Yes: Pools are worth it....

[Tailgate 3021]

14 hours ago, TexEx15 said:

Unfortunately I think I’m in the same boat. Would you mind if I reached out via PM to pick your brain?

Absolutely. I’ve heard there are up to 1,000 pools in central Texas with this issue. Feel free to PM me and anyone for that matter with ASR questions. If your pool was constructed from 2018-2021 with shotcrete and you have cracking…it’s a possibility.

[Guest]

51 minutes ago, Tailgate said:

Thanks. Having a pool ripped out of your backyard with jackhammers for months was not a fun experience…windows shattering on other side of house from vibrations. Was unreal watching. But happy with outcome.

Can I ask where you are? It's obviously central Texas, but you look out of the city a little bit. The pool is gorgeous, but I'm digging the house and the legroom you have.

[Tailgate 3021]

1 hour ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

Can I ask where you are? It's obviously central Texas, but you look out of the city a little bit. The pool is gorgeous, but I'm digging the house and the legroom you have.

South Austin…near 1826. Thank you. I’m on one acre.

[TexasEd 8066]

3 hours ago, Tailgate said:

Absolutely. I’ve heard there are up to 1,000 pools in central Texas with this issue. Feel free to PM me and anyone for that matter with ASR questions. If your pool was constructed from 2018-2021 with shotcrete and you have cracking…it’s a possibility.

Yeah I may want to talk to your lawyer 

[joe dirt 285]

ours was completed nov 2020 and started developing cracks around late august 2023. the builder mentioned possibility of asr. his insurance company is involved now but this shit is slow going. really not looking forward to possibility of having this thing ripped out and rebuilt. the first time was shitty enough. 

[Dbeasy 15042]

On the ASR thing, I live far up in Northwest Austin/Leander and people all over are dealing with this. It sounds badddd. 

[TexasEd 8066]

Cedar Park here built in 2021

 

[TexEx15 17509]

Just wanted to give a shoutout to @Tailgate. Solid dude for taking take to chat with me offline about his experience with ASR. Also, this process is going to fucking suck.

[Your Mom 4805]

Got this thing installed just in time for the first big pollen dump.  Hoping it turns out to be $400 well spent.   There’s pros and cons but I’m thinking that sweeping this off when it’s wet or blowing it off when it’s dry is going to be better than emptying my skimmers 5 times a day and stressing about it every week when I’m out of town for a couple days. 
 

[utee94 15805]

On 3/20/2024 at 9:25 PM, Dbeasy said:

On the ASR thing, I live far up in Northwest Austin/Leander and people all over are dealing with this. It sounds badddd. 

My friend in NW Austin, off Oak Knoll, had his pool built in late 2020/2021.  It's had cracking between the spa spillover and main pool since it was installed. Cody kept on sending crews out to just rebuild that bit.  Now he has cracks all the way across the main pool.  Insurance and attorneys are involved.  This really sucks for all of you.

 

[fattyflattie 4639]

On 3/25/2024 at 10:32 AM, Your Mom said:

Got this thing installed just in time for the first big pollen dump.  Hoping it turns out to be $400 well spent.   There’s pros and cons but I’m thinking that sweeping this off when it’s wet or blowing it off when it’s dry is going to be better than emptying my skimmers 5 times a day and stressing about it every week when I’m out of town for a couple days. 
 

That seems to be about 10 mins of pollen drop for mine.  It’s a rough 3 weeks or so. Any way to attach that thing without the screws in the decking? 

[Your Mom 4805]

9 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

That seems to be about 10 mins of pollen drop for mine.  It’s a rough 3 weeks or so. Any way to attach that thing without the screws in the decking? 

As I was reading up on it there were lots of reviews from people who tried using stakes in the grass unsuccessfully.  Each strap is attached to a spring that’s under fairly high tension.   I wasn’t real excited about the screws either but the last two springs broke me with the pollen. I am away from home two nights a week, occasionally three and leaving it alone for that length of time is too much. Same with the oak leaves when they fall. A few weeks ago I came home from a trip and the skimmer baskets were so full that it impeded the flow of water completely. It worries me for the pump. 

The screws are in a brass anchor. The anchor is flush and when you remove the net for swim season you can turn the screws down to be flush as well.  Not sure how or if that would work in a nicer deck with travertine or some other kind of tile. 

[fattyflattie 4639]

1 minute ago, Your Mom said:

As I was reading up on it there were lots of reviews from people who tried using stakes in the grass unsuccessfully.  Each strap is attached to a spring that’s under fairly high tension.   I wasn’t real excited about the screws either but the last two springs broke me with the pollen. I am away from home two nights a week, occasionally three and leaving it alone for that length of time is too much. Same with the oak leaves when they fall. A few weeks ago I came home from a trip and the skimmer baskets were so full that it impeded the flow of water completely. It worries me for the pump. 

The screws are in a brass anchor. The anchor is flush and when you remove the net for swim season you can turn the screws down to be flush as well.  Not sure how or if that would work in a nicer deck with travertine or some other kind of tile. 

Yeah I’m travertine on 3 sides. But think I could sink them just past it, maybe. If you really committed to an anchor, not half assed it.   We’re in same boat. Have to leave often and I just turn the system off when I’m gone or pump would burn up in a day. The baskets are chock full in minutes sometimes.  You have a link to that tarp?

[Your Mom 4805]

Blue Wave 15-ft x 30-ft... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E9PUJRG?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
 

The price is all over the place. I paid $428 for the 15 x 30 one week ago.  Today it shows 793. 
 

Edited March 27 by Your Mom

[rage-a-holic 4378]

On 3/25/2024 at 9:32 AM, Your Mom said:

Got this thing installed just in time for the first big pollen dump.  Hoping it turns out to be $400 well spent.   There’s pros and cons but I’m thinking that sweeping this off when it’s wet or blowing it off when it’s dry is going to be better than emptying my skimmers 5 times a day and stressing about it every week when I’m out of town for a couple days. 
 

Do you have dogs? I have 3 dogs averaging 65 lbs that would just run/sit on this thing all day long.

[Your Mom 4805]

3 minutes ago, rage-a-holic said:

Do you have dogs? I have 3 dogs averaging 65 lbs that would just run/sit on this thing all day long.

I don’t have dogs. It would support their weight but I’d be worried they tear it. 
 

unrelated to that statement, I also stuck an inner tube float under today to raise the middle. There was one spot right in the middle that sunk enough to touch the water and stayed wet which prevented the leaf blower from being as effiective. I’ll know tomorrow morning if the innertube fixes that. 

[rage-a-holic 4378]

13 minutes ago, Your Mom said:

I don’t have dogs. It would support their weight but I’d be worried they tear it. 
 

unrelated to that statement, I also stuck an inner tube float under today to raise the middle. There was one spot right in the middle that sunk enough to touch the water and stayed wet which prevented the leaf blower from being as effiective. I’ll know tomorrow morning if the innertube fixes that. 

That's what has prevented me from installing one, but fuck, I am so fucking tired of leaves and shit. Almost 10 years of daily or weekly skimming.

[Bevo 13566]

Good article:

 

https://www.aquamagazine.com/service/chemistry/article/15383114/asr-prevention

 

ASR, an acronym that stands for "Alkali Silica Reaction," has received attention recently in seminars and discussion in the pool builder community. The ASR phenomenon is sometimes referred to as "concrete cancer" due to its similarities to that disease in its effects on concrete.

Cases of ASR are unusual, and it's a regional issue. When it strikes, it's a big deal in the local builder community, but in other areas, few people know anything about it.

ASR stems from the accidental use of rare, highly reactive aggregate, and since that agg is inevitably coming from the local quarry, the problem is localized around it. To recap the basics of ASR, it's a chemical reaction that rapidly breaks up concrete from within. Reduced to its simplest terms, it starts with a combination of moisture and bad (reactive) aggregate.

Paolo Benedetti is a Watershape University instructor, a legendary builder in his own right and an authority on best practices in the pool industry. He gave a seminar on ASR this spring at the Southwest Pool & Spa Show in Houston, in the wake of the recent outbreak of ASR in central Texas. Benedetti described the product of the ASR chemical reaction as "a gel that forms around the agg, and continues to swell, fracturing the concrete, which provides pathways for more moisture, which results in more fracturing."

The overwhelming and vast majority of aggregate quarried in the world is not reactive and will not trigger ASR, but a tiny percentage of it is and will. An outbreak of ASR occurs when some of that reactive agg is excavated from a quarry, and finds its way into a concrete structure, whether that is a bridge abutment, a building foundation or a pool.

With that unlucky, bad agg in the mix (unbeknownst to the builder) and the resultant concrete formed and set, the speed of the reaction and thus, concrete destruction, will depend on the amount of moisture intrusion.

One way to prevent ASR is to avoid the use of reactive agg, but that's hard to do. A builder can have the agg tested for reactivity, but those tests are expensive and somewhat unreliable, with a reported 50% false positive rate. A more practicable preventative is the use of pozzolans, such as fly ash, slag and silica fume in the concrete mix, which reduce the permeability of concrete. By reducing moisture intrusion, you strike a strong blow against ASR.

Pozzolans were more common practice among builders, Benedetti says, but "in the last seven or eight years, due to unavailability, the use of pozzolans, such as fly ash, slag and silica fume, has dropped."

This drop in the use of pozzolans, he suggests, has contributed to the potential for cases of ASR. But another big contributor is water intrusion. And according to Benedetti, there are a number of things a builder can do to give concrete stronger resistance to ASR and other problems that are associated with moisture in concrete. These include standard best practices, such as making sure shotcrete has high compressive values, which makes it more dense and less permeable, and controlling shrinkage cracks through the use of a better steel-to-concrete ratio. Using less water in the cement mix also helps but, of course, comes with tradeoffs.

In existing pools, the best course to control the spread of ASR fracturing is to reduce water intrusion as much as possible, says John McIntyre, a professional engineer from the Austin area who specializes in the pool industry, and who has seen the outbreak in central Texas firsthand: "You can't take the aggregate out of an already cast wall. So the only thing you can control at that point is the water," which means mitigating moisture intrusion from external sources. That means everything from proper waterproofing to drainage.

[Rimbo 25911]

All right, my friends. Pull up a chair, grab a beer, and let me tell you the tale. The tale of the Great Algae War of 2024.

I shared already the state of the pool from last month. Here it is again:

ca. March 19th.

Now, this is no ordinary mess. To give you some idea, not only was the pool completely full of algae -- we're talking long strands from the surface to the floor, here, but I scooped up a goddamned pinworm off the surface. Yeah, you know those fucking intestinal parasites? Yeah. One of those. It was dead. No idea where it came from.

March 28th. I'm just about to go on vacation. One more glimpse.

Ew.

I dumped 10 pounds of shock in there and got the pump going. Also skimmed as much as I could off the surface. Went on vacation, came back home.

April 2nd. Back home. OK, that's an improvement. We're sorta bluish green instead of deep forest green.

Dumped 10 more pounds of shock in.

Tuesday. OK, now the color is correct, but you can't see deeper than the second step. I've used up about 12 chlorine tabs, too. But now it's clean enough that I can start running the vacuum; there's no huge deposits floating on the surface, and the green is gone.

Pardon the mess. We're having work done on our house and our yard is being used to store shit that was in what used to be our garage.

Yesterday. Here's the deep end of the pool. By this point I've disassembled and cleaned out the filter completely three times. You can see the bottom of the deep end, but it's still murky.

And finally: Today. You can read the labeling on the Poolvergnugen all the way down at the bottom of the pool.

All that's left is -- I'm going to dissassemble the filter one last time, dump in about five pounds of Sodium Carbonate (all that chlorine got my pH down to about 6.5), then put the Solar Blanket over it so it can start warming up. Now the solar blanket ain't clean, so I'll need to keep my eye on chlorine levels more or less daily over the next week. But other than that, we're done here!

Edited April 13 by Rimbo

[freyguy 4263]

And here I am bitching about small dots of black algae....good grief man.

You know if a put a bottle of chlorine in there every few days during the off season, you won't have to deal with an underwater jungle.

Edited April 13 by freyguy

[MonkeyDoughnut 10229]

14 hours ago, Rimbo said:

All right, my friends. Pull up a chair, grab a beer, and let me tell you the tale. The tale of the Great Algae War of 2024.

I shared already the state of the pool from last month. Here it is again:

ca. March 19th.

Now, this is no ordinary mess. To give you some idea, not only was the pool completely full of algae -- we're talking long strands from the surface to the floor, here, but I scooped up a goddamned pinworm off the surface. Yeah, you know those fucking intestinal parasites? Yeah. One of those. It was dead. No idea where it came from.

March 28th. I'm just about to go on vacation. One more glimpse.

Ew.

I dumped 10 pounds of shock in there and got the pump going. Also skimmed as much as I could off the surface. Went on vacation, came back home.

April 2nd. Back home. OK, that's an improvement. We're sorta bluish green instead of deep forest green.

Dumped 10 more pounds of shock in.

Tuesday. OK, now the color is correct, but you can't see deeper than the second step. I've used up about 12 chlorine tabs, too. But now it's clean enough that I can start running the vacuum; there's no huge deposits floating on the surface, and the green is gone.

Pardon the mess. We're having work done on our house and our yard is being used to store shit that was in what used to be our garage.

Yesterday. Here's the deep end of the pool. By this point I've disassembled and cleaned out the filter completely three times. You can see the bottom of the deep end, but it's still murky.

And finally: Today. You can read the labeling on the Poolvergnugen all the way down at the bottom of the pool.

All that's left is -- I'm going to dissassemble the filter one last time, dump in about five pounds of Sodium Carbonate (all that chlorine got my pH down to about 6.5), then put the Solar Blanket over it so it can start warming up. Now the solar blanket ain't clean, so I'll need to keep my eye on chlorine levels more or less daily over the next week. But other than that, we're done here!

Great work, but it would be a few years before I would be able to swim in the pool.

[Rimbo 25911]

22 minutes ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

Great work, but it would be a few years before I would be able to swim in the pool.

My wife pretty much feels this way. Although her timeline is more like "never."

Me, I'm fine with it. I know how the filter works. The chlorine levels have been high enough over the past week to kill anything; even beyond that, DE filters everything down to about 3-5 µm. So a virus might survive, but e.g. amoebae are gone.

Just dumped in 10 lbs of Na2CO3 to get the pH back up closer to 7 after all the chlorine tabs that've been in there. Only thing wrong with the water now... is it's just too damn cold. Like 68 degrees.

[TexEx15 17509]

 

[Bevo 13566]

16 hours ago, Rimbo said:

My wife pretty much feels this way. Although her timeline is more like "never."

Me, I'm fine with it. I know how the filter works. The chlorine levels have been high enough over the past week to kill anything; even beyond that, DE filters everything down to about 3-5 µm. So a virus might survive, but e.g. amoebae are gone.

Just dumped in 10 lbs of Na2CO3 to get the pH back up closer to 7 after all the chlorine tabs that've been in there. Only thing wrong with the water now... is it's just too damn cold. Like 68 degrees.

I thought you were in Southern California.

[Rimbo 25911]

5 hours ago, Bevo said:

I thought you were in Southern California.

I am. It's been cold and rainy all year so far. The joys of climate change!

[TexasEd 8066]

On 4/13/2024 at 5:37 PM, TexEx15 said:

 

Don’t know yet but it’s a possibility. My builder and concrete contractor are both in the thick of it. I have a few cracks. 
 

need an engineer and lawyer. 

[Dbeasy 15042]

So is this ASR thing also wrecking patios?

[MonkeyDoughnut 10229]

1 hour ago, Dbeasy said:

So is this ASR thing also wrecking patios?

Short answer is yes it can. It's not as likely to show up early though if patio is sealed properly as it's the water that soaks in that causes the cracking to start. From what I've read it's more likely to happen later and homeowner to go, oh my patio settled and now there are some cracks vs my pool is leaking water.

[joe dirt 285]

On 4/15/2024 at 4:38 AM, Dbeasy said:

So is this ASR thing also wrecking patios?

got cracks thru my travertine decking as well. pretty sure it’s not coincidental. 

 

 

[Judge Roybeanbag 11819]

Bound to be some surly lawyer that can class action this, right?

[7KHorn 2620]

On 3/27/2024 at 7:01 AM, Bevo said:

Good article:

 

https://www.aquamagazine.com/service/chemistry/article/15383114/asr-prevention

 

ASR, an acronym that stands for "Alkali Silica Reaction," has received attention recently in seminars and discussion in the pool builder community. The ASR phenomenon is sometimes referred to as "concrete cancer" due to its similarities to that disease in its effects on concrete.

Cases of ASR are unusual, and it's a regional issue. When it strikes, it's a big deal in the local builder community, but in other areas, few people know anything about it.

ASR stems from the accidental use of rare, highly reactive aggregate, and since that agg is inevitably coming from the local quarry, the problem is localized around it. To recap the basics of ASR, it's a chemical reaction that rapidly breaks up concrete from within. Reduced to its simplest terms, it starts with a combination of moisture and bad (reactive) aggregate.

Paolo Benedetti is a Watershape University instructor, a legendary builder in his own right and an authority on best practices in the pool industry. He gave a seminar on ASR this spring at the Southwest Pool & Spa Show in Houston, in the wake of the recent outbreak of ASR in central Texas. Benedetti described the product of the ASR chemical reaction as "a gel that forms around the agg, and continues to swell, fracturing the concrete, which provides pathways for more moisture, which results in more fracturing."

The overwhelming and vast majority of aggregate quarried in the world is not reactive and will not trigger ASR, but a tiny percentage of it is and will. An outbreak of ASR occurs when some of that reactive agg is excavated from a quarry, and finds its way into a concrete structure, whether that is a bridge abutment, a building foundation or a pool.

With that unlucky, bad agg in the mix (unbeknownst to the builder) and the resultant concrete formed and set, the speed of the reaction and thus, concrete destruction, will depend on the amount of moisture intrusion.

One way to prevent ASR is to avoid the use of reactive agg, but that's hard to do. A builder can have the agg tested for reactivity, but those tests are expensive and somewhat unreliable, with a reported 50% false positive rate. A more practicable preventative is the use of pozzolans, such as fly ash, slag and silica fume in the concrete mix, which reduce the permeability of concrete. By reducing moisture intrusion, you strike a strong blow against ASR.

Pozzolans were more common practice among builders, Benedetti says, but "in the last seven or eight years, due to unavailability, the use of pozzolans, such as fly ash, slag and silica fume, has dropped."

This drop in the use of pozzolans, he suggests, has contributed to the potential for cases of ASR. But another big contributor is water intrusion. And according to Benedetti, there are a number of things a builder can do to give concrete stronger resistance to ASR and other problems that are associated with moisture in concrete. These include standard best practices, such as making sure shotcrete has high compressive values, which makes it more dense and less permeable, and controlling shrinkage cracks through the use of a better steel-to-concrete ratio. Using less water in the cement mix also helps but, of course, comes with tradeoffs.

In existing pools, the best course to control the spread of ASR fracturing is to reduce water intrusion as much as possible, says John McIntyre, a professional engineer from the Austin area who specializes in the pool industry, and who has seen the outbreak in central Texas firsthand: "You can't take the aggregate out of an already cast wall. So the only thing you can control at that point is the water," which means mitigating moisture intrusion from external sources. That means everything from proper waterproofing to drainage.

ASR often caused from using bad aggregate composed of disorganized silica-chain rocks, like what you'd find in volcanics like obsidian.  Or from microcrystalline quartz like chert or opal, or strained quartz like quartzite.  Not many volcanics in local quarries around Austin so potential bad aggregate could be from a microcrystalline form like chert. 

Anyone figure out the source quarry yet?

The additives (or lack of additives in this case) are also a factor, and based on article above, sounds like that is a big factor.  Fly ash, silica fume, and slag all additives that help mitigate against ASR formation. 

With all the construction occuring in central Texas these days, I wonder if the ASR problem will extend beyond pools due to general lack of availability of additives like article suggests.  Or maybe it's isolated to the pool subcontractor using bad aggregate and/or saving money not adding the additives.

[TexasEd 8066]

17 minutes ago, 7KHorn said:

ASR often caused from using bad aggregate composed of disorganized silica-chain rocks, like what you'd find in volcanics like obsidian.  Or from microcrystalline quartz like chert or opal, or strained quartz like quartzite.  Not many volcanics in local quarries around Austin so potential bad aggregate could be from a microcrystalline form like chert. 

Anyone figure out the source quarry yet?

The additives (or lack of additives in this case) are also a factor, and based on article above, sounds like that is a big factor.  Fly ash, silica fume, and slag all additives that help mitigate against ASR formation. 

With all the construction occuring in central Texas these days, I wonder if the ASR problem will extend beyond pools due to general lack of availability of additives like article suggests.  Or maybe it's isolated to the pool subcontractor using bad aggregate and/or saving money not adding the additives.

I did not read that article.  Too much trauma to read any more.  

In a previous article I read it stated that it took extensive/expensive testing to rule out the bad aggregate so the fly ash additive was a sort of preventative measure that was always used because it was less expensive to add the ash than to test every batch.

[williemackgarza 1826]

What year were the oldest pools made that are experiencing this asr? What does it look like on the indide of the pool once it starts (yes cracks I know but anything else?).

[MonkeyDoughnut 10229]

16 hours ago, williemackgarza said:

What year were the oldest pools made that are experiencing this asr? What does it look like on the indide of the pool once it starts (yes cracks I know but anything else?).

could be any year, but 2019 was when the fly ash shortage seemed to start and when many pools built then started seeing ASR in 2021+

Rather that a straight or single stress type crack, ASR tends to be more random and moving in all directions

[TexasEd 8066]

Drained my spa today and no cracks.  I am slightly hopeful my only crack is structural.

[DaysOff 7947]

On 4/14/2024 at 12:32 PM, Rimbo said:

I am. It's been cold and rainy all year so far. The joys of climate change!

 

Why not just stay on top of the water chemistry throughout the winter like in Texas, so you don't end up with green slime. Is this normal ops in SOCAL during the offseason?

[Rimbo 25911]

1 hour ago, DaysOff said:

 

Why not just stay on top of the water chemistry throughout the winter like in Texas, so you don't end up with green slime. Is this normal ops in SOCAL during the offseason?

 

[Your Mom 4805]

I got an email from Cody Pools today saying that mine was built with concrete from the subcontractor that built all these ASR affected pools.   Mine was built two years ago and I don’t have any evidence of cracking in the shell yet but it’s also covered up and I haven’t been in it since the Fall.  I’m going to give it a good visual inspection when the water warms up.   

Cody didn’t offer up any testing or anything. But reaching out to let me know about it was at least a good gesture. I can’t imagine this will go smoothly though if mine starts cracking.   

[Your Mom 4805]

Following up on the previous post above….

Cody Pools called me today.  They are paying for core sample testing on every pool they built with concrete from that specific subcontractor.  They built around 200 pools with that company’s concrete and are core testing all of those pools, including mine at $8000 per test.  So far they’ve tested 20 pools in that group and all 20 have been found to have ASR.  All 20 are being demolished and rebuilt.  

That particular concrete business has now gone bankrupt and their insurance company has stopped paying for those core samples and pool rebuilds.  Cody Pools’ insurance company has now taken over paying for it all, probably while fighting with the concrete company’s insurance.  

The core sampling is moving slow and they probably won’t get to mine until late this year, unless cracks develop before then.  Cody assures me the insurance money is there to rebuild every one of those 200 pools that are likely affected.  But I’m worried about policy limits running out before they get to mine.  Hopefully they can subrogate some of that from the concrete company’s insurance to decrease the chances of that.  

Good times ahead.  Guess I’ll hold off on building the covered patio next to the pool.  Gonna start a list of all the things I’ll do different on the second one.  

Edited April 25 by Your Mom

[TexasEd 8066]

41 minutes ago, Your Mom said:

Following up on the previous post above….

Cody Pools called me today.  They are paying for core sample testing on every pool they built with concrete from that specific subcontractor.  They built around 200 pools with that company’s concrete and are core testing all of those pools, including mine at $8000 per test.  So far they’ve tested 20 pools in that group and all 20 have been found to have ASR.  All 20 are being demolished and rebuilt.  

That particular concrete business has now gone bankrupt and their insurance company has stopped paying for those core samples and pool rebuilds.  Cody Pools’ insurance company has now taken over paying for it all, probably while fighting with the concrete company’s insurance.  

The core sampling is moving slow and they probably won’t get to mine until late this year, unless cracks develop before then.  Cody assumes me the insurance money is there to rebuild every one of those 200 pools that are likely affected.  But I’m worried about policy limits running out before they get to mine.  Hopefully they can subrogate some of that from the concrete company’s insurance to decrease the chances of that.  

Good times ahead.  Guess I’ll hold off on building the covered patio next to the pool.  Gonna start a list of all the things I’ll do different on the second one.  

Happy for you that things are moving.

[thunderlounge 7813]

44 minutes ago, Your Mom said:

Following up on the previous post above….

Cody Pools called me today.  They are paying for core sample testing on every pool they built with concrete from that specific subcontractor.  They built around 200 pools with that company’s concrete and are core testing all of those pools, including mine at $8000 per test.  So far they’ve tested 20 pools in that group and all 20 have been found to have ASR.  All 20 are being demolished and rebuilt.  

That particular concrete business has now gone bankrupt and their insurance company has stopped paying for those core samples and pool rebuilds.  Cody Pools’ insurance company has now taken over paying for it all, probably while fighting with the concrete company’s insurance.  

The core sampling is moving slow and they probably won’t get to mine until late this year, unless cracks develop before then.  Cody assumes me the insurance money is there to rebuild every one of those 200 pools that are likely affected.  But I’m worried about policy limits running out before they get to mine.  Hopefully they can subrogate some of that from the concrete company’s insurance to decrease the chances of that.  

Good times ahead.  Guess I’ll hold off on building the covered patio next to the pool.  Gonna start a list of all the things I’ll do different on the second one.  

It sucks that you’re having issues.

The positive thing is you seem to have picked a good builder. Not sure how many would be proactive like that, vice crossing their fingers. 

[joe dirt 285]

any of the surly law conglomerate working on this type of case?

our builder is also trying to be proactive but is not a national brand like cody and i’m sure does not have cody’s resources. 

[SHOOTER12 8800]

On 8/28/2023 at 4:29 PM, KeysPhoneWallet said:

All set to get my MIL’s pool fixed up. Gonna replaster with quartzscape, resurface the cool deck. Do some maintenance like update the main drain to use the 2 round drains, install new jets and plastic, install a new handrail on the main steps. Also gonna build a 10’ x25’ deck with a metal roof that hangs over the edge, it will require 2 dead trees removed to build the deck.

Total quote is 6k for plaster/pool work, 2k for cool deck resurfacing, and 4 k for the deck and the metal roof. Total = 12k

Does that sound like a reasonable deal?

Sounds very good.

[jofus 2266]

We just finished our pool project… ready for the weather to turn up the heat!

[Bevo 13566]

14 hours ago, jofus said:

We just finished our pool project… ready for the weather to turn up the heat!

Where is that - like the greenbelt?

[Rimbo 25911]

hard to believe it's the same pool, eh?

[jofus 2266]

Where is that - like the greenbelt?

Little creek/greenbelt in my town (DFW area)

[twosheds 374]

We have a 9 year old Hayward 6060 0.5 HP Booster Pump for the leaf crawler.  It has been whistling for a while and yesterday it finally gave up the ghost.  Am I married to the Hayward Pump, or can I get a generic pump and just re-align the fittings if the input/output doesn't match the current piping?

[Bevo 13566]

8 hours ago, twosheds said:

We have a 9 year old Hayward 6060 0.5 HP Booster Pump for the leaf crawler.  It has been whistling for a while and yesterday it finally gave up the ghost.  Am I married to the Hayward Pump, or can I get a generic pump and just re-align the fittings if the input/output doesn't match the current piping?

Booster pumps are usually cheap. But, in any case, the wetside is probably okay and you just need the motor side. I replaced a 1.5 uprated motor on a Pentair whisperflo used for water features and it was pretty easy. I think $450 instead of a couple thousand for a new pump. The reason I did it is that I haven't found any good repair guys. I hired one company and he told me that since Covid the prices have skyrocketed and that the part itself was going to cost $2000 and then approximately $500 in labor. Fuck that noise.

The downside, I have some Intellchem issue that is keeping my saltwater chlorinator from working properly. The online stuff that I have found so far is outdated so I may have to find a repair guy who knows his stuff. That equipment supposedly only lasts a couple years and only controls acid which is easy to keep in range manually and the parts are expensive - acid pump is $500. New pH sensor and ORB sensor are $200. New computer module is $1500. It really is a waste of money.

 

 

[KeysPhoneWallet 807]

Sounds very good.

Ended up being closer to $15k bc I replaced the filter system, added some additional rock wall thing, and had him tear out the framing for the deck and reorder because he used sealed wood instead of pressure treated and I wanted all pressure treated wood.

We just used it for the first time this weekend and the extra space was definitely worth it, happy to start getting some payback from the investment.