What goes between the coping and the deck?

[PoolGate]

My pool builder put just a piece of foam between the bluestone coping and the concrete deck. I was just at my pool shop and we were talking about this and they said I should have caulk between these two joints or I risk having the deck move and knock the coping off. Is this true or is just the foam enough?

 

[Pemolis]

foam and deck-o-seal is usually used, the foam permits small movement in the deck and coping so the deck and coping don't crack.

The foam is fine... if they put a sealant ontop of it (many times, they will put a sealant ontop, then dust sand ontop of it for a pretty effect).

If its straight exposed foam with nothing there, that's a problem.

 

[PoolGate]

foam and deck-o-seal is usually used, the foam permits small movement in the deck and coping so the deck and coping don't crack.

The foam is fine... if they put a sealant ontop of it (many times, they will put a sealant ontop, then dust sand ontop of it for a pretty effect).

If its straight exposed foam with nothing there, that's a problem.

Yes this is exactly what it is, straight foam. There is a 2 foot section that ripped up but looks like it was designed to. The pool store guy said that foam has a 1/4"-1/2" top tear piece that is supposed to come off when they do the mastic installation 30 days after the deck is installed. I asked my PB if this was going to be done. The pool store quoted $9/foot which seems outrageous to me.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Mastic compound to cover the foam

 

[PoolGate]

The PB just told me that they build their pools so that caulking is not required. IOW, they are not going to install caulking. Truth or fiction?

 

[JoyfulNoise]

I think you’re trying to squeeze blood from a stone with your PB. Time to forget about them and just take matters into your own hands. Move on and be happy.

There’s lots of ways to do an expansion joint. If you want it filled in, then a mastic seal that matches the color of the concrete with a possible sand finish on top is one way to do it. It all depends on if you want to seal the joint to keep out water.

Where I live, there’s no need to do a mastic seal and, in fact, my concrete comes right up to the flagstone coping and was installed with only the thinnest barrier film (plastic sheet) between the two. But I get almost zero soil movement since there’s minimal water infiltration here and no freeze/thaw cycling. Your local conditions should dictate how the expansion joint is filled.

 

[jimim]

I also didn’t do a zip strip between my deck pavers and coping. I have a small expansion joint between my poured concrete and gunite shell. But the pavers that sit on that pour and the paver coping only has the sanded joint and we kept that as small as possible for looks. My buddy is confident we will be fine. We talked about doing one but just felt having that other joint would take away from the look.

Will i have issues. I doubt it. He has done it on our freeze thaw area a ton of times and I know he has had no major issues. Bit like above. So many ways to do a job and all jobs are somewhat diff I feel.