Darren - Thanks for the feedback and comment, and for making a great product! Was excited to see your post as I had learned a lot from your videos on Torque Lock, skimmer replacement and other pool repairs that helped me on my overall project.
How well has it held up? Going to be doing this as well. They seem to have the superior product on the market currently since they actually have the ability to pull inwards on the crack. Really great product. I do have a question. Can you just cut out the template of the staple or do you need to cut that big of a portion and enlarge the crack? I would like to do minimal damage. Thanks for the video, you did an outstanding job explaining and repairing your pool.
Hey there Andrew. I'm starting our 3rd season since making the repair, and no issues at all so far, no bleed through or any signs that there was a crack or issue. Regarding your question, I would think you could successfully make the repair by containing your "demo" to the staple template footprint as long as you are able to get to the actual pool shell and not just to the plaster. Since we were doing a complete renovation I wanted to make sure to remove any remaining plaster around the crack in case it had become compromised or loose. I do think it would be a good idea to use a crack chaser blade to enlarge the crack regardless. This isn't something you want to have to do more than once, so I tend to air on the side of overkill. If I had to do it again, I would do it the same way and use the torque lok staples again for sure. Good luck, let me know if I can help further. (Keep in mind, I'm doing this DIY too).
Great video! Interesting thought experiment would be to chase the crack on the backside too and do a couple of torque locks on the backside and fill the crack with epoxy or hydraulic cement. It seems this area has the rebar overlaps and it wasn't tied together all too well and it's slipping or there's settling of the ground at that point to cause the crack. Your thoughts?
Spot on with your thinking here. I actually went on to do this exact thing before I completely finished up. Since I had the "deck" removed around the pool, I was able to dig down on the outside of the pool shell and went ahead and put another staple on the outside. I also did use the epoxy to fill the crack, mostly to help prevent water intrusion from the outside. Then I backfilled with some 1" minus limestone, since I had a lot of it on site for the paver deck installation. I like your thought of the root cause of the problem possibly resulting from the rebar overlap in the shell; hadn't thought about that but seems like a logical explanation. Thanks for the comment!
@@SeldomRest ok good to know! I'm about to embark on a Diy pool project so your videos are helping out a ton! Any chance you'll do a pool equipment video and your logic for piping and calculating flows? You seem very detail oriented like myself so I'm curious to see how you went about setting up your equipment pad and underground piping requirements as well. Thx!
Let me work on pulling this video together. I do have some content and will add my thoughts to it as well. I've been wanting to do an overview of my equipment too, I've been very happy with the performance of my setup now, so will be happy to share. Glad that these videos are proving helpful, I definitely learned a lot along the way!
Was wondering if you knew the specs for the water proofing membrane that was applied over the hydraulic cement? I have watched all the torque Lock videos and they also talk about applying a water proof membrane over the hydraulic cement but do not specify a spec or brand. Great Video!! Thanks!!
Hey Curtis, thanks for the comments and question. I was able to find the leftover bucket of material, looks like the name of the product is "HEY'DI SB", and the number on the bucket is "TL1941505". You may also give torque lock a call, I'm sure they may have a product recommendation as well. Hope this helps, good luck with the repair!
The rebar used in the original gunite shell is not painted and so the staples don’t need it either. Once it’s encased in concrete oxygen and moisture can’t get to it and start rusting. The staples do seem to have some oil on them which would also help a little.
Excellent video. However, I believe it was totally unnecessary to do the repair project as it was done. Because in this case, you were lucky enough to be one of those rare? pool owners who had no poured concrete deck, and easy access to the outside wall of the pool. Your crack was only about 3 ft in length from the bond beam. This means that you could have excavated the soil OUTSIDE the pool, and set either the 'Torque Lok' bars, common (inexpensive) flat steel bars, or even rebar staples across the crack to hold the structure together, with no need to place and recess the bars into the inside wall. Bars installed on the outside pool wall should hold structure together just as well as those placed on the inside, and there is no need to do the rectangular recess cutting, chipping, and subsequent cosmetic work to hide the bars. I would however, use a masonry grinder to simply open up the interior crack so it is deeper and wider and shaped to better hold onto hydraulic cement, which I would use to patch along the interior crack. Beyond this point, and acknowledging that the 'Torgue Lok' product is good, I question whether there is even a need to use the expensive Torque Loks. The only 'advantage' I see with the T.L is perhaps the ability to 'ever so slightly' apply pulling force to minutely (if any) pull the 2 parts of the cracked concrete structure together, or to possibly hold them together tighter than 'non-torquable' materials such as a simple, strong, flat steel bar or even rebar would hold. My goal would not be to try to 'pull the concrete together', but rather to simply prevent it from separating any further. If I can prevent any further movement, then I can just repair the crack inside the pool using only cement, epoxy or whatever product I chose to prevent water from escaping. A patched crack will block water, as long as the under-lying structure does not move further and ruin the interior surface patch.
Thanks for the comment. I actually was able to see the crack on the outside of the pool wall and ended up putting a staple and cement on the outside as well. So far so good, Have gone through a full year with no returning issues. Thks!
I’m about to try this repair on my pool but I have some questions. I don’t have plaster people coming in after the repair so would I sand down the hydraulic cement after it sets up? And can you tell me about a waterproofing membrane? I’m new to this all but I’m giving it a shot.
Hey there, thanks for the comment and question. I should caveat that I am not a pro, just a DIY guy, so there is a lot I don't know as well. I would recommend (if you haven't already) watch the videos that Torque Lock has posted, they show some being installed when the entire pool is not being refinished. I think will be basically looking to "patch" over the hydraulic cement with a plaster finish that matches your current pool's finish. Regarding the waterproofing membrane, this is a brush on compound that just further helps to cover the repair, we used a product called "HEY'DI SB", and the number on the bucket is "TL1941505". Hope this helps!
Hey there, I believe the crack was existing. The plaster company used a hydro-blaster to demo the existing finish, which is much less intrusive compared to using demo hammers. I did not notice any leaking issues prior to our renovation either. I'm really glad I took some time to inspect the pool shell though, otherwise this would have definitely caused me an issue. It's been about two seasons since I made this repair and so far so good.
We had Pebble Tech installed, it was their Pebble Brilliance Aqua Falls. Here's a quick time-lapse of the finish being applied: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-iDOeXvamSCc.html
