Advice needed; crack and water under fiberglass pool

[TheWiscoKid]

Dear All,

I am a new homeowner. I relocated from Milwaukee to Austin, TX. I will have owned the home for 30 days tomorrow. I have a very real fear my backyard is moving, and taking my pool with it. I live in East Austin where there is a bunch of clay soil. The homeowner had the foundation leveled in 2011 and had 12 piers installed, so it really wouldn't be a stretch if it were. I noticed a brand new crack in the deck from where the deck meets the house traversing the length of the pool parallel to the pool wall. I expressed my concern to my realtor yesterday... he said I was crazy and that cosmetic shifting happens and that the pool isn't being eaten by the backyard and to relax.

Well, crazy-pants me woke up this morning to a brand new crack in the bottom of my pool, about the size of my hand. I went to take some pictures of it and as I was traversing the pool to the deep end, the bottom of the pool suddenly began to feel like a waterbed under my feet. There is *bleeping* water under the fiberglass. I have seriously never felt such a sense of panic save for being on a frozen lake and watching zig-zagging cracks rip the ice up underneath my feet.

The last owner had the pool repaired in 2013. I called the same company that did the repairs. They aren't under warranty. My home warranty doesn't cover structural pool damage, either.

The company that did the repairs is coming out on Monday. I am asking for any advice/suggestions/words of encouragement from those who have been there. I am all by myself, and this will be a HUGE financial burden, so I really want to make sure I'm not going to get ripped off.

Pics of the crack: http://imgur.com/a/wpwr3

 

[mcaswell]

In the absence of a response from someone more knowledgeable, my initial reaction is that this doesn't look like a normal fiberglass crack... to me it looks like the gelcoat layer is delaminating and peeling off in that spot.

Do you have any details about the repair work that was done in 2007 and 2013? If it was re-gelcoated, perhaps the surface was not prepared properly, so the new gelcoat didn't bond. Actually, the surface that is visible doesn't really look like bare fiberglass... hard to tell from the pictures, and this is mostly speculation here, but it might be that they simply applied a new layer of gelcoat over the original gelcoat instead of sanding down to bare fiberglass (someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that this was a necessary step).

--Michael

 

[JamesW]

The homeowner had the foundation leveled in 2011 and had 12 piers installed

I would suggest that you contact the company that did the leveling and installed the piers to see what information they can provide. They should have a soils report/evaluation and design plan from a professional engineer.

I think that the work that they needed to have done suggests soil instability.

I think that you will probably need a professional engineer to evaluate your situation and give you advice.

The water you are feeling might be water trapped between layers of fiberglass and not from under the pool.

 

[TheWiscoKid]

Thank you both for your response.

Regarding the crack, it feels somewhat like the shell of an egg. Like when you pick away the top part of a hard boiled egg where there is an air pocket- you know how the actual yolk and white sit in an egg unevenly? It's like I've tapped that part of the egg where the yolk isn't. Underneath the broken shell, it looks like solid concrete/rock. The company that did the repairs is coming out today and I want to make sure that I ask all the right kinds of questions.

Thanks again!

 

[mcaswell]

Interesting... perhaps instead of an actual fiberglass pool, this is a concrete pool that was refinished with fiberglass (instead of plaster) at some point?

--Michael