Hi,
I am renovating my pool and spa and had some really bad work done on my spa by someone who I thought had a lot of masonry experience. It is difficult to find a pool contractor to do pool remodels in my area - Southern New Mexico - as they are keeping busy with new builds. I have a good tile and plaster company, but they do not do any coping or deck work, so I have been doing that myself.
I removed the thick old Kool deck that was on the spa, which has a poured concrete coping. The cement underneath was missing a couple of junks on the coping corners, there were a couple of cracks and there had been decorative tile at the corners, which I no longer wanted. I have no experience with cement so I wasn't confident in being able to patch and smooth the coping with a layer of new cement. Long story short, the spa looks fine from far away, but up close it's bad. The coping is no longer smooth at all and has a gritty sandy texture. There is plastic mesh hanging out in places on the underside. He applied this mesh all over the old coping for shape. The underside edges look terrible - uneven and not fully covering the original coping.
I can trim off the hanging mesh and try to even out the jagged new concrete on the bottom side, but I'm thinking this new layer is not going to hold up. I know that mostly Quickcrete Topping and Versabond Thinset was used.
My first question is can I do anything to salvage the coping. Will sealing help? Should I try to recoat with something else before sealing? Should I just tear out the coping and begin again?
My next question is - if I do demo the coping, can I change the coping to coping stones? Once the cement and rebar are removed, is there just an ordinary bond beam under there? I'm thinking it would be where those blue tiles are underneath coping- visible in the side view in the Before picture.
Any advice is greatly appreciated!
Here are pics including before this work was done.
I am renovating my pool and spa and had some really bad work done on my spa by someone who I thought had a lot of masonry experience. It is difficult to find a pool contractor to do pool remodels in my area - Southern New Mexico - as they are keeping busy with new builds. I have a good tile and plaster company, but they do not do any coping or deck work, so I have been doing that myself.
I removed the thick old Kool deck that was on the spa, which has a poured concrete coping. The cement underneath was missing a couple of junks on the coping corners, there were a couple of cracks and there had been decorative tile at the corners, which I no longer wanted. I have no experience with cement so I wasn't confident in being able to patch and smooth the coping with a layer of new cement. Long story short, the spa looks fine from far away, but up close it's bad. The coping is no longer smooth at all and has a gritty sandy texture. There is plastic mesh hanging out in places on the underside. He applied this mesh all over the old coping for shape. The underside edges look terrible - uneven and not fully covering the original coping.
I can trim off the hanging mesh and try to even out the jagged new concrete on the bottom side, but I'm thinking this new layer is not going to hold up. I know that mostly Quickcrete Topping and Versabond Thinset was used.
My first question is can I do anything to salvage the coping. Will sealing help? Should I try to recoat with something else before sealing? Should I just tear out the coping and begin again?
My next question is - if I do demo the coping, can I change the coping to coping stones? Once the cement and rebar are removed, is there just an ordinary bond beam under there? I'm thinking it would be where those blue tiles are underneath coping- visible in the side view in the Before picture.
Any advice is greatly appreciated!
Here are pics including before this work was done.
