Coping that is heavily pitted from who knows what?!

[slickrock22]

We purchased our home in early 2017. The existing pool coping that is heavily pitted from something. It is a salt pool but I have read on this forum that most seem to think that salt is not the culprit of the pitting. I have no idea about the balance before us, but I am sure a pool service managed it. The salt cell was bad when we bought it and the concentration of salt was only <500ppm so i dont think the cell died recently. I am trying to plan on how to handle the deck and coping. I am not ready to fix everything yet, but would like to clean up the deck and coping with a DIY solution if possible. I have seen some local commercial pools that have carried the Kooldeck over onto the coping. Not my first choice, but considering our current state it could be an option. I also do not like the rocks aroudn the pool edge so I was considering replacing but that may be opening a larger can of worms.

Questions:

1. What do you think caused the pitting?
2. Thoughts about painting the existing pool deck with some type of Kooldeck-like paint (as oppose to replacing Kooldeck). What paint would you use? Acid prep?
3. If I do eventually replace the coping should I use stone lueders like what is there now, or will they just pit like the existing coping?

I welcome other thoughts and suggestions!

Thank you!

 

[kimkats]

I would not worry about the coping stone right now. No real way to know what caused the pitting. My guess would be poor water management even or especially if it was a pool service.

What I would look at is where the spill over is. It looks like some of the area is gone.You do not want water to get in there and cause more problems down the road.

Decking-Have you tried a good pressure wash with some bleach to see what it looks like when it is really clean? Painting it would be a mess down the road. The paint will not stick around long and look worse in the long run

 

[jragan]

That's a sundek/cooldeck sprayed finish. You'll need to plan on once-a-year power washings

 

[slickrock22]

Thanks all! Good point in the Pool Service and bad management!

I will patch the missing part of the spillover (thank you!). I have power washed and used bleach and while it definitely looks better, it is generally showing its age.

I wondered if I could apply Sundek paint like this SunColor - Sundek Concrete Coatings and Concrete Repair to freshen up the color of the deck.

Thanks!

Ryan

 

[kimkats]

I worry about how well it will hold up over time. Will it wear off with time and foot traffic not to mention furniture moving. To me painted concrete over time looks worse than non-painted and it almost impossible to get the paint off. I tried to help my sister scrape/remove the paint she had put on her back porch. We never could get it off