Oh No! Pool Cracking Up :(

[Mark4140]

Hi everyone. First of all... Thanks to everyone for all of the great information posted here on this site. I think I have spent about 3 straight weeks reading this site before and during the construction of our first pool.

Now on to our problem. The pool was filled with water about 2 months ago. The pool guys just finished up some more work around the pool when we noticed the decking start to crack a little in one spot. No big deal- concrete always cracks a little. Then the crack grew...and grew... and lifted... and grew some more. Then we noticed a small vertical crack in the plaster. Then the crack grew. Then within the week 4 more vertical cracks showed up all around the pool. Two of them are directly over places where they epoxied & stapled some cracks in the gunite before they plastered. There are now 3 cracks that are about a thumbnail wide and 2-3" long and 2 cracks about a penny wide spidering all the way to the bottom of the pool. (see one of them below - that is a quarter in the pics)


The installer is away on a medical emergency and I'm just wondering... how bad is this? Any suggestions?

The coin in the pics is a quarter

 

[bigdav160]

Pics no worky

 

[y_not]

Try this.
These are the highest res versions. Just R. click and open image in new tab to see it full res.
They didn't work because they were links to the picture in album view, not the JPG itself like I just did.

 

[y_not]

Mark4140,

Where do you live? What kind of dirt do you have, did they just excavate and start the build. Or did they do any sort of back fill, ground prep?

Please put your location in your profile. See the 1st article in Pool School for instructions.

 

[Mark4140]

Sorry about that. I am in North Texas. The pool was just excavated into very hard ground. Even had bands of limestone near the bottom. The soil is not notoriously stable but none of my other concrete or house has moved. The decking had some fill (about a foot) to get it all level. The big grill area of decking had the most fill though ( almost 2' in areas) and has zero cracking.

I'm worried that we have just sunk a TON of money into something that is gong to be a constant battle. I'm guessing that the pool is leaking and heaving the decking but not sure.

 

[Melt In The Sun]

Crikey..that is bad news. Medical emergency, huh? Hopefully they have insurance, cause I can't see this being less than a do-over.

 

[Bama Rambler]

Take a lot of pictures and record every bit of communication you have with anyone about this issue. Just a note with the date, time, person you spole with. And always try to follow up with an email outlining what you talked about. Hopefully the PB will happily rectify the issues and your pool will have a long happy life.

 

[Mark4140]

Do you have any guesses on what may have happened? I'd really like to know what not to do next time if they tear it all out and start over. Do you think cutting out the cracks and epoxying again would have much chance of success?

 

[Just-a-PB]

Do you have pics of the before, and the staples they used?
Did they determine why it cracked before?
How old of pool was it?
Was it this bad before?
How is the waterline of the pool, does one part seem to be settling?

 

[savela]

Can someone explain stapling and epoxying a crack in a unite shell? Certainly that won't function to keep a crack from 'growing'. Is it to make it watertight after the crack has stopped? I'm no expert but the unevenness of the one crack is very concerning, especially after 2 months. Could there be a leak with a possible hidden erosion that is causing such a shift of ground matter?

 

[ouachita]

Could you get some pictures showing a bigger area. Also, Was the new deck poured up to existing stone that is shown?