EcoFinish Pool wall questions

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kekin said:
I hope everything works out for your pool. I imagine this is frustrating to deal with.
In the meantime, you are making me very nervous about getting an Aquabright installation.
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IMO, Nothing in this thread relates to the product. Its a good product. It just needs to be installed correctly. On a substrate that is stable and smooth. Its not that thick so it wont cover big imperfections. Think of it like paint on a car, if the surface isnt flat and smooth, the car will be all one color, and maybe shiny, but you will still see the bumps.
Every paint job whether its cars or houses or pools, the the most time and effort needs to be done in the PREP work.
 
The pool contractor did everything. New Coping with new mortar and that's why I couldn't understand that they didn't get it redone correctly by tying the mortar into the top of the fiberglass wall better without it looking like a 3rd grader art project that went bad. Sorry, but that may be unfair to the 3rd graders art work.

The horizontal crack /seam is smooth in some areas of the pool, or just a crack or with caulking smeared on or with a lip / ledge showing. It really rather haphazard.
 
I agree with the others, surface prep and structural quality is the key. It would seem to me that an FG pool composed of FG panels instead of a continuous FG shell would be impossible to get right since AB is such a thin layer. Any relative movement in the FG panels due to thermal expansion, ground shifting or water weight would, in my opinion, cause the AB/epoxy layer to crack and fail. Notice there are zero issues with the plaster/gunite pool bottom as it is a continuous surface. I'm only familiar with gunite/plaster pool construction so I'm not sure why someone would build a pool with a gunite bottom but FG panel walls??

Honestly speaking, but I don't see how the PB thought this was a good idea at all.
 
Well, it sounds like most everyone likes the product ecoFinish so far but its the prep work and the installer that makes or breaks it for the pool. I have heard of some problems and you have seen my problems but I am still looking for suggestions on how I can get my issues fixed. I am still looking for ideas from other ecoFinish pool owners and ecoFinish installers because one of the MAJOR drawbacks of installing this unique finish is that it seems that once you have it on your pool its either got to be GREAT or your out of luck and you may have to tear the whole pool out and start from scratch because from what i am hearing, you can't undo a bad finish or take it off and go back to re-plastering. Does that sound like a true statement or is there still hope that some of my problems can be fixed?????

FYI to the last post from JoyfulNoise. I didn't put the pool in but here in St. Louis there were a number of pools built this way as a "free-form" pool. Notice the shape of the pool in one of my pictures. If this is such a concern with ecoFinish installers I wish my installer would have told me that he would have not touched it and saved me $20,000 dollars. If the pool was that bad and no good solution I would have filled it in and put a garden in BUT I am still hopeful that there are solutions out there.......
 
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Try contacting Central Missouri Pools or reach out here on the forum to swimcmp. He is the only other installer here on the forum and I know he has some experience with hybrid pools like yours.

Unfortunately a lot of your statement is correct in regards to proper installation. If it was not installed correctly from the start your options are very limited.

There are only a handful of AquaBright pools on the forum as well so there isn't a whole lot that can be offered in that area either.

Sorry I can't be more help but this is going to be between you, the installer and EcoFinish to sort out. I wouldn't expect the MFG to be much assistance since their warranty does not cover installation and they've made that very clear.
 
When they resurfaced the pool, did they replace the gaskets between the panels??

Just from my limited research into these types of pools, it seems that they were a very common type of construction done in the 70's and early 80's especially in your area of St Louis. Typical problems that arise with these types of pools is that the rubber gasket between the panels breaks down over time and needs to be replaced. Also, the fiberglass panels can develop blistering when the fill around the pool walls causes bulging of the panels and cracks to develop in the gel coat. Water gets into the cracks and then blisters start to form. The iron stains you are seeing is likely from the steel bolts used to fasten the panels together at the joints and/or the rebar used to reinforce the walls from behind.

Duggar Pools has built and serviced hybrid pools in the St Louis area and may be a resource to contact. Do you know who built the pool?

I feel really badly for you that you shelled out so much money and got only a headache in return. As Brian said, this seems like something you're going to have to work out with the pool builder. Maybe the areas where the staining is occurring can be opened up to have the rubber seals replaced and then a new coat of AquaBright can be applied??
 
The pool contractor drained the pool for a second time and did grind the ecofinish off and put an "approved" caulking in the seams and then re-shot the seams. That should have worked but a tell-tailing sign that they did a very poor job of sealing and re-shoot is the fact the the rust stains from the first time were still on the plaster ledge and new rust is showing at the very bottom of the seam. Clearly they are not very good at what they should be doing. I should have been right over their shoulder watching every move.

The good news is that the owner of the pool contractor is meeting with us next Friday to discuss solutions. Thanks to this website and the forum I have had some great comments both in the forum and in some private emails. Also looking at other posts from the past few years has been a great help too.

I will post some thoughts after our meeting next Friday BUT ONE BIG THOUGHT I would tell others right now is FIND OUT who the authorized properly trained ecoFinish installers are from the manufacturer and only deal with them DIRECTLY. I don't know how ecoFinish allows un-authorized installers to use the product name and pictures on their websites and not disclose that they are not approved installers. That's what happen in my case and I think my pool contractor made assumptions that my pool could be fixed without letting the actual installers see the pool. The first time the sub-contractor came out to our pool was to blow the ecoFinish onto the pool and even then they complained about how some of the plaster repairs were not right and made my contractor re-do them before the sub-contractor came back out to install the econfinish. That of-course is not the only problem, cause I can clearly see poor workmanship that created some of the problems as well. Unfortunately I have a million stories about this process and both contractors that would suck the life out of this forum if all I did was to list all the things they did wrong. But hey, my main purpose was to find answers and to learn more and this website did that perfectly......thanks to all the input from pool owners and other pool installers. Great job, but i still welcome more comments and suggestions.
 
At some point, please do post up everything you've learned. Believe me, you won't be the last person to own a hybrid pool and you won't be the last ecoFinish/AquaBright pool either. Telling your story will almost certainly help many, many pool owners in the future.

I look forward to hearing about your meeting next week.




- - - Updated - - -

I'm confused by one of your comments - are you saying that the PB that managed your job overall was not an "approved" ecoFinish installer or are you saying the subcontractor that applied the aquaBright was not an approved installer. I'm assuming you mean the PB should not be advertising aquaBright, is that what you meant?
 

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It looks odd that they put it on the skimmer plate. I would have thought they would remove the plate, apply it
then put the plate back on so it looks more professional looking. Better fit & finish.

The way it looks now is like a car that didn't get properly masked before painting kinda.
 
yeah, its all part of the workmanship issues that are where most of the problems came from. The contractor said the pool looks great and I expect too much perfection??????????????? but you have seen the pictures and I have plenty more with more issues.

Again, if I wanted a third grader to do it i would have asked a 3rd grader and only expected 3rd grade workmanship (then only pay them .25 cent an hour) but I paid the big bucks and expected more.
 
Stay tune everyone, I have a meeting with the pool contractor on Sept 1st and I hope that he will listen to reason and be willing to fix the issues that you have seen in the pictures in this post. I am hopeful that he will now that I have some great information and suggestions from the readers of this posting. I do plan to provide information on how the meeting went and the next steps. I will also have my thoughts on the do's and don't's when selecting ecoFinish installers and why some pools types are better suited for this finish than others and that is where having a competent and knowledgeable installer is a must.
 
Good lick, I had the same thoughts on my pool reno this summer. I think my contractor subbed out everything.The coping guy was fired for doing a poor job, the Aquabrite had to be done twice because of poor application causing striping and the tile and coping is still uneven with no plans to fix. If I wanted it done poorly I could have done it myself or somebody else for a lot cheaper.
 
I have a pool built like this and from the same decade. The panels on our pool are faded but I can live with that. What is of concern is that the concrete basin started sloughing chips of pain about two years ago and that the failure rate is accelerating. It appears the concrete has been painted at least twice and I plan to repeat the process this fall. We've had the house/pool for 13 years, so all things considered, I'm not too disappointed with the lifetime of the coating. I look forward to the Sept 1st update. BTW, any idea what kind of caulk they used between the fiberglass panels and the panels and concrete?
 
Here is a little update from my meeting with the pool contractor today about fixing the issues with my EcoFinish pool. As we talked about the various issues with the pool he could clearly see that I had more information and background about the stains, blisters, and poor quality of the install. I totally give credit for that from what I learned on this website, the various posts and trading comments and suggestions from the other pool contractors and pool owners. I was armed with this information and he knew that I had been talking with other ecoFinish installers and pool owners that had similar experiences. I was encouraged by his responses that is intent is to fix these pools and not leave me holding the bag. Not sure if he truly meant that or was playing the "good cop" vs "bad cop" of his sub-contractor that was the EcoFinish installer of my pool. I showed him pictures (some that I have shown on this website) and he blamed much of what had happened on the sub-contractor and the supporting materials (i.e. the caulking and the bonding material behind the ecoFinish and the thin spaying of the ecoFinish on some areas of the wall)

I reminded him that in the end, the company I signed the contract with, was his company and he is responsible for the mess its in and its up to him to get his ecoFinish sub-contractor in line with fixing the problems. That being said, he said he would go back to the sub-contractor and try to get him to commit to re-doing the things that are wrong with the fiberglass portion of the ecoFinish install. The drama continues....... while he will meet with the sub-contractor next week and said he would get back to me. This pretty much confirms my statement about NEVER EVER use a 3rd party contractor that tries to represents his company as installing a ecoFinsh pool. CALL the ecoFinish manufacturer and get the name of the properly trained local pool installer that they work with. I did get my contractor to admit that when he promised me that he could fix the bumps on the fiberglass walls last October he had not consulted with the trained ecoFinish sub-contractor about my pool. In fact, the sub-contractor never looked at my pool and only sent his employees over to do the heat gun spray in one day and then was out of there.

My pool contractor knows that I am committed to getting this resolved one way or another because as it stands now, the issues with the pool makes my house un-sellable and if I had to bulldoze the pool under, it would lower the value of my house on the market. Because (and this could be a BIG negative if its not right) with a ecoFinish renovated pool there is no going back to other solutions. Its either good or you fill in the pool and put a rose garden over it.

I will update this posting as things progress and if my pool issues are fixed I will provide a full description what they had to do to make it right. Both the contractor and I believe it is fixable but as one poster on this website sent me in a private email, they have to do the following to have a chance...(I shared this answer with my pool contractor but only give him the list here without any names of who told me about this solution)

1) Bubbles on the fiberglass walls (I have 15 of them) - scrape or grind them off down to the fare fiberglass, re-apply epoxy and then shoot the material into it once it gets tacky.
2) Wavy coping area between the top of the fiberglass walls and the coping on top - grind the area down until its smooth and uniform, apply the epoxy (my contractor just tried to use caulk and finger smooth it) and then shoot the material
3) Stains in the fiberglass seams where they caulked, stains on the fiberglass lumps that were grounded down and epoxied and the rust stains in some of the fiberglass seams - grind them down to bare fiberglass, patch with bondo, grind/sand smooth, epoxy and then shoot the ecoFinish material (and I believe, apply the material thicker that before. My contractor thinks the previous sprays were too thin, thus allowing the stains to show through the material. He also thinks that the ecoFinish is NOT a completely sealed product).

Does anyone have some thoughts about the thickness of the application of ecoFinish? How about it being a completely seal-able product when applied?

Thank you all for your suggestions and kind words of encouragement.......
 
Ok, some more clarification from my meeting with the "main" pool contractor on Friday. But first let's get the contractor terms correct.

"Main" Pool contractor - This was the company that I signed the contract with back in Oct 2016. He advertised the ecoFinish / aquaBright finish on his website and he sold us on his ability of removing the hard bumps on the fiberglass walls of our pool and sealing the fiberglass walls and the plaster walls/floor with the ecoFinish/aquaBright finish. He did all the prep work on the walls (grinding & epoxy), removed the coping and tile band around the pool and then caulked around the coping and the concrete deck. It was only when the crew showed up to spray on the ecoFinish did I find out that he was using a sub-contractor to apply the ecoFinish. The "main" contractor was NOT trained by the ecoFinish manufacturer, nor did he have the equipment or supplies to do the work.

"Sub' contractor - This was the company from out of state that was brought in to do the actual job and was "trained" by the ecoFinish parent company on how to apply the finish and use the equipment. They have the proper ecoFinish equipment and they are the only ones that can order the ecoFinish supplies from the ecoFinish manufacturer. They are "authorized" to install the finish and apparently have exclusive territory rights for my area.


I have some questions to ask other ecoFinish aquaBright installers and pool owners that the "main" contractor is having problems understanding and the sub contractor is not responding to.

1) Seam stains on the fiberglass walls: The 1st picture below shows the problem. What type of caulking do you use (or your contractor) to seal the seam and then spray the ecoFinish over it? Did you end up having to spay the wall twice? How thick do you spray the ecoFinish on?

2) In the 2nd picture on the right you see the rust stain coming through the bottom of the wall. doesn't the ecoFinish application seal the wall and not allow water to get back to the fiberglass wall and any bolts that might be rusting? When they "fixed" the seam after the 2nd draining, they didn't attempt to cover the rust stain on the plaster ledge. Can that be sprayed over or will they have to grind the stain off and then re-apply the ecoFinish?

3) The stains (3rd picture) coming through the fiberglass walls where they had grounded down the hard lumps and epoxied are a mystery for them. Can anyone tell me what type of epoxy and/or sealer was used on their pool before the ecoFinish was sprayed on? Again it may be a thickness issue of the ecoFinish spray as well. How thick should the econFinish be sprayed on? Would another spray coat be better? Do you have to prep the first ecoFinish coat before the second coat is sprayed?

4) The 4th picture shows the soft bubble on the bottom left of the fiberglass wall. It appears that the ecoFinish did not attach itself to the fiberglass wall in those spots. They are talking about grinding those open and putting epoxy over the spot and then the "glue" that they use before they spray the ecoFinish. Is that the right procedure? The other spots in the 4th picture is where they had grounded down the hard lumps on the fiberglass walls and then put epoxy over it before they sprayed the ecoFinish. You can see that they did not do a good job on smooth out the epoxy before spraying.

5) Finally in the 5th picture is the example of the "main" pool contractors workmanship on the caulking around the copy. The contractor wants to clean of the caulking and "top coat" the caulking with another light layer of caulking to smooth it out. I am not comfortable with putting caulking over caulking and making it stick....can that be done??? or should the original caulking be cut out and new caulking put in fresh?

Again, thank you for your thoughts and comments on this project. It's coming up on eleven months since we met with the "main" contractor and signed the rehab contract but from what I have learned from many of you is that these issues are fixable but I need to help the "main" contractor and sub-contractor understand that rather than this turning ugly for all parties.

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Update on work on the pool. The "Main" Pool Contractor sent his guys over on Friday to redo the caulking around the coping. They cut out all the first caulking job and put all new caulking between the coping and the concrete decking. This time they also put clear silicon beads on top of the caulking instead of leaving it plain and it looks like a million bucks after I blew off the excess this weekend.

Now, the main pool contractor has to get the sub-contractor to step up on the A/B ecoFinish work.

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