Posted on

Homebrew Bond Coat

Are you planning to invest in a pool replaster?  If so, the best decision would be to choose a plaster finish that will last longer than the current plaster has lasted in your pool. Choosing white plaster is not a good investment for a pool replaster. White plaster will not last more than 5 years. By that we mean when it is 5 years old, it will look double its age and be nearly worn out in visual appearance.  The companies that offer white plaster in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area will be the same companies guaranteed to be using a homebrew bond coat to improperly secure your investment to the substrate.

The most important part of a pool replaster is the surface preparation. How will the new plaster be bonded to the substrate? Most companies think this is the least important part of a replaster. Most, if not all of them, use homebrew bond coats.  The primary component of homebrew bond coats is glue.  Cheap glue. Companies use homebrew bond coats to be able to save the most money possible on their replaster jobs. They use the cheapest glue they can get. They use glue that is not designed to be submerged in water.

Pool plaster is not waterproof. It is water tight. Pool plaster is semi-permeable, water will get to the back of the plaster. Once water gets through the plaster, it goes to work on the worthless homebrew bond coat. If by chance the plaster was bonded to the homebrew bond coat, the water will re-emulsify it. That means your plaster is no longer secured to the pool shell.  A hollow spot will develop. Water will continue to separate the plaster bond and discolor the new pool replaster investment. Overtime unexplained water loss, stains, and black algae will develop.

Homebrew bond coats must be removed from our industry. They simply do not work. The companies that use them do so to save money for themselves, not for the pool owner. If you get a quote for pool replaster, demand that they give you a 5 year warranty. Otherwise what is the point of spending your money with them?

Posted on

Crack Repair

 

What do you do if you had crack repair done with epoxy injection on your pool and it failed?

First, you must consider if other options were presented and did the crack repair company give any insight as to what might have caused the cracks? There are several reasons why the pool may have cracked in the first place. Pool cracks are generally a symptom of a larger problem with the pool. To properly repair a cracked pool the issue that caused the pool to crack must be identified and corrected. There is not a “one repair fits all” in regard to pool crack repair. Experienced companies will inspect the pool to identify the best repair methods and then provide you with some options. If a crack returned, it is either due to the wrong repair method being used or possibly the issue that caused the pool to crack is still present.

Epoxy injection repair is limited by the crack it is repairing. If the crack is not clean inside the crack, the epoxy will be bonding contaminated walls of the crack together, not the pool shell.  There essentially is nothing repairing the crack if that is the case. This is the case in most pools over 5 years old. Epoxy injection should not be done without also including staples in the repair. Most staples on the market are about as good as epoxy inside a dirty crack. They are worthless. G&B uses our own proprietary staples. We use a process like no other company with our staples. We open up the pool shell with our Hydro Demo process where the crack is located and find the structural steel on each side of the crack. G&B then saddles the steel with our G&B staples and secures it in place with epoxy. G&B’s staples are then tightened to put post tension strength on the shell along every 12” of the cracks. That same crack is also epoxy injected for a double repair effort. Keep in mind if the pool shell is sitting on unstable soil there is another option that must be utilized. If not the crack repair will likely fail regardless of the use of G&B staples or not.

Posted on

Crack Repair

Pool Patch Manufactures

 

 

Pools crack for several reasons… but how do you repair them? To understand who you should hire to perform crack repair in your pool you must understand these simple issues.  First of all, there is no such thing as “just a plaster crack”. All pool cracks are structure cracks. Second all pool cracks leak. It may not be a fast leak, like a tub drain, but it definitely is a leak. It should be dealt with sooner rather than later. The pool gunite or substrate is not watertight. If the plaster has a crack, it means the pool has a leak.  Once the plaster is cracked the pools’ ability to be watertight is compromised. There is an exception, homebrew bond coats allow the pool water to separate the outer plaster from the under plaster layer. When that happens a debonded hollow spot in the outer plaster layer can crack due to pressure from the water between the plaster layers. These cracks generally look like spider webs or crow foot pattern cracks. Homebrew bond coats do not work.

 Pool crack repair cannot be done with much success without understanding these issues. Most repair techs offer epoxy as the repair option, these same companies also use homebrew bond coats.  To understand how to successfully repair pool cracks you must realize that the crack is always a symptom of a larger problem. If you simply repair the crack with just epoxy you most likely will not be addressing the issue that caused the crack at all. There is a very good chance that epoxy alone will not repair a crack at all. Pool water has Total Dissolved Solids. A crack that is leaking will have that same TDS inside the crack. The epoxy works well, only if it bonds to clean concrete. The likelihood that a pool crack in 5 year old pool will not be contaminated is slim and none. It definitely won’t be clean concrete. That is why most techs include a coat of polyurethane over the crack repair in case the epoxy fails. This is also why crack repair with epoxy should not be done without also incorporating quality staples.  G&B uses our own propriety pool staples for crack repair.  They are the only staples on the market that properly address the goal of including staples in crack repair.