Small pool tile repair

[rrrr]

My house continues its struggle to the death between us.

I'm doing a small pool tile repair. The grout failed and water intrusion has debonded three tiles.

I have discovered that when the pool was remodeled in 2010, the contractor slathered on another layer of thinset over the old tile bed without properly preparing it. This has also debonded from the first bed in small areas. I plan to chip and grind out the thinset to a stable layer, acid wash, and apply a vinyl bonding agent. Then I'll mix Portland cement and sand, and scratch coat apply it to provide the proper subbase height.

After that dries, I'll apply modified thinset mortar with a 1/4" notched trowel on the base, slightly wet the back of the tile to provide better adhesion, butter the back of the tile with a minimum thickness layer of mortar, and set the tiles in place.

I'll use standard grout on the 4" X 4" tile joints. Since it's a plus or minus ⅛" joint, should I use sanded or non-sanded grout? Is there anything in the procedure that should be done differently than what I have written?

 

[Desert Whaler]

If you've got an 1/8" grout joint , you can get away with sanded. Less than that and you're better off with non-sanded.
For that last few years, I've been using Laticrete 'Perma-Color' grout. The stuff is killer . . . i believe they use crushed glass as the aggregate as opposed to standard 'sand'.
It's finer and smoother than 'traditional' grout. The mixing is an entirely different process , you must use the entire bag at once. It comes in 2-parts . . a blank 'base' in one bag, and you buy the desired 'color packs' of your choosing in the other. (disolve-able bag you just toss it in a pre-meassured amount of water). If you decide to go that rout, follow the directions to the T and you won't have any problems. Just be aware, you have 1 hour working time and then that stuff starts flashing fast. IMO - it's the best 'Hybrid' grout on the market (it's not epoxy) . . . it comes in sanded and non-sanded. Big box stores don't carry it, you'll need to go to a tile shop.

 

[CoolCruzin]

Small repair
I have used JBWeld marine .
Glue in place and grout.
Done this in several area in the pass
Zero fell off

 

[monkeyswrench]

Small repair
I have used JBWeld marine .
Glue in place and grout.
Done this in several area in the pass
Zero fell off

I had two small tiles, 2x2's?, above the water line pop loose. Grout wasn't even cracked...I stuck them back in with "Shoe-Goo". Hillbilly AF, but were still holding strong after 4 years when we moved

 

[rrrr]

I had two small tiles, 2x2's?, above the water line pop loose. Grout wasn't even cracked...I stuck them back in with "Shoe-Goo". Hillbilly AF, but were still holding strong after 4 years when we moved

These tiles are half below the waterline.

This issue with this repair is the unstable substrate due to the two layers of mortar from previous installations. It's over half an inch thick. This layer must be chipped and ground out back to the concrete beam, and made somewhat level. Using epoxy would essentially be a glue patch on top of an unstable base, and it would quickly fail.

A base made of Portland cement and sand will physically and chemically bond with the concrete as well as the tile. Making the base level with scratch lines will provide the maximum bonding surface with the tile.

Depending on the adhesive bond of an epoxy repair is not a viable solution.

You've seen the examples of poor substrate preparation with the pothole at the corner of your street that the city has patched five times in the last three years.

This is what the base looks like next to a tile that's still intact.

 

[rrrr]

If you've got an 1/8" grout joint , you can get away with sanded. Less than that and you're better off with non-sanded.
For that last few years, I've been using Laticrete 'Perma-Color' grout. The stuff is killer . . . i believe they use crushed glass as the aggregate as opposed to standard 'sand'.
It's finer and smoother than 'traditional' grout. The mixing is an entirely different process , you must use the entire bag at once. It comes in 2-parts . . a blank 'base' in one bag, and you buy the desired 'color packs' of your choosing in the other. (disolve-able bag you just toss it in a pre-meassured amount of water). If you decide to go that rout, follow the directions to the T and you won't have any problems. Just be aware, you have 1 hour working time and then that stuff starts flashing fast. IMO - it's the best 'Hybrid' grout on the market (it's not epoxy) . . . it comes in sanded and non-sanded. Big box stores don't carry it, you'll need to go to a tile shop.

The grout isn't really the important issue. How I perform the actual repair and bond to the tile is.

 

[Melloyellovector]

To answer the question, yes. Your process is on point. as far as grout 99% of pools have sanded grout.

 

[Desert Whaler]

The grout isn't really the important issue. How I perform the actual repair and bond to the tile is.

Agreed, but you did ask, "Should I use sanded or non-sanded grout".

 

[rrrr]

To answer the question, yes. Your process is on point. as far as grout 99% of pools have sanded grout.

Thanks for the reply.

 

[rrrr]

Agreed, but you did ask, "Should I use sanded or non-sanded grout".

It's good advice, I just don't want to buy 25 lbs of epoxy grout for three tiles.



Thanks for the help.

 

[rrrr]

It's worse than I expected. It's no wonder the layers of shit debonded. There's sand loose in the joint, not mixed with the mortar. See photo #2. Idiots.

 

[Melloyellovector]

Do you notice water loss? cant tell if that’s top of bond beam and someone replaced concrete coping with stone and just put mud down to make up the difference in elevation. Or if that’s a structural horizontal crack. Regardless that gonna need more then just a tile patch

edit; id put money that the pool pre 2010 remodel had concrete coping. 3.5in thick or so. Stone coping much thinner. They put mud down to raise elevation to deck level. Brown coated over the horizontal cold joint in pool. Over the years lateral moving popped that joint. That eventually popped tile base. If so entire pool coping / tile is on its way to repair.

 

[rrrr]

Do you notice water loss? cant tell if that’s top of bond beam and someone replaced concrete coping with stone and just put mud down to make up the difference in elevation. Or if that’s a structural horizontal crack. Regardless that gonna need more then just a tile patch

edit; id put money that the pool pre 2010 remodel had concrete coping. 3.5in thick or so. Stone coping much thinner. They put mud down to raise elevation to deck level. Brown coated over the horizontal cold joint in pool. Over the years lateral moving popped that joint. That eventually popped tile base. If so entire pool coping / tile is on its way to repair.

There's a cold joint in the beam pretty all the way around the pool. It previously had the old clay brick coping.

It didn't leak until the grout popped out. The same situation exists at the knee bend and there's a crack in the Pebble Tech. That's the next fix.

It's not a good situation, but I have to deal with it.

 

[Melloyellovector]

We did a residence in Redlands with nearly same situation. They removed cantilever deck years back, installed precast coping that was less then half orig thickness, raised tile line to bottom of new coping and that in turn raises water line close or at cold joint area. This is exactly what a pool company did on oneadays house a few houses ago, lol
It’s a recipe for failure. Not if, but when it fails.

Last one we fixed - Required, remove existing coping, replace with pour in place concrete so it’s solid from top of bond beam to finished deck. remove all tile and plaster. Re brown coat tile line to now corrected water level where it was designed to be. Replace all tile. Re pebble pool.

sorry, best of luck to you. Man that sucks and adds up quick.

 

[rrrr]

You pretty much nailed it. A ¾" layer of mortar was goobered on top of the beam because the new flagstone wasn't as thick as the existing coping. That made the top of the flagstone flush with the deck, but that put the tile in place that allowed the water to pass through the beam joint.

I have to keep the water level down about an inch above the bottom of the tile or water consumption increases. It's not excessive, but it's annoying as hell.

I got the loose crap chiseled out today and put the mortar in place. I had to remove two more tiles that had debonded, for a total of five. It shouldn't leak, but there are still a couple of places just like the one I repaired.

 

[Melloyellovector]

You pretty much nailed it. A ¾" layer of mortar was goobered on top of the beam because the new flagstone wasn't as thick as the existing coping. That made the top of the flagstone flush with the deck, but that put the tile in place that allowed the water to pass through the beam joint.

I have to keep the water level down about an inch above the bottom of the tile or water consumption increases. It's not excessive, but it's annoying as hell.

I got the loose crap chiseled out today and put the mortar in place. I had to remove two more tiles that had debonded, for a total of five. It shouldn't leak, but there are still a couple of places just like the one I repaired.

Have you considered selling your house? Lol

 

[rrrr]

Have you considered selling your house? Lol

It's on the table.

 

[traquer]

This sucks.. Can you just live with the low water level with the skimmer height?

On the bright side at least this pool isn't inside your living room like I saw a house recently on Zillow lol

 

[rrrr]

Yeah, when I fix this obvious leak it'll go back to losing 1½" a week. I don't know how much of that is evaporation. The loss almost stops.in the winter.

 

[rrrr]

This sucks.. Can you just live with the low water level with the skimmer height?

On the bright side at least this pool isn't inside your living room like I saw a house recently on Zillow lol

I found this photo of one of the skimmers. When they installed the new coping, the skimmer height was too low. They took a couple of junk skimmers, cut a slice of the plastic housing, and tried to graft in onto the existing skimmer with epoxy to raise the water level it operated at.

When I saw that ridiculous bullshit work, I made them tear out both skimmers and install new ones. They sawcut a square in the deck to access the skimmers, installed the new ones, cut a square piece of flagstone with round hole in it for the skimmer lid, split the flagstone in half, mortared it into the deck opening, and installed deck-o-seal around the perimeter.

.

The result looks good, and they have worked fine for the last ten years. I wish I could say the same about the tile.