Cracks in stone coping and sealing deck joints

[eep]

First, thank you all for this great community I have learned so much on taking care of a pool by browsing the forums and pool school.

I recently bought a house with a pool and while everything appears to be in decent shape, there are a few coping stones with cracks in them. Pictured is the worst of the cracks, the others are smaller hairline cracks. Looking for what I should do to stop the cracks from getting worse and if I could hide them a bit that would be a bonus. Cab I just use a stone sealer over top of these or should I try and caulk this crack?

The other issue is the flexible material in the joints int he concrete/pebble finish decking looks like it is pulling away in a few spots. I am worried of water getting in there and expanding the clay soils we have in the Dallas area. Is it recommended to replace all of the joint material when it gets to this point, if so is this relatively doable for a DIY project?

 

[Texas Splash]

eep, we can't afford to let your post sit any longer without a reply. Are you still having issues with the cracking/sealing? Anything we can still try to do to help? Let us know. Have a good day.

 

[eep]

eep, we can't afford to let your post sit any longer without a reply. Are you still having issues with the cracking/sealing? Anything we can still try to do to help? Let us know. Have a good day.

Thanks for the bump, I found a good product for the joints (Vulkem 45-SSL) but still looking for recommendations on sealing the stone/concrete

 

[santacruzpool]

I have used two different products with very different results.

I first used the self leveling caulk from Sika-Flex (which appears to be very similar to the Vulkem you posted). The Sika-Flex caulk didn't last very long and had similar issues like your pictures show after only one season. It cracked in the corners and peeled away from the coping and concrete decking in lots of places. I think it is very sensitive to installation technique and temperature as one section that I did on a different day and a little slower is holding up better than the rest has.

With the failures I mentioned above I started looking for a better alternative and saw that Deck-O-Seal had a 1 part sealant that was recommended by a few posters on this site. I used it to repair a bunch of my Sika-Flex joints late last summer. So far there isn't a hint of any cracks or adhesion problems, and it seemed to stick a lot better to my coping and concrete decking. I like the color better as well (it is a little darker gray).

The best product is supposed to be the 2 part Deck-O-Seal stuff, but that is harder to deal with because of the mixing involved. I stayed away from that version both times.

 

[pooldv]

DuPont Stonetech seems to be the favorite stone sealer.

 

[splashpad]

@Bobby O , not an 'N' product, but some info?