Concrete

[jordangregory]

I am thinking about fixing the concrete around my pool. Currently, it has sagged in a few areas and is an inch or so away from the lip of the pool as well. It looks like the pools last owner just put concrete patch between the old concrete and the lip of the pool to prevent water from getting in between.
I am thinking of hiring someone to raise the contrete so it is level with the lip of the pool, and then using a concrete paint enhance the look. Does anyone have any experience with repairing concrete around pools?

 

[CincyRed]

I saw a show once where they repaired a sidewalk that was uneven with, I think it was called, mudjacking. They drill holes through the sunken concrete slab, then pump grout into the holes until the slab is level, then patch the hole. You might want to check into that. Good Luck!

 

[MajorDIYer]

I saw a show once where they repaired a sidewalk that was uneven with, I think it was called, mudjacking. They drill holes through the sunken concrete slab, then pump grout into the holes until the slab is level, then patch the hole. You might want to check into that. Good Luck!

Not sure that would work around a pool. The pool wall could be jacked out before the deck was jacked up! Maybe if the wall was braced beforehand? Dunno, just make sure whoever does it has good insurance :-D

 

[CincyRed]

Not sure that would work around a pool. The pool wall could be jacked out before the deck was jacked up! Maybe if the wall was braced beforehand? Dunno, just make sure whoever does it has good insurance :-D

After your post MajorDIYer I have to admit I never thought of that aspect, so I searched to see if anyone is doing it and found this company.
http://www.pooldeckleveling.com/

So it might be worth checking out.
Of course also making sure the company has good insurance.

 

[Lershac]

Not sure that would work around a pool. The pool wall could be jacked out before the deck was jacked up! Maybe if the wall was braced beforehand? Dunno, just make sure whoever does it has good insurance :-D

After your post MajorDIYer I have to admit I never thought of that aspect, so I searched to see if anyone is doing it and found this company.
http://www.pooldeckleveling.com/

So it might be worth checking out.
Of course also making sure the company has good insurance.

They specifically state it wont work with liner pools. 10-20PSI can add up QUICK!

 

[CincyRed]

Not sure that would work around a pool. The pool wall could be jacked out before the deck was jacked up! Maybe if the wall was braced beforehand? Dunno, just make sure whoever does it has good insurance :-D

After your post MajorDIYer I have to admit I never thought of that aspect, so I searched to see if anyone is doing it and found this company.
http://www.pooldeckleveling.com/

So it might be worth checking out.
Of course also making sure the company has good insurance.

They specifically state it wont work with liner pools. 10-20PSI can add up QUICK!

I don't know what I am missing (could be a lot), but they specifically state that they work on vinyl liner pools. Just not with expanding polyurethane foam.

 

[ConcreteJack]

Hello, my name's Kirk Roberts, and I'm a project manager with Concrete Jack, the company with the PoolDeckLeveling.com website. Our process, which is called slabjacking, mudjacking, concrete leveling and various other things, depending on where you live, works quite well on all types of pools; vinyl-lined, drop-in fiberglass and concrete. We do use two different materials, one of which, expanding polyurethane foam, is only used around concrete and drop-in fiberglass pools. We use a soil based grout material for around vinyl-lined pools (the foam is injected as a liquid, and if the seams between the vinyl-lined pool panels aren't sealed well, it can get between the panels and expand, which would cause problems). The grout is course and dry enough (injected at a consistency between hummus and peanut butter) that this doesn't happen.

Though there aren't many photos of vinyl-lined pools on our website, but we do up to five of them a week, all over Virginia and North Carolina. In response to the comments about pressure, pool walls are much stronger than concrete; we routinely lift slabs around vinyl pools that don't have any water in them, though it is preferable to have the pool full during work, and also use the material to void fill under and around fiberglass steps which are bouncy. If you have indications of a fundamental failure of the pool wall, such as bowing walls, it would be best to empty the pool, pull the liner and check out the wall before attempting concrete leveling. We work quite frequently around all kinds of structures that are much more fragile than pools.

Voids around pool decks are one of the most common causes of floating liners, as surface water from precipitation or irrigation runs under the deck, through the seams in the pool wall and gets between the pool wall and liner, causing the liner to float (ground water can do the same thing). It is quite common to find up to 2 foot voids under the concrete decking surrounding vinyl-lined pools. The concrete leveling process works by filling the voids with the injected material (foam or grout), and then after the voids are filled continuing to inject material, which displaces the concrete up. Our video page, http://www.concretejack.com/viewvideo/3 ... -animation, shows an animation of the process at work.

Here's a link to the page with before and after photos of concrete pools where we have lifted the concrete:
http://www.concretejack.com/pool-decks/ ... ter-photos

Here's a link to the page with before and after photos of vinyl pools where we have lifted the concrete:
http://www.concretejack.com/vinyl-pools

 

[Lershac]

wow, impressive!

 

[ConcreteJack]

To find a contractor that does this type of work, search on Google for any of the following terms (try all of them, because there's lots of regional variation in what our types of contractors call themselves):

mudjacking
slabjacking
concrete leveling
pressure grouting
slab raising
concrete raising

Additionally, if you search for any of those terms on YouTube, you can see it in action.

 

[MajorDIYer]

Well there you go. Thanks for sharing your knowledge on this subject Kirk. I'd still be a bit nervous if it were being done to my pool, but being a little more educated now I wouldn't hesitate to consider it.

 

[ConcreteJack]

Yeah, we were nervous on our first couple We're located in an area where tons of people have pools so we work on lots of them, but in places where pools are less common, it wouldn't be surprising to find concrete leveling contractors that were more cautious about taking on jobs around pools; they can look (and sometimes be) quite intimidating!

However, slabjacking/concrete leveling is a great process for correcting trip hazards and helping to prevent floating liner problems on pools. In general it costs about 1/2 the price of demo and repour, the customer can walk on everything immediately and it doesn't leave big areas of mis-matched concrete.

 

[jordangregory]

I wanted to see what you all though about the concrete around my pool. I have kind of a weird trim on my pool and I am not sure if the concrete was meant to come up flush with it or if it was meant to have some sort of a silicon cocking (I am sure I am not spelling that right) or ground in between the pool trim and the concrete. I attached a variety of pictures from different areas around the pool. It looks like the old owner of the pool simply used a grout to bridge the expanse between the pool trim and the concrete apron

 

[jordangregory]

Here are a few more pictures

 

[ConcreteJack]

I've only seen that type of pool once (rather old style, not sure what it was called), but the process did work. I don't have original photos for you to compare to, but the ones attached are marked up for one of our crews that did the work on the pool. The notes convey a little bit more detail about the joint between the coping and the pool deck, and the red arrow points to the gap that opened up between the bottom edge of the coping and the top of the concrete.

The biggest thing to watch for would be underpour, or if the deck concrete was poured to be under the coping. Someone has filled the joint between the concrete and the bottom of the outside edge of the coping with some sort of caulk; if the concrete is lifted with that in place, it was push up the coping; whatever's in that joint would need to be completely removed before attempting lifting. The sketch shows this; as you can see, the concrete extends up towards the back of the pool wall, under the outside edge of the coping. You'll be left with the jump marked with the red arrow (from the pictures, the back edge of the coping looks like a finished edge and not one that used to be covered in concrete).

Looks like it would work, though my guess is that the coping always sat on top of the deck, so lifting would minimize the height of the jump from the top of the concrete to the top of the coping, but it probably wouldn't work to achieve a level transition between the two surfaces.

 

[ConcreteJack]

This photo is a little cross section; you can see the coping in the bottom right corner of the photo above where the coping is resting on top of the deck in the areas where the deck had not settled.

 

[Malibu07]

ConcreteJack, where it says "Hampton off of Mercury" is that Hampton, Va off of Mercury Blvd? I live in Chesapeake.

 

[jordangregory]

I see what you are saying about the removing the caulking first.
But I do think that the coping and the concrete can be level with one another. There is actually a few spots around the pool where they are even, but that is the excepiton. At those points where the concrete are level with the coping, I wonder if there should be a small gap that needs to be filled with something (caulk or grout).

 

[ConcreteJack]

Do you have a photo of that area?

 

[jordangregory]

Here you go

 

[jordangregory]

I had a guy over today that said he would not touch my pool. He took one short look and left. I tried to tell him that there were other companies that did this type of thing. I honestly don't think they were even listening to the words coming out of my mouth. I don't know what I am going to do now. I don't want to have to rip everything out.