the project...we are so excited. To have the pool beautiful and swimmable all season long will be great.

@Dave
Thanks for the thumbs up vote! It does sound like it should do a good job and be a good solution. I hope, like you say, that the cut pieces will turn out to be reusable to a great extent. My wife and I laid a hardwood floor in our living room and found that to be the case. On floors they say to expect about 10% waste. If that holds true for this project than that ought to be pretty good.

I will post more pics :-D
 
Put those rubber squares in the sun and try to walk on them with bare feet at noon.

I purchased about 5000lbs of shredded rubber for our playground. The stuff in the sun gets screeming hot. I've been to several local playgrounds with the "Pour in Place" rubber and that stuff gets hot too. I don't think I've seen the tiles in person, but all three products are recycled tires.

I live about 15 minutes from these guys: http://www.emcmolding.com/products.htm

They sell the "shredded" rubber as well as a "Pour in Place" and "Tile" product. I picked up samples of the Tumbled Turf (shredded) to see if different colors were different temperatures. My samples were not big enough to tell. I have a section of Royal Blue and a section of Forest Green, they are both equally hot.
 
Nightmare said:
Put those rubber squares in the sun and try to walk on them with bare feet at noon.

Great point Nightmare! I bought 4 squares to see how they look...I've got one sitting out in the sun right now...88 degrees out...I'll see how it feels around 3:00pm.

I've got lots of trees in our pool area that keep a good portion of the deck in shade...so it might still be a trade-off to have hot spots and not so hot spots.
 
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