I'd like to use this as a "working thread" for myself and any other pour soul who has the pleasure of facing the feat we will this (long) weekend.
Can a pool 40x20 concrete "vintage" (ha!) pool be repaired in a long weekend? Or I guess more appropriately worded would be how well can such a pool be refinished in a long weekend?
Background - purchased a house in Fayetteville, NC (Ft. Bragg) from a "flipper." Soon thereafter, courtesy of the U.S. Army, we were forced to move to the DC area. House became a rental (that we lose money on every month and can't sell due to housing market).
Had maintenance performed by professional year around until winter of 2014 when our pool man retired (after 30 years) due to health issues, and we let it go. We traveled to NC a few weekends ago and dumped a bunch of chlorine and algaecide into pool. Cleared up reasonably well, but may be green again by now.
Pool Specifics;
From what neighbors have told us, the pool is at least 30 years old. There is no main drain, no hydrostatic hole. No tile around edge. Nothing but concrete.
Had pool pressured tested last year looking for leak that's not horrible, but drives up water bill about $10/m. Suspect leak is behind light (which was removed 2 years ago to fix, but never got done). Pool is plastered and was painted - who knows how long ago - and per the test done this week, it's plaster and an epoxy paint.
Before buying house the pool cracks (minor) on floor were "repaired" by a flighty-handy man. Within a week of closing paint started chipping from plaster/mortar of these repairs. Other than that, pool was pretty and certainly swimmable so we lived with it.
Fast forward 4 years and here we are. Plaster has started pulling away from walls at top edge and paint is chipping throughout, as well as chalking.
Pictures to come.
We realize the pool needs to be completely resurfaced, but quotes have come in for $10k and that's just not in the budget. We could likely venture a DIY replaster, but due to time constraints (living in DC) this isn't a viable option either.
So we will venture down this weekend (Friday morning) to do whatever we are able to make the pool reasonable for our tenants within a few days, a budget of around $1,000, and the weather - starts raining this afternoon and stops early Friday afternoon, but doesn't appear to be a lot of rain. We are not looking for a 20 or 30 year fix. We hope to get perhaps 3 years from this weekend's fix to keep our tenant happy and our chemical expenses down.
Before I start into questions about products to use, step 1 is to drain the (40k(?) gallon) monstrosity. I have someone local that can pick up a (rented?) sup pump for us and start the draining process. My immediate question is what specifications does the sump pump need to be? Besides being submersible, anything in particular we need to make sure the pump has/can do?
We can buy this one from Harbor Freight for $40 (with coupon). Any reason this one won't suffice? http://m.harborfreight.com/16-hp-submersible-utility-pump-1350-gph-68422.html
Or we could rent this one from HD for $42/day (or likely somewhere else for less). http://www6.homedepot.com/tool-truck-rental/mobile/Submersible_Pump_2/0009112/index.html
We would be so incredibly grateful if some of you will help us along in our journey this weekend for the "temporary fix" for our pool which we have affectionaly named "Pita" (for PAIN In The *****). As I intend to provide pictures along the way, there's likely someone else in the future who will also benefit greatly.
Cheers!
Can a pool 40x20 concrete "vintage" (ha!) pool be repaired in a long weekend? Or I guess more appropriately worded would be how well can such a pool be refinished in a long weekend?
Background - purchased a house in Fayetteville, NC (Ft. Bragg) from a "flipper." Soon thereafter, courtesy of the U.S. Army, we were forced to move to the DC area. House became a rental (that we lose money on every month and can't sell due to housing market).
Had maintenance performed by professional year around until winter of 2014 when our pool man retired (after 30 years) due to health issues, and we let it go. We traveled to NC a few weekends ago and dumped a bunch of chlorine and algaecide into pool. Cleared up reasonably well, but may be green again by now.
Pool Specifics;
From what neighbors have told us, the pool is at least 30 years old. There is no main drain, no hydrostatic hole. No tile around edge. Nothing but concrete.
Had pool pressured tested last year looking for leak that's not horrible, but drives up water bill about $10/m. Suspect leak is behind light (which was removed 2 years ago to fix, but never got done). Pool is plastered and was painted - who knows how long ago - and per the test done this week, it's plaster and an epoxy paint.
Before buying house the pool cracks (minor) on floor were "repaired" by a flighty-handy man. Within a week of closing paint started chipping from plaster/mortar of these repairs. Other than that, pool was pretty and certainly swimmable so we lived with it.
Fast forward 4 years and here we are. Plaster has started pulling away from walls at top edge and paint is chipping throughout, as well as chalking.
Pictures to come.
We realize the pool needs to be completely resurfaced, but quotes have come in for $10k and that's just not in the budget. We could likely venture a DIY replaster, but due to time constraints (living in DC) this isn't a viable option either.
So we will venture down this weekend (Friday morning) to do whatever we are able to make the pool reasonable for our tenants within a few days, a budget of around $1,000, and the weather - starts raining this afternoon and stops early Friday afternoon, but doesn't appear to be a lot of rain. We are not looking for a 20 or 30 year fix. We hope to get perhaps 3 years from this weekend's fix to keep our tenant happy and our chemical expenses down.
Before I start into questions about products to use, step 1 is to drain the (40k(?) gallon) monstrosity. I have someone local that can pick up a (rented?) sup pump for us and start the draining process. My immediate question is what specifications does the sump pump need to be? Besides being submersible, anything in particular we need to make sure the pump has/can do?
We can buy this one from Harbor Freight for $40 (with coupon). Any reason this one won't suffice? http://m.harborfreight.com/16-hp-submersible-utility-pump-1350-gph-68422.html
Or we could rent this one from HD for $42/day (or likely somewhere else for less). http://www6.homedepot.com/tool-truck-rental/mobile/Submersible_Pump_2/0009112/index.html
We would be so incredibly grateful if some of you will help us along in our journey this weekend for the "temporary fix" for our pool which we have affectionaly named "Pita" (for PAIN In The *****). As I intend to provide pictures along the way, there's likely someone else in the future who will also benefit greatly.
Cheers!
