Thursday, May 20, 2010

Dry Pool Work In Progress - Frankenpool

Remember those pics from the last posting?   I do.  There was one in there that showed a close-up of the most complex crack.  That is the first picture here.  Think of this picture as the Before.  It tells the trained eye a few things.  Since I wasn't trained, I'll fill you in with what I learned.

We were lucky when the pool cracked the way it did.  It told the leak finders that the pool was constructed in a way that you can repair it.  Dig a hole, line with a lot of concrete, and finish it with "DiamondBrite".  If this were not the construction the crack would not have ended up looking like this. 

This crack is a fork, and none of them are in a perfect line.   That means we do not have a pool that was built out of concrete blocks.   Those pools crack in a stair step pattern.   They also can't be easily repaired.   The method of repair of a crack is like going to the dentist, they remove some of the damage in order to create a clean seam and then fill it in with a patch.  With a stair step concrete block crack, you run into the problems of whether they filled the blocks with sand or not, whether the blocks are broken, and whether you can drill down deep enough to actually have a structurally sound seal.

This is the During Picture.   Since I don't have a stair step pattern, the repair was done like I described before, drill out the crack until you get good concrete. 

The horizontal bars you see in the crack are where the staples will get put.   Inside each horizontal bar are holes into which a U form of reinforcing bar will be placed, then cemented in place.   The whole thing will be covered over with patch and eventually hidden by DiamondBrite.  The triangular area toward the bottom is the crack detail in the picture at the top of the posting.

He was here in my pool all day through rain and gloom working.  He worked hard all day, and the sound of carbide grinding wheel on my concrete were evident until he broke at 4pm looking like he had earned that rest that was forthcoming.  

Today he will return around 9AM and I'll see him working while I am here with a client discussing web pages.

That reminds me, I have to get the vacuum out before ....

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