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Unfortunately, much of what you’ve witnessed is happening more than ever before due to a shortage of skilled labor.
As mentioned, the leak in the pool will add strength to your case regarding the concrete settlement and sub standard work by the GC that was contracted to install the pool.
UPDATE: The Pool leak was a schedule setback for addressing the concrete. The Leak detection revealed a small gap between the finished pool plaster and one of the inlet jets in the spa. Costing us about 250 - 300 gallons per day. draining water from the spa into the pool was easy and a 2-part epoxy "Pool Putty" was used to fill the gap and feather it in on the outside. IDK that the gap could have been sufficiently filled since it really was a hairline gap, so I expect that we'll need to periodically re-treat the area every few years.
For now the leak is solved and I can resume the concrete heaving issue.
The more research I did, the more I determined that the GC and Concrete sub were grossly negligent. For example, Concrete was poured Over the Bond Beam, where I've since learned that this is bad practice & the Bond Beam should have been notched back or the coping should have been larger to cover the Bond Beam.
The Poly-fill lifting is a risky proposition because of this. If they lift the outer edge and drive the inner edge down too far, they'll either crack that concrete that laps over the Bond Beam or damage the bond beam altogether.
I'm considering other options at this point. One option is to have the concrete removed from the corner that's heaved & have it re-poured. I's probably still PolyFill the rest of the deck to stabilize it & make sure it doesn't move in the future.
My deck was originally poured and a topical color mix was applied to the top. One of the "claims to fame" of this topical coloring technique was that future repairs could be treated with the same color mix and would seamlessly blend.
I started down this road of scarifying the concrete down to a suitable level and then skimming in a new layer of concrete with the color topping and salt finish. That sounds very messy and almost as risky, but as of now, all options are on the table.
Another option is to saw-cut a consistent width around the inner perimeter (8 - 10" for example) and remove that portion-- hopefully leaving the rebar & bonding copper wires in tact. and then applying a fresh pour, complementary color (or stamped) to that band and "hide" the issue that way (see sample picture). The internet is full of ideas, but i'm still at an early stage to see what's most practical.
If the pool contractor isn't making this right (and if I remember correctly he hired the concrete contractor), it time to get an attorney involved. I don't see this going anywhere fast OR right. And you'll be out a "Butt Load" of Dinero!
Granted, the attorney is going to be some money- but geeze! That ain't right- and you can't fix stupid. But, it can certainly be replaced with competent!
Apparently there was no crushed stone sub base under the slab and judging from the photo, the steel reinforcing appears to be sitting on the soil and not raised? If so, the steel reinforcing would have zero effect on strengthening the concrete.
If the design intent was to support the pool side of the slab with the bond beam, there would have been more of a bearing surface on the bond beam, along with steel reinforcing that would have extended over the bond beam. This does not appear to be the case.
I would imagine you were provided with some contract documents, such as pool drawings with “job specific” specifications? Hopefully you do as this will help to defend your position when the case is presented to a judge.
Yes, with the "pool leak" portion now fixed, I've had a few concrete contractors and a few "Poly-Fill" concrete lifting contractors out here and they all seem to have different opinions. A couple of contractors claimed that the deck was fine and the POOL had sunk 1/2" in that deep end.
To be sure, I wanted to ask the community whether there is such a thing as a "service provider" that will take accurate measurements with lasers --or other means-- to determine what exactly had displaced over the winter. Accurate professional measurements will drive the proper fix, and, also help me with potential litigation against the contractors that originally installed it. What should I be searching for???
The deck, I've told by some, should be independent of the pool Bond Beam so they can move independently with a flexible elastic caulk joint in between them. So that my deck overlaps the bond beam is not a good idea. For example, they say, that the deck should never apply pressure to the bond beam. My condition was wrong from the start--- the Pool contractor should have installed coping large enough to cover the bond beam, or instructed the concrete contractor to "cut back" the bond beam before pouring the decking.
The decking specifics were handled completely between the concrete contractor and the GC. My only specifications were the width of the deck, color, finish.... and drainage (which they didn't do properly). I was absolutely frustrated by that concrete contractor, his arrogance and that he did a poor job.
Yeah-- we hired an attorney earlier to extract us from the contract, and he wasn't cheap. We left the contract owing the GC about $5K and "finished" the work ourselves for about $1K. Between the concrete deck, pool leak and broken travertine, I'm looking at at least $5K. I agree that the broken travertine coping and heaved deck should be the GC's responsibility. Technically, I'd be out another $1K-$2K after I fix all that, and that's not really worth the aggravation & expense of engaging the attorney & GC again.
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Skepticism over the "Poly-fill" fix prompted me to invite a foundation repair company that specializes in pier application a few days ago. If I understand correctly, they insert the piers in the soil until they reach a specified torque resistance, or, in my case, until they hit the limestone bed under my pool--- which is about 5-1/2' down. Sounds simple enough... but they specified 20 piers around the entire outer perimeter of the deck, which I think is overkill. They wanted $18K for the piers, but it would still NOT guarantee the heaved condition would be corrected.... It's looking like that portion may need to be torn out & re-poured (about $4K).
I'm not sure why the piers are so expensive. if I had a dozen 6' auger piers, couldn't I just get a long pole and clock them down myself and weld brackets under to support the deck? I'm sure it's a bit more complicated than that.. but still-- I was expecting the bid to be less than half of what it was.
To be clear, I think, and any reasonable person would probably think that the GC would only be responsible for the heaved portion of concrete plus the broken travertine coping.. That the concrete subcontractor made a lot of procedural errors may be beside the point, since the deck itself hasn't cracked or significantly moved other than that heaved section.
Skipping proper concrete procedure really bothers me, and, maybe, I'm a bit sensitive over the brand new deck... But since I want to add a stone "sitting wall" (about 18" high) around the outer perimeter of the deck, it makes me think that I need the support due to the extra weight of the stone-- hence the piers or Poly-fill.
I have not investigated mudpacking. I view it generally the same as the Poly-fill.
Yeah-- we hired an attorney earlier to extract us from the contract, and he wasn't cheap. We left the contract owing the GC about $5K and "finished" the work ourselves for about $1K. Between the concrete deck, pool leak and broken travertine, I'm looking at at least $5K. I agree that the broken travertine coping and heaved deck should be the GC's responsibility. Technically, I'd be out another $1K-$2K after I fix all that, and that's not really worth the aggravation & expense of engaging the attorney & GC again.
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Skepticism over the "Poly-fill" fix prompted me to invite a foundation repair company that specializes in pier application a few days ago. If I understand correctly, they insert the piers in the soil until they reach a specified torque resistance, or, in my case, until they hit the limestone bed under my pool--- which is about 5-1/2' down. Sounds simple enough... but they specified 20 piers around the entire outer perimeter of the deck, which I think is overkill. They wanted $18K for the piers, but it would still NOT guarantee the heaved condition would be corrected.... It's looking like that portion may need to be torn out & re-poured (about $4K).
I'm not sure why the piers are so expensive. if I had a dozen 6' auger piers, couldn't I just get a long pole and clock them down myself and weld brackets under to support the deck? I'm sure it's a bit more complicated than that.. but still-- I was expecting the bid to be less than half of what it was.
To be clear, I think, and any reasonable person would probably think that the GC would only be responsible for the heaved portion of concrete plus the broken travertine coping.. That the concrete subcontractor made a lot of procedural errors may be beside the point, since the deck itself hasn't cracked or significantly moved other than that heaved section.
Skipping proper concrete procedure really bothers me, and, maybe, I'm a bit sensitive over the brand new deck... But since I want to add a stone "sitting wall" (about 18" high) around the outer perimeter of the deck, it makes me think that I need the support due to the extra weight of the stone-- hence the piers or Poly-fill.
I have not investigated mudpacking. I view it generally the same as the Poly-fill.
I hear you on all of that. I had my very thick (3' at points) front porch poly filled. Maybe I already explained this. But, I had them back out June 5th to do the 5-year warranty work. They found it only moved 1/8th of an inch in 5 years. So, I think I paid around $5k for front and back porches back in 2018 and it had this 5 year warranty. Otherwise, the 2018 estimate to jack up the house, take the porch out, do the ground preparation correctly and pier it and repour the concrete was $25k. The total suggested repairs (mostly piering) was $50k. I did everything my soils engineer told me to do (short of replacing the front porch). She rubber stamped my foundation (with her civil engineering stamp) after everything was completed (about 2019 right before the pandemic). As I mentioned, I did high side french drain connected to the rain drain, trench drain off the driveway to rain drain and interior crawl space french drain connected to low point drain. So, most of the issue was water drainage.
I think you have the right train of thought. If the GC is not responsible for removing and replacing what got F'd up, then there wouldn't be a point to suing him. However, I'm not sure I understand why he's not responsible (so, I just trust you on that one).
I'm not sure I'd put travertine outside. I have it inside. It's far too porous for outdoor use in my estimation. Outdoors I have aggregate concrete exclusively. But, I am not versed on building pool areas.
Thank you for sharing your experience. Yes, a few people that have come out have been skeptical of the Poly-Fill being a long-term solution... and only the Poly-Fill Sales People have claimed it would fix the heaving-- just as they're handing me a contract that says it's NOT guaranteed to fix anything. I'm 50/50 on whether Poly-Fill will be a long-term stabilization fix solution to keep the concrete that hasn't moved yet from moving in the future, but fixing the heaved portion? It looks like Poly-fill isn't the sure-fire magic bullet I had hoped for. It would cost me a few thousand just to let them try...
The piers (or Poly-Fill) for the entire deck is a "peace of mind" choice I'm making, and I don't know that anyone would otherwise saddle the GC with that expense... even though the consensus is that the concrete sub skipped a couple of standard proper practices. Ask me again in a few years and if the deck cracks & settles even more, then, yes, I have an expensive mess on my hands.
I guess I need a happy medium to correct the concrete sub's mistakes and, yes, maybe replace ALL that travertine with something different.
The current travertine coping is 12" wide and the Bond Beam is 13" wide in most areas. Since the coping overlaps into the pool by about 1", there was about 2" of Bond Beam reveal when the deck was poured. They should have used 16" wide coping and trimmed it all to 14". It occurred to me have a concrete contractor carefully saw cut 2" off of the inner perimeter of the deck and replace ALL the coping to completely cover the Bond Beam... or close to it. BUT, there are 4 grounding "bonding" copper wires on each of the 4 sides that ground the rebar in the Bond Beam to the deck rebar. If they cut through those, I'll have a bigger problem... And "carefully" cut when it comes to a concrete saw is probably an oxymoron to most concrete subs.
I explained the GC liability poorly-- Yes, the GC is responsible for the heaved portion of the concrete & cracked travertine.... and they never did fill the expansion gap between the coping & deck with sealant-- which may have been the root cause in the first place-- by allowing water to enter that gap & freeze. Piecing those estimates alone, it's about $5K - $6K. Since I was otherwise slated to owe him money before the contract dissolution, I'm technically about $4K ahead today; before any of these remaining fixes. So I figured if I could properly fix all of this for $7K or less, I'd not pursue anything legal with him, since the legal fees would be at least $1.5K, and avoiding the time & aggravation of legalities is worth something to me too. But at the end of the day-- NONE of this would be necessary IF they did a proper job.
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