Saftron Ladder anchor cups

[jt100]

Hi,
Our aluminum ladder/hand rail cups are corroding badly (I know the PB should have used bronze). I would like to re-core the concrete and install Saftron anchors. Can I use the existing metal ladder/railing in the Saftron anchors without bonding concerns? If I have to, I'll purchase Saftron railing/ladder if needed, but would like to save the expense. I'm pretty sure the bonding wired is looped at each location and not terminated at either the ladder or railing. We upgraded to a SWG 3 years ago.
TIA
John T

 

[pjt]

I have Saftron anchor sockets for my handrail. They have a lug for attaching the bonding wire. Once bonded, you can use your existing metal ladder/railing.

 

[robwas]

As the other contributor said, yes you can bond them but the difficult part is when you core out the old anchors it can be difficult to not damage the bonding wire (often the wire is in the concrete or there's no excess to connect to). Also the Saftron anchors require not one but two overlapping holes if you want the escutcheon to cover your coring. If you use another brand plastic anchor though you can use a single 4" cored hole. It's a tough situation, the easiest way to go is just drill new holes in a fresh area and use both a saftron rail and anchors leaving all your bonding intact. You can chip around the old ones carefully or core partway then chip but if you go all the way through with a coring bit there's a very good chance you'll cut the bonding wire. Hope this helps, shame all pools don't use bronze, the aluminum just turns to jelly and plastic cracks.

 

[nuttyp]

A few thoughts... Hopefully as @robwas said you can core part of the way until you reach the wire, then perhaps core with a smaller core bit to preserve the wire, core the rest with ~1" bits near the wire, then chip the rest and braze new wire onto what's left of the old wire. If that doesn't work or if the wire was never there in the first place, I'm wondering if your work is very far from the edge of the slab. My thought is perhaps you could trench outside the slab, drill a small hole horizontally (presumably easy through sand below the slab) from outside the slab and feed through a #8 wire. Then run the wire all the way around to the equipment pad. That's what I was going to do until I lucked out and found a wire below (pavers in my case).

I know a saftron (or other nonconductive rail) is recommended by many TFP folks but I am still skeptical about them. First I like the traditional stainless look and I don't find stainless overly hot even in strong sustained sunshine. Also, there's the price you noted wherein the saftron could be 4x to 5x the price of stainless. And then there is a future consideration: What if you don't do bonding and you or some future owner replaces the saftron rail with something conductive? They either add bonding at that time or they risk leaving a vulnerability. I also thought about whether to bond just one or both anchors and decided to bond both just in case some future application only needed a single anchor. Maybe someone removes the ladder and drops in a metal pole market umbrella.

Good luck - feedback when you're done would be a good read

 

[robwas]

I know a saftron (or other nonconductive rail) is recommended by many TFP folks but I am still skeptical about them. First I like the traditional stainless look and I don't find stainless overly hot even in strong sustained sunshine. Also, there's the price you noted wherein the saftron could be 4x to 5x the price of stainless.

We've installed several and I can say that they are more susceptible to damage and we even had a few of the cross brace rails snap where the leg piece goes on. In Saftron's favor, they did replace it for us no questions asked, didn't have to send back the old rail or anything like that but I do feel SS will likely outlast them. They're also heavier but in some ways have more wobble than a traditional rail. The old broken one I had I cut apart, under the plastic there is some kind of metal. Another issue we have with the plastic anchor sockets is the rails often get stuck because there's more friction getting them out. I also think being weaker when expanding cement is poured it may distort them some. Never had that happen with a bronze socket. Anyways, just my 2 cents, like many pool items time will tell if they stand the test.

 

[nuttyp]

Thanks @robwas, those are useful additions & perspectives, much appreciated. It makes me also think that it's possible that saftron's plastic coating could one day be scraped, leaving the metal exposed and if so, another way to be vulnerable if the install was not bonded. Unlikely perhaps, so it's just a thought. Speaking of time and welds, I guess time will tell whether the welds hold up on my $130 stainless rail. But if not, easy enough to replace. I need to fully document my install of that rail into pavers. It worked out very well, just some lessons learned - questions welcome until I get a chance to write it up here: Rail Anchor Height Under Pavers

 

[robwas]

Thanks @robwas, those are useful additions & perspectives, much appreciated. It makes me also think that it's possible that saftron's plastic coating could one day be scraped, leaving the metal exposed and if so, another way to be vulnerable if the install was not bonded. Unlikely perhaps, so it's just a thought. Speaking of time and welds, I guess time will tell whether the welds hold up on my $130 stainless rail. But if not, easy enough to replace. I need to fully document my install of that rail into pavers. It worked out very well, just some lessons learned - questions welcome until I get a chance to write it up here: Rail Anchor Height Under Pavers

Yeah, time will much like so many pool items that are the latest and greatest. I remember when companies went to flex pipe over poly, just for the record we still use poly (greenflex) whenever possible. As for installing a rail in pavers having done several I found the easiest way is to remove the pavers, pour a large chunk of cement underneath, generally we do 24x24x24 inches. Then we put the pavers back, I usually leave the cement just a hair lower so I'm able to level the pavers. Once they're back I then core everything out using a jig I cut and a coring bit, I also like to use extra deep anchors but put a pvc pipe spacer in the bottom, they make 6" deep anchor sockets as well as the standard 4". After coring I just install the sockets with anchoring cement, since we're using saftron rails though there's no need for a bond so this method would be a little harder with a stainless rail. I've tried it the other way too putting the anchors in the cement, leaving them high and then cutting the pavers later but what I described seems to be the most foolproof. I've also poured cement under pavers to anchor cover popups as well with rods.