SR Smith "Salt friendly" diving board: worth the upgrade?

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M

mart242

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LifeTime Supporter
May 3, 2010
153
Ottawa, ON, Canada
I had posted last year about the rust issue on my Frontier II diving board rust-on-diving-board-base-how-to-remove-prevent-t25474.html and ended up having it sprayed with "rhino hybrid". It works well so far, no rust or anything but I have no idea when ti will start cracking and I may be back to square one.

My pool deck is cracking in the area near the diving board and my builder will be removing the cracked concrete / repouring in that area. This means that, if I want, I can get another diving board but I have to pay it out of pocket. Does anyone think that the upgrade to the SR Smith salt diving board would be worth it? I'd have to pay ~$1100 or so for that and while I'm not pinching pennies or anything this money could sure go elsewhere if I knew that the frontier II and rhino hybrid spray would last a long time. The way I see it, if I don't upgrade it will rust next year but if I do it would have lasted a long time.. :hammer:

Is the SR Smith salt friendly system really rust proof? It still has a spring and that's what rusted on my frontier II (the base is the spring on the Frontier II).

Link to SR Smith salt jump system: http://www.srsmith.com/fun_games/details.php?id=133

Thanks!
 
Re: SR Smith "Salt friendly" diving board: worth the upgrade

We installed a SR Smith salt friendly diving board when our pool went in back in January and so far we are pleased with it. It gets lots of use from little kids all the way up to the big ones. I'm 6'1" and 230 and I bounce off of it pretty hard with no issues. As for rust, we have none. The only exposed metal components are the actual mounting hardware. All of that is simple enough to replace if necessary. The springs appear to be composed entirely of fiberglass, so no rust there, and the base is also fiberglass. When we first opened the boxes in January, I had my doubts about how sturdy the whole thing would be, but it has a 250lb weight capacity label (printed on the rear of the board). I'll admit that I was timid with it at first, but after a few uses I discovered that it was actually quite sturdy. So far it has survived heavy use this summer and the only thing I had to do was retighten the hardware after about a month of solid use. I'll attribute that to a break-in period. Tightening it all back down did require removing the base from the concrete mounted hardware so I could get to the hardware that holds the springs to the base, but the entire process took about 20 min and it has not come loose ever since. So to recap, no rust, easy to install, sturdy, and gives a really good tight bounce. (One and a half front flips are easy for me and I can almost make a double front flip off of ours.) As for pricing, I remember ours costing roughly $900-$1000 for all 3 parts of the kit. We shopped online and ended up ordering from 2 or 3 vendors for all of it. I think Amazon is where we got the actual board. Either way, $1100 if probably not that bad if your installer is providing all of the parts and installation. I'd just recommend reading the installation instructions well yourself so you fully understand the process. We were very hands on in our pool install and learned more than I think some installers know about various portions of the process and the equipment. Calling the manufacturer to get answers when needed was part of the process and all of them were happy to get us the solutions we were seeking. Best of luck with your choice.
 
Re: SR Smith "Salt friendly" diving board: worth the upgrade

Thanks a lot for the info. Hmm, no metal at all for the spring or the base, that's making interesting.. It looks like I may have to bite the bullet and get this one instead of keeping the Frontier II. I should have been more of a PITA when they put the pool in and argued more for the salt diving board but it was another case of knowing more than the pool builder.
 
Re: SR Smith "Salt friendly" diving board: worth the upgrade

We've been happy with ours so far. Best to you with your choice.

we had a pm about the actual board, so I'll post the response here for anyone following this one... We have the "glass-hide" model. It is white, has an excellent "grippy" top surface and is pretty easy to keep clean. We rinse with pool water and pressure wash (delicate tip) occasionally.
 
Re: SR Smith "Salt friendly" diving board: worth the upgrade

What bugs me a bit about it is the fact that they only give a 3 years warranty.. and it's prorated! I hope it's not because the fiberglass will dry / crack over a short period of time
 
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