Hello TFP,
3 year old pool and I'm experiencing cracking in both of my skimmers, in the decking above the skimmer block, and in the coping stone that bridges the skimmer throat. And I can't for the life of me figure out why this is happening. Have had a few companies come out and take a look, and all of them seem to be very focused on just breaking the decking out and refilling. But as far as I'm concerned, if we don't understand why it is happening in the first place this is a wasted effort. Let me try and walk this through with some pictures:
Picture 1 - this is the pool shell as framed/formed, focusing on one of the skimmers (and you can see the auto-fill as well). Note that the skimmers are completely encased and poured as part of the pool shell itself.
Picture 2 - this shows the decking as framed/formed around the skimmer/auto-fill area. This is after the shell and skimmer block have been poured obviously.
Picture 3 - this is taken just 4 weeks after the initial decking was poured. You can see that there is a crack in the concrete already. This crack would continue to develop over time, to be joined by new ones. I have tried to shade where the skimmer block itself sits under the decking. Awfully suspicious that it seems to share a border with that crack!
Picture 4 - this is where we are at today. I have tried to annotate appropriately. I have taken a level out to the skimmer area on the deck, and can confirm that the decking over the skimmer block is actually heaving UP. It crests up right in the center of the section (right where you see the coping crack), and the peak runs from the pool to the edge of the decking. The rest of the decking around this area appears to be level as expected. If I rap on the deck concrete around the skimmer, it sounds very hollow underneath. So my assumption is that the deck pour has somehow lifted up from the skimmer concrete block in this area??
Why in the world would this happen? It is the same on both skimmers. I don't think the shell itself has moved because I see no cracking the plaster there, in the waterline tile, or in the surrounding coping, It is literally isolated to just above the skimmer block itself. Perhaps the mystery gets solved when I have that area demo'd - but I would dearly love to have some guesses in place before pulling the trigger.
Any thoughts from the TFP crew?
3 year old pool and I'm experiencing cracking in both of my skimmers, in the decking above the skimmer block, and in the coping stone that bridges the skimmer throat. And I can't for the life of me figure out why this is happening. Have had a few companies come out and take a look, and all of them seem to be very focused on just breaking the decking out and refilling. But as far as I'm concerned, if we don't understand why it is happening in the first place this is a wasted effort. Let me try and walk this through with some pictures:
Picture 1 - this is the pool shell as framed/formed, focusing on one of the skimmers (and you can see the auto-fill as well). Note that the skimmers are completely encased and poured as part of the pool shell itself.
Picture 2 - this shows the decking as framed/formed around the skimmer/auto-fill area. This is after the shell and skimmer block have been poured obviously.
Picture 3 - this is taken just 4 weeks after the initial decking was poured. You can see that there is a crack in the concrete already. This crack would continue to develop over time, to be joined by new ones. I have tried to shade where the skimmer block itself sits under the decking. Awfully suspicious that it seems to share a border with that crack!
Picture 4 - this is where we are at today. I have tried to annotate appropriately. I have taken a level out to the skimmer area on the deck, and can confirm that the decking over the skimmer block is actually heaving UP. It crests up right in the center of the section (right where you see the coping crack), and the peak runs from the pool to the edge of the decking. The rest of the decking around this area appears to be level as expected. If I rap on the deck concrete around the skimmer, it sounds very hollow underneath. So my assumption is that the deck pour has somehow lifted up from the skimmer concrete block in this area??
Why in the world would this happen? It is the same on both skimmers. I don't think the shell itself has moved because I see no cracking the plaster there, in the waterline tile, or in the surrounding coping, It is literally isolated to just above the skimmer block itself. Perhaps the mystery gets solved when I have that area demo'd - but I would dearly love to have some guesses in place before pulling the trigger.
Any thoughts from the TFP crew?