Gunite and Plastering Help Needed Before Tomorrow

[nj888]

To make a long story short.

Tomorrow PB will be plastering after a few delays due to surface cracks which they fixed.

To fix these cracks they added hydraulic cement on Monday. All seemed well until it rained yesterday.

Today I went to check on it and noticed it didn't look as "hard/solid" as before and using a end of a flag marker was able to scratch at it. It appears from the rain it softened? Like I said prior to the rain it was hard.

The PB reviewed it and said the plaster crew will be able to fix it by gouging bigger channels and plastering right over it. However in the back of my mind I'm not so sure so I'm coming on here to ask the experts here on how to proceed. Should I cancel or let the plastering begin tomorrow.

I'm thinking as the plaster contractors start scraping at it, it will be back to where we started with the cracks.

Any help before tomorrow will be much appreciated. Thank you.

You can review the 2 video I made.

 

[ajw22]

@bdavis466 @onBalance you think this is a problem?

 

[bdavis466]

Looks pretty sloppy. Hydraulic cement should have been forced into the crack void and care taken to not leave a slurry on the rest of the shell.

Rain wouldn't have changed it since hydraulic cement ideally cures damp/submerged.

If the shell was cracked I question their repair. Epoxy injection would have been the preferred method, hydraulic cement just applies pressure and could potentially make the crack worse.

 

[nj888]

When the original Gunite was shot it rained a few hours later and caused 3 deep channels on the slope towards the deep end and the main drains. They fixed that by drilling and gouging out the streaks (making it bigger) and pouring some bonding agent and shot a new layer of gunite all around the area and by the main drain. The new layer of gunite is about an inch plus. (This was last October.)

When they were preparing the Gunite for plaster last week. They noticed some chipping and surface cracks from that 2nd layer by the main drain. That problem area was probably where the new gunite was thinning out.

They PB called the gunite people back in to fix the problem and they drilled out all the loose pieces and power washed and installed the hydraulic cement around the main drain/deep end.

Whatever they did it appeared to have work until it got wet from all that rain.

Now. About 2 hours ago I got a called from the PB's concrete expert and he advised me the Plaster people (not the gunite people) will come tomorrow to scrape off everything that can be scraped off.

They will use new hydraulic cement. The Expert believes the Gunite Crew may have used an inferior hydraulic cement. So the Plaster crew will have superior hydraulic cement. However the Expert does not know the brand name of cement the Plaster crew will use.

Bottom line I asked from the PB to double the warranty of the plaster. The Gunite is lifetime so that's not an issue.

 

[bdavis466]

The plaster crew will probably just hand pack plaster into the voids which should be perfectly fine and probably what they should have done from the beginning. If possible I suggest you be there for this process to make sure they do a thorough job removing the inferior stuff. Unfortunately sometimes you gotta be your own advocate...

Glad to hear the shell wasn’t cracked. I was thinking this was a remodel for some reason.