Pool coping

[Rob Bullaro]

Hi all ! I'm in Buffalo ,New York and have an inground vinyl liner pool that was put in 35 years ago. The pool has served us well in all that time but now we have a leak in it and need to do some renovations. Because of the pandemic everyone and their brother is too busy to service our needs this late in the season. The company who put our pool in had its owner just die recently and they are operating with a skeleton crew and are are far behind their normal schedule. After leaking about an inch of water a day or more we finally stabilized the pool by plugging all the openings and just had it closed for the season. It still has to be determined where the leak is and it's down to either the 20 year old liner or one of the return lines. On top of that, we need to have new pool coping installed because after several years of touching up several areas of the painted iron coping we figured now would be the time to replace it along with the liner and possible line repair. We must remove the concrete apron to do this but after 35 years of wear and tear the concrete needs to be replaced anyway too. I contacted the manufacturer of the original pool coping and they have a stainless steel coping available at this time that will fit our pool. They want $2,300 with shipping to send it out. The original pool survey shows coping to be 17' x 35 '. I know that they also make an aluminum and vinyl coping also as an option. I haven't made contact with suppliers or installers nor have received any estimates for the latter two options yet but I'm thinking that the stainless steel will eventually rust at some point and also show oil and other blemish stains much like the outside of some refrigerators do and that the aluminum and vinyl might be the better choice for looks, durability and maintenance. Has anyone installed the stainless steel coping and have comments to make or other suggestions as to the cost, precautions to watch out for and choice of the other two options as might be applied to our particular project ? All comments would be welcomed and thank you in advance for supplying them

 

[homegameroom]

We had a vinyl-lined inground pool when I was a kid. The coping was an anodized aluminum but, wherever it was scratched, it would eventually oxidize and had funny oxidation craters on it as it aged.

I would think the stainless would be great - it should not rust and should look fine. My handrails are stainless and I rarely (maybe once a year) run a sponge over them sprinkled with a little Bon-Ami, just to sparkle them up a bit.

Downside: Some stainless sheet metals are incredibly thin nowadays. Be sure the stainless will not dent easily. I assume the aluminum is extruded and thicker and the stainless is rolled and thinner.......
Is the vinyl a solid vinyl coping or a vinyl coating over a substrate?

 

[Rob Bullaro]

Hi Homegameroom, Thanks for the reply and your comments. I'm am still in the initial stages of trying to put a local term together here in our area in order to get this project moving and off the ground at some point. As the season is getting late and most if not all contractors are booked up at this point I don't see liftoff happening any time soon before Spring. I've had one concrete contractor come out twice in the last couple of days but I'm still waiting for an estimate to show up in my inbox from him. I have another estimate going to be done but that won't happen until January of '21. Most people who install coping and liners in our area do it independently of the concrete people. And then each one only deals in a particular coping and installs only from the manufacturer that they deal with either for liners or coping. Trick is to arrange the project around the schedules of two or more different companies. Full installer pool companies are booked in our area as late as the Summer of 2022 with pool installations up over 160% since this pandemic started. Most of them will not even look to help you out with problems incidental to just pool closings unless you are already one of their customers. I've got some leads that I'm following to get better educated about the aluminum and the vinyl options so at this point I do not have an answer to your question until I delve into this more with the companies and installers who might offer this service in our area. When I do get the info I can come back to let you know.

 

[Kidswimin]

Welcome to TFP
Have you considered cantilevered concrete coping? I am planning replacing my aluminum coping sometime soon, most likely with concrete.