Forclosed House with Pool Renovation Advice

[c2weech]

Ok Here is the run down.

Wife and I bought our First house this past October.

Have been doing a lot of research as what to do to get it up to snuff. Two different local pool companies gave quotes to get it up and running of 5 to 8K. We have a 2 year old and his little sister is due in October and that is not in the budget. Plus I like doing anything I can myself.

Things that I plan on doing is 1. Power wash. 2. Acid Wash. 3. Some type of gunite paint or epoxy?(Opinions as to whether this will help the gunite last?) 4. Attached are pictures as you can see the tile line is popped off 80% of the way around. As you can see there are some cracks behind the tile line in the beam.

*now this is where I need the most advice can I repair this like one would cracks in drywall? Ie widen the cracks and fill in with hydraulic cement??? In my research I see some people with similar situations talk about taking off the coping and reforming the beam but I don't think my beam is that bad. 1. I don't have coping I have a full pour cantilever edge. ***Also the one pool renovation guy said that the pool was made wrong that you should always have coping. His quote included mason saw cutting out the cantilever edge and putting in coping.



Is there a way I can add more pics?

Thanks in advance to all!

 

[jjwalker]

'Is there a way I can add more pics?'

host them on photobucket

how do you feel about subbing the work out yourself? that's all he is going to do... would love to see more pics then others with very good knowledge will have more info and be able to give you better advice.

 

[Divin Dave]

Welp,
I think the PB that told you that you should always have coping is prolly right, If you have coping with a expansion joint between the coping and patio, then they can move independently. Since you dont have a coping, my suspicion is the ground and concrete movement between the pool and patio is what cause the cracks you have.

I dont know much about concrete and beam repair, so hopefully someone else will chime in on that.

To post unlimited pics
upload them to photobucket
click the pic you want to post to full size
on the right, will be 3 lines of code
click on the code that says IMG beside it. It will auto copy the code.
come pack here and paste the code into your message. The pic will show up when you post the message.

 

[c2weech]

Ok I think I did this right attached should be the link to the photobucket with descriptions beneath each picture as to what you are looking at.



Thanks For looking

 

[jblizzle]

That did not work. You need to copy in the IMG link.

 

[glitter&guns]

Before you do anything else - let me STRONGLY caution you against paint. Strongly. If your plaster is flaking or cracking off (limited pictures so far, so I can't tell), it will now flake off with paint attached to it. I just spent an extra $1,000 getting paint sandblasted off of a pool so that I could replaster it (paint lasted less than one season and was put on by prior owner just before closing on house). I also spent a lot more money on DE because my filter was constantly getting clogged up from the flaking paint. There are some people on here who have done a coating of some type of epoxy and that might be a better option. You will need to really prep the surface.

I also have a cantilever deck, I had mine patched recently - seemed to work out perfectly. The crack that should be behind your tile looks deep? Is it into the gunite? Is it running a distance?

Also, remember that you need to fix structural problems - ugly can wait. I left my pool ugly for a year and no one ever told me that they could swim in my pool because it was ugly!

 

[c2weech]

Before you do anything else - let me STRONGLY caution you against paint. Strongly. If your plaster is flaking or cracking off (limited pictures so far, so I can't tell), it will now flake off with paint attached to it. I just spent an extra $1,000 getting paint sandblasted off of a pool so that I could replaster it (paint lasted less than one season and was put on by prior owner just before closing on house). I also spent a lot more money on DE because my filter was constantly getting clogged up from the flaking paint. There are some people on here who have done a coating of some type of epoxy and that might be a better option. You will need to really prep the surface. Thanks, that's more than enough to talk me out of it.
I also have a cantilever deck, I had mine patched recently - seemed to work out perfectly.(Can you explain a little more? What part of deck and how was it done? The crack that should be behind your tile looks deep?The crack in the pic above is the worst of it Is it into the gunite?Yes that is the only area it goes into the gunite a little and I would say that is more of a hairline crack Is it running a distance? The gunite hairline crack is at most about 2 feet

Also, remember that you need to fix structural problems - ugly can wait. I left my pool ugly for a year and no one ever told me that they could swim in my pool because it was ugly!

What I would like to do is just link to the photobucket album and people can view all pics and captions there? Or is it better to just put them one here one by one with the IMG link?

 

[jblizzle]

I prefer not to have to follow links, but I am sure others feel differently. Up to you.

 

[Butterfly]

I also prefer that the image appear in the message. Responders may not have time to load pages of pics from a host site

Welcome to the forum

 

[glitter&guns]

Here is a link to pictures of my redo (I call it a facelift because compared to the remodels that people here do, mine was very slight). http://www.troublefreepool.com/threads/73098-1990s-Pool-facelift-UPDATE-deck-pictures!!!

If you look at the 7th picture down you can see into the pool a bit and see how the blue paint has come off of the white pool. Huge mess - glad to hear you aren't going to do that. Also, if you look to the left below the skimmer, you can see where chunks of the deck were missing. There were areas where it was worse and there were cracks as my deck had no expansion joints (no idea). In picture 20 (with the dog on the deck) you can see where the deck guys patched around the skimmer basket and filled in the area that was broken off in the prior picture. Picture 21 shows the skimmer basket pretty well. Picture 24 (ectoplasm) shows where a crack was filled. The worst cracks were cut into expansion joints. A number of small ones were filled.

When the deck folks came back on the day they were going to repaint the deck, they sprayed just the areas that were repaired with cool deck type product so that it would match the texture of the deck. I don't know what products were used exactly because it was all handled by the experts. Cost to patch, add expansion joints, and stain the deck was around $1,000.

 

[glitter&guns]

I dug around in my pics and found some more for you - maybe it will help (or at least show you that it can be done).











Hopefully something in there will give you some hope. I was so worried about the neglected pool when I bought this house. But everyone here was so good to help me see that it is all doable in steps. It is a little overwhelming when you are looking at the whole big mess - by breaking it down into "what must be done ASAP" and what can be ignored because it is just ugly I was able to make smarter decisions.

 

[c2weech]

G&G thanks for the words and the pics.

Below are all the pics I took and hopefully someone with beam & or concrete cutting coping stone knowledge can chime in. Thanks


Entire pool shot from deck

Steps into shallow end

Hairline cracks in decking near deep end corner, where the worst cracking of the beam is.

Deepend Skimmer

Otherside deepend skimmer where little bit of cantilever edge is cracking.

By far worst cracking of beam and only spot where there is a little hairline crack in the gunite

this is what the majority of the beam cracking is like, more hairline.

Shallow end skimmer

ok that's most everything. Hopefully someone with experience can help out.

 

[Divin Dave]

I dont think its as bad as you might think. This is all definitely fixable by someone who know how to do it right.

There are all sorts of injection type stuff that can fix any fix gunite and concrete. Most likely other methods too.
The crack between the deck and top of the bond beam can be fixed easy enough too.
The cracks on top of the deck look to be cosmetic. You pay taxes, you die, and concrete cracks. There are all sorts of products that can be applied to those to make them look better.

I think it would be a good idea to consider cutting the deck off the top of the bond beam, install coping and and expansion joint. Or possibly, leave the cantilever deck there but cut an expansion joint all around. I think it would greatly decrease the chance of the beam cracking again after it was fixed.