Renovating Your Pool

Reasons for pool renovation are numerous, it could be your pool is looking sad and tired or it could be that the pool is suffering from water loss through cracking, loss of tiles or failure of the underground pipes or services. There are many types of pool structure from the basic block liner, through to panel liner, steel reinforced concrete block with marblelight finish, precast concrete with tile or marblelite finish, to gunite - this is a sprayed concrete onto steel mesh then rendered and tiled. Each of these types of pools will have a life expectancy dependent on the types of construction, the quality of the construction, the ground conditions and the amount of use the pool gets.

Domestic pools

The renovation of liner pools is generally down to the replacement of the pool lining, these liners are available in different thicknesses commonly 20 gauge, 30 gauge and now available in an extra thick super liner type. The life expectancy of these liners is pro rata to the thickness of them and also the temperature of water of the pool and water chemistry. The water temperature should be as follows for the liners a 20 gauge liner would be recommended to run at 27 to 28° C, a 30 gauge liner 28 to 29° C, and the super liner around 30° C.

The life expectancy of a 20 gauge liner is generally seven or eight years, a 30 gauge liner 14 to 18 years and the super liner 20 to 25 years, this is dependent very much on pool water chemistry being within tolerances. With the installation of a new liner the appearance of the pool can be transformed for a small amount of money to look like a brand-new pool. It is always advised that the pool fittings be checked and changed if necessary along with installing new gaskets to make sure you don't have to attend to the pool again within the life of the new liner.

Concrete pools

Most commercial pools are constructed of concrete either by basic block construction with a cavity mass filled with premixed concrete and steel reinforcing both vertically and horizontally the structure which would be rendered and tiled. The older pools may have a paint marble finish. These commercial pools generally have a life of around 20 to 30 years dependent again on the quality of the construction, ground conditions and use, the most common failure of commercial pools is cracks in the structure or failure in the pipelines.

Structural failure of the commercial pool could result in the loss of water through cracks. The solution would be to rebuild the pool walls inside the original pool walls and this would involve installation of the new pool fittings and pipelines using steel reinforced concrete, render and tiling and grouting.

Commercial pools

Most commercial pools are constructed of concrete either by basic block construction with a cavity mass filled with premixed concrete with steel reinforcing both vertically and horizontally, the structure would be rendered and then tiled, older pools may have a paint marble finish. These commercial pools generally have a life of around 20 to 30 years dependent again the quality of construction, ground conditions and use, the most common failure commercial pools is cracks in the structure or failure the pipelines structural failure this can result in a horizontal or vertical cracking the resulting loss of water through these cracks can undermine the pool structure and pipelines causing complete failure of the pool. There are only two common options available fix the above pool structure failure.

Rebuilding of a complete new pool inside the original pool walls, this would involve the installation of all new pool fittings pool pipelines etc then with the construction of a whole new pool wall and floor using is steel reinforced concrete, render, tanking, then tiling and grouting, this above process is both costly and time-consuming and if you should want the pool the same size as the original on top of this the old pool structure would need to be broken out.

Relining commercial pools

It is now very popular and a lot less expensive to re-line a commercial pool that has suffered structural failure, the material used is a heavy duty reinforced polyvinyl chloride membrane generally consisted of two layers of PVC operating a woven polyester due to the thickness of this material it is welded on site it can be tailored to any shape of pool It can incorporate steps with nonslip treads of various colour options available including racing lines and if required patterns, this material allows for movement in the structure so is ideal as a solution to a failed commercial pool structure. Once fitted the pool will look brand-new and the life expectancy will be 20 years or more, in some cases this is a better repair and probably represents in cost only around 30 to 35% of the cost of a rebuild.

Failure of underground pipes and pool fittings

It is possible with modern equipment to pressure test pipelines to find if they have failed underground although it is rare be able to pinpoint the exact position of the failure, if this is the case and given that underground pipes have a life expectancy of 20 to 30 years it is normally in the best interests of the pool rather than to find the individual leek and repairer it to excavate and run new pipes from the pool back to the plant room, if there is a failure of a particular pool fitting whether it be a skimmer or under water light again with modern technology and products such as high modulus mastics it is possible to dig out and replace these fittings and reseal the pool structure to stop possible leaks, this work should only be undertaken by specialist contractors.