I told my builder I would be doing the patio around the pool and didn’t realize that meant he wouldn’t do the coping on the pool. I have purchased bullnose concrete pavers to match the patio pavers. All the pictures I see show a half-inch or so gap between the bricks, with ‘grout’ - I thing that’s ugly. I told my pool builder I wanted to just butt the pavers up against each other and he said you can’t - wouldn’t be strong enough. I said at least not more than ¼ inch and he said, can’t - has to be ½ inch.
I’m not new to construction - have done some masonry work, both conventional mortar and bricks/blocks, but also including building an entire garage in Germany with dimensioned cement blocks and NO mortar - in Germany this is a typical construction with what they call (translated) glue-mortar. It is essentially a very wet thin-set mortar and the blocks rest on each other with the thinset bonding the natural pits and tiny gaps between the rough surfaces. It is actually much STRONGER than regular mortar joints.
Since I think it looks better with little to no gap between the bricks, I want to proceed that way (so will have to do it myself - pretty sure I can do it better than his lackeys anyway). Any reason anyone can throw out why NOT to do this? I wouldn’t think I would need expansion joints since there aren’t any in the pool.
I also understand the original method of mortar (with lime) and brick construction allowed some slight movement of the structure and ‘healing’ of the mortar without cracking. I don’t think this is necessary for a 15x30 pool coping.
I’m not new to construction - have done some masonry work, both conventional mortar and bricks/blocks, but also including building an entire garage in Germany with dimensioned cement blocks and NO mortar - in Germany this is a typical construction with what they call (translated) glue-mortar. It is essentially a very wet thin-set mortar and the blocks rest on each other with the thinset bonding the natural pits and tiny gaps between the rough surfaces. It is actually much STRONGER than regular mortar joints.
Since I think it looks better with little to no gap between the bricks, I want to proceed that way (so will have to do it myself - pretty sure I can do it better than his lackeys anyway). Any reason anyone can throw out why NOT to do this? I wouldn’t think I would need expansion joints since there aren’t any in the pool.
I also understand the original method of mortar (with lime) and brick construction allowed some slight movement of the structure and ‘healing’ of the mortar without cracking. I don’t think this is necessary for a 15x30 pool coping.