Flagstone Coping

[jmdsurf45]

My pool and raised spa, built last fall, has flagstone coping with kool deck up to it with clean transition. Well, I would say that 80% of the stones sounded hollow under them and I had been complaining to the builder of this along with other things like very rough Quartzscape. The guys you originally did the work, they work for the builder, came back out finally and began to cut the mortar and remove a lot of the stones, all on the spa, reset them and regrouted, it looks like %$#. the stones are higher by about a 1/4" than the decking, and the gap between the coping and the kool deck, they just filled it with mortar so it doesn't come close to matching the existing. Then they left all of the chunks of mortar and now a thick layer of mud on the bottom of the pool and spa, powder form grinding the mortar and the float. they never came back to clean it. It has rained the last week here in Houston. So, the kids and I vacuumed and got the chunks out of the pool, and nearly ruined my filter, and noticed the plaster, Quartzscape carribean blue, now has a white film all over it. the builder is a 30 year local family run business.
Not sure where to go from here, any ideas? Thanks!

 

[blakeusa]

Once the coping was wet set on mortar -- then removed it was already built up.

Most likely the stones should have been reset with concrete adhesive not more mortar.

We have had coping pop up or loose in New England due to the water level being too high and freezing in the winter.

Have had good success with removing and resetting with adhesive - keeping the coping at the exact same level.

So if they used more concrete to bond the coping stones back on say 1/4 inch it will be higher and will may fail as its hard to get
a thin layer of concrete to bond even with additive.

Just my 2 cents if thats how they went about the repair.

 

[tonytoothdoc]

so blakeusa, Is it ok to reset loose flagstone with something like landscaper's cement applied underneath flagstone rather than remove old thinset nd reaply it?