Coping Repair / Replacement

[StevenHB]

I have coping around the exterior of my pool, with about 6 inches of tile below the coping. Each year, some of the tiles fall off. Each year. I've replaced the tile using a mortar supposedly appropriate for wet (in water) applications. The tiles generally do not stay in place for more than a season, maybe some for two. It's gotten progressively worse.

Last year, I got a recommendation for a pool repair guy who specializes specifically in these problems. He came over and tapped the coping with a rock. Some sections sounded hollow, others did not. He told me that the hollow sound meant that the coping had separated and that it needed to be replaced. He said that he could replace some or all of the coping (all at a cost of ~$5,000), which he'd fabricate to match the existing style. While it might be less money to replace only some of the stones, he might or might not have sufficient tile in my pattern to make repair feasible. Even if he does, I'm starting to thing that the scope of my problem will make full replacement the best option.

Does anyone have experience with this? Does this sound reasonable? Are there other, better solutions? And what might cause this problem (and, therefore, might be done differently to prevent it from recurring)?

 

[duraleigh]

Do you live in a city and state that has freezing temps?

 

[StevenHB]

All that information in my sig and I didn't include geography! Stupid.

Yes, in the Boston area.

 

[duraleigh]

Yeah, it's the freezing that's popping them off but they probably were never bonded well to the concrete.

When the bond is poor or has a lot of gaps, water finds it's way behind the tiles and then freezes and, of course, pops the tile right off.

You could probably save a few bucks by removing ALL the old tile and starting over but that's a BIG DIY project, for sure, and it has to be done well or your new tiles can pop off, too.

 

[StevenHB]

Thanks, Dave. I don't think that I'm up to this large a DIY project (replacing the expansion joint caulking was probably my upper limit). Does the proposed fix, replacing all the coping and all the tile sound like an appropriate solution? I'll post pictures tomorrow.

 

[StevenHB]

Here are a couple of pictures of the damage:

And an area without damage:

 

[MiaOKC]

I feel your pain. We like to say our tile is molting in our 1975 pool. When we bought the house in late 2011, the pool inspection co. was amazed that we had all the original tiles still affixed, and we were like "alright! something is going good for this beast of a pool" and then basically the moment their truck pulled out of the driveway, a section of six tiles fell off. Last summer, we used some tube of flexible sealant from the pool store that was supposed to hold the tiles on, but whenever the robot climbs to the tile line, they got bumped off. It's only gotten worse and worse as time goes by, now they fall off with regularity with no provocation.

My understanding from speaking informally with a few pool reno companies is that a complete re-coping (since my pre-cast is no longer manufactured), re-tiling, and re-plastering - in my instance I've got a painted pool that's ready for maintenance - since once you have it all torn apart it's best to do it all in one swoop, is needed to fix this problem.