Pipes exposed on outside of pool

[Mypool2799]

The plumbing pipes are exposed along about a 6 foot long area of the side of our pool. My pool superintendent is saying that thes can be covered by brown coat and will be fine. I am concerned that these areas should be patched with Gunite-filled in. What is the best way to patch this?

 

[dotbombjoe]

Mine is the same and I was also told it would be fixed with when the browncoat was applied.

In my case, I can see that there are voids around the plumbing and the concrete immediately around the pipe can just be pulled off with your hand. In some cases, there are several inches of space occupied by something other than concrete (ie, the plumbing + void behind it) on that exterior side of the wall...and on the inside wall, there are places where I can stick a nail nearly 2" into the holes in the rough gunite surface...it just doesn't seem right to me. But my builder doesn't believe its a problem and isn't going to do anything other than he would normally do to finish the pool so I'm sort of stuck with it.

My opinion is that the plumbing should never have been in the gunite to begin, but maybe there are good reasons I'm not thinking of... For example, if there is a lot of ground movement in your area, I can see a case being made that it could be a benefit in that scenario. But for me, I'd rather have the pipe in the ground where I can get to it and repair it, only going straight through the walls where necessary.

This is an example of why I wish I had done an owner-build. Its the PBs job now so he gets to make the choices -- my choice is whether to fire the guy and given my particular circumstances, I'm not prepared to do that...

 

[Bama Rambler]

While it's not catastrophic to the pool, I agree with Joe, except for straight through penetrations the plumbing shouldn't be in the wall. However, there's likely nothing you can do about that now.

Having said that, I would push the PB to fill the voids with hydraulic cement. If they baulk, it's not the end of the earth, but it would be nice if they agreed.