Buying house W/ concrete IG, No Expansion Joints on coping

[grakk]

Hello all,

I am in the inspection phase of purchasing a house down in Cedar Park, TX. There is an in ground pool here, and upon inspection by both my inspector and pool company it there are no expansion joints and the coping has begun to lift away from the pool. It seems that there was only mortar between the coping and concrete deck. The pool company is suggesting to remove the coping, then add a new one done right. The ground has a lot of limestone in it. There is also a stump from an oak tree which was cut down (I'm assuming it caused some of the separation)

I am worried that if they did not put expansion joints around the coping that there could be other hidden problems. This pool is over 10 years old, so I expect I'll be resurfacing it soon if we buy the house. Is there any cause for concern for the the actual concrete shell? Both inspectors said it looked fine (other than being 2 years out from resurfacing)

The pool company said it would be "less than 5k" (the guy who came wasn't the construction guy - hoping to get a better estimate tomorrow from them). This would be to remove the stonework, cut into the surrounding deck then put in an expansion joint and new stonework.

The pool guy also said that the filter was too small for the pool he recommended a FNS plus 60. Some of the jandy valves were not working correctly either.

Here are 4 pictures (sorry for not having better quality). You cannot see where the coping is lifting off the top of the pool, just the separation from the deck (and this is hard to see as well due to the blurry pics). I'm planning on trying to get the current owners to pay for this in an amendment to our contract. What do you guys think?

You can see the cracking on the right side w/o joint

Stump is on the far right

The shrub in front of the pool is right behind the coping.. with soil there thinking we should fill that in instead of having somewhere water can sit

You can see the are with the shrub in the back

 

[JasonLion]

Re: Buying house W/ concrete IG, No Expansion Joints on copi

It would be fairly unlikely for anything other than the coping to be damaged in that situation. You want an expansion joint between the coping and the deck because the pool can move relative to the deck. You have a more complicated situation because your coping is variable width, meaning some of it is probably already supported by the deck anyway, making it tricky to do the right thing.

I recommend getting the largest filter you can afford and have room for. Larger filters filter better and go longer between cleanings/backwashing.

 

[acroy]

Re: Buying house W/ concrete IG, No Expansion Joints on copi

Very nice looking pool! I am no expert on pool construction, hopefully others will jump in with solutions.

How is the soil in Cedar park? Up here in Dallas area, we have a lot of expansive clay - it expands and shrinks with moisture, causes all kinds of ugly problems.

As far as filter size - too small a filter will cuse high pressure drop, pump motor inneficency, and have to change the media more often. But don't just take the pool guy's opinion - look up the model number and see what it is rated for. If it's close, I'd suggest just stick with it for a season or 2 and see how it does. The cheapest solution is to run what you've got if you can

But, if you can get the sellers to knock a few $k off the price, go for it of course!