Pool leaks past a certain point

[Brandon1023]

Two years ago, my dad had his pool redone by someone who turned out to be very incompetent. To make this short, I will leave out some of the reasons why.

Basically, the work done involved applying new plaster and raising up the coping by pouring concrete on top of the existing pool shell and making a cold joint in the process. The coping was raised to accommodate new pavers. For whatever reason, he ended up not raising up the entire skimmer to compensate for the new height of the pool. This was not a concern because the pool was originally plumbed with only a skimmer and a main drain, no vacuum port in the wall, so we've always just plugged the vacuum into the skimmer as the picture shows. When the surface gets dirty, we just clean it with a net.

The problem now is that once the water level rises past the old maximum height of the pool, it leaks out and leaves no trace as to where it's going. As mentioned, the coping was raised with the company nailing flexible wood to the walls and creating a form to pour the new concrete.

No waterproofing of any kind was done. They just applied mortar and then thinset to bond the new tiles. This leads me to think that maybe the water is seeping through this cold joint.

I tried dripping dye into the skimmer to see if it's leaking past the ring that was installed when the pavers were laid the following year, but the dye doesn't rush into the plastic joint or anything like that. I know it's not sealed and given that it's really wedged in there, I don't see how it could be removed and solvent cemented. In the picture, you can see the riser ring and the old skimmer.

I've already come to terms with the fact that there's probably nothing that can be done, but I just wanted to see if there's any insight anyone might provide.

A final word: you can fill the pool all the way to the top and by the next morning, the water will be back to the height of the old coping and it stays there, telling me the rest of the plumbing/shell isn't leaking. This problem came about after having the pool redone.

 

[Mdragger88]

Aww man! That’s concerning indeed.
Lemme call some folks who may have some insight…
@AQUA~HOLICS
@JoyfulNoise

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Was the new concrete bond beam that was poured to raise the wall attached to the rebar in the existing wall? The only proper way to raise the bond beam is chip out the old one down to the rebar and make a new rebar cage. Otherwise you have two layers of concrete sitting on top of one another that are unconnected.

My guess is similar to yours - the raised part of the shell is leaking.

 

[Brandon1023]

Was the new concrete bond beam that was poured to raise the wall attached to the rebar in the existing wall? The only proper way to raise the bond beam is chip out the old one down to the rebar and make a new rebar cage. Otherwise you have two layers of concrete sitting on top of one another that are unconnected.

My guess is similar to yours - the raised part of the shell is leaking.

That's what I feared. There was no rebar or anything unfortunately and I wish I could go back and convince my dad to go with the company that had a longer wait to get started. This is someone who did my neighbors pool, so we trusted him, but my neighbor just had the plaster redone. No coping or anything.

So yes, these bozos laid a couple inches of concrete right on top of the bond beam. As I feared, there's nothing that can be done now and it's not critical, but it's annoying especially due to the fact that it's shoddy workmanship.

This is the same person whose idea of "surface demolition" of the painted plaster was to have a guy put chips with a hammer throughout the pool. Luckily we ended up grinding the whole pool ourselves to return it back to plaster before they plastered over.

 

[Brandon1023]

One additional question. Even if they had chipped down to the rebar, how would the joint be sealed properly?

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Yeah. That first picture is very telling. Lots of rusty old exposed rebar. That should have been remediated.

One additional question. Even if they had chipped down to the rebar, how would the joint be sealed properly?

The correct way to do it would have been to raise the skimmer up by demolitioning out the old one. Then the contractor should have exposed the entire bond beam chiseled/bored into the exiting bond beam new holes where new rebar could have been epoxied into place. They would also want to expose the old rebar and attach the new rebar to it at regular intervals. With the right placement of vertical and horizontal rebar, they would create a new cage and then put forms around it and pour fresh concrete. The interior surface of the pool should have had a waterproofing membrane applied from the top of the new bond beam all the way down passed the joint by at least 6-12”. Then you can lay tile, coping and replaster. The coping should be fabricated on a barrier film so that it can move independently of the bond beam. If the coping was attached to the new bond beam, then even minor thermal cycling of the paver deck could easily put enough stress on the coping to crack the newly laid bond beam.

In short, your analysis is correct, the contractor that did the job had no clue what they were doing and just did a quick and dirty job. There is no solution here that doesn’t involve basically redoing the entire job from scratch.

 

[Brandon1023]

Yeah. That first picture is very telling. Lots of rusty old exposed rebar. That should have been remediated.



The correct way to do it would have been to raise the skimmer up by demolitioning out the old one. Then the contractor should have exposed the entire bond beam chiseled/bored into the exiting bond beam new holes where new rebar could have been epoxied into place. They would also want to expose the old rebar and attach the new rebar to it at regular intervals. With the right placement of vertical and horizontal rebar, they would create a new cage and then put forms around it and pour fresh concrete. The interior surface of the pool should have had a waterproofing membrane applied from the top of the new bond beam all the way down passed the joint by at least 6-12”. Then you can lay tile, coping and replaster. The coping should be fabricated on a barrier film so that it can move independently of the bond beam. If the coping was attached to the new bond beam, then even minor thermal cycling of the paver deck could easily put enough stress on the coping to crack the newly laid bond beam.

In short, your analysis is correct, the contractor that did the job had no clue what they were doing and just did a quick and dirty job. There is no solution here that doesn’t involve basically redoing the entire job from scratch.

Yep, they set the new coping right on top of that "new" bond beam with mortar. The pool was redone in the summer of 2021 and the pavers were laid in the summer of 2022. At least here in Miami, the temperature doesn't fluctuate very much, but it's a shame regardless. There's probably too many people out here screwing clients over and this clown was definitely one of them.
What's funny is I was thinking that even Tapcons screwed in throughout the perimeter would've been better than absolutely nothing - the way they did it. At least the pool looks good for now, haha.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to confirm what I feared. I appreciate all that information!

For what it's worth, if you'd like to read about this atrocity in the making from two years ago, here's the link to my first post.

Pool guy told me this is how it's done. I disagree

First post here. I've seen lots of great info on this site as a long time reader and now I have a question. To make a long story short, we had the coping elevated in our pool and the plan is to get diamond Brite The problem is that 8 years ago, we made the mistake of using epoxy pool paint on...

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