Concrete failing at the tile line

[Sailracer]

Hi All,

Since moving into my house 6 years ago I have been having problems with the tile line on my ~ 30 year old gunite pool. One whole section of tile came off a few years ago. I discovered I couldn't get the same tile any more- they don't make it, so I used a section of a similar pattern only larger to patch it. Then a section on one side of the pool developed a crack and shifted out an 1/8th of an inch or so. The tile was still attached solidly to the concrete behind it, so I think the whole pool edge may have been cracked. I've filled it with tile cement and it is holding. Now when I opened the pool yesterday, a whole section of tile came down and I noticed the concrete behind it had deteriorated and crumbled some. A portion of the gunite corner beneath the tile also came off with it.

Question: what can I do about this? I'm tired of replacing tiles as the fall off. This concrete deterioration has me a bit worried and may move this out of the DIY fix realm unless others on here can provide good guidance.

Most of the pool doesn't have any coping stones or bricks, just concrete slabs that hang over the pool edge and are in good shape, so getting access to the pool rim from the top sounds like an expensive proposition.

I'll try to post some pictures later tonight.

Thanks!
-Ryan

 

[jimmythegreek]

U can't rly do much from inside. If it's moving the shell is cracking and being held by rebar. Good repair is to remove decking and dig down and chip out all bad concrete and rebar and epoxy new rebar into solid shell and repair shell. Thwn plaster job and tile job otherwise bandaid it for a while

 

[PoolguyinCT]

U can't rly do much from inside. If it's moving the shell is cracking and being held by rebar. Good repair is to remove decking and dig down and chip out all bad concrete and rebar and epoxy new rebar into solid shell and repair shell. Thwn plaster job and tile job otherwise bandaid it for a while

Sounds like a beam failure to me- the repair is a little uglier than your post paints it.

Rebar into the shell is actually a common beam repair mistake, steel placed horizontally is where the mechanical bond comes from & the way to go.

I saw a botched beam repair, where somebody drilled a bunch of tapcons in half way, like a porcupine- obviously it failed. I’m just demonstrating the vertical vs horizontal steel logic.

Post your photos please.

 

[Sailracer]

I'll try linking some photos. Let me know if the links don't work- I haven't tried sharing from Google before...

This one shows the crack where it looks like the upper part of the pool is pushing out: https://photos.app.goo.gl/tmbHkKYa3MV415fn2

This one shows the layers that have deteriorated behind the tile: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Ik4dfABzZkTfeuDC2

This one shows the corner of the gunite that has broken off beneath the tile line: https://photos.app.goo.gl/XnKK6yddw09lUD842