THE
CHALLENGE: When Hurricane Ike tore through coastal
Texas in the fall of 2008, it left a swath of damage which took months to
repair. One such repair was the family swimming pool of a Galveston Bay
waterfront home that was filled with debris and brackish water for over six
months while the family house was being repaired after storm damage and
flooding. After long exposure to bay water, the plaster surface was covered
in barnacles and weakened by exposure to salt water.
Appearance during initial draining
THE SOLUTION:
Workers drained the pool and removed the debris which
included telephone poles, shrimp and a snake. One worker described the pool
as looking like a science project. The walls were scraped to remove
marine growth then acid washed, rinsed, and ground flat using diamond
grinders. At this stage, the plaster was seen to be in a patchy, weakened
condition.
First,
BIO-SEAL 192, a pure liquid epoxy designed to penetrate and reinforce
porous surfaces, was applied using rollers to seal the surface. After it
cured for a few hours, the first coat of FASTONITE 700, tinted to a
rich Mediterranean Blue, was also applied by rollers.
After this
cured over night, some isolated large blisters were found where the plaster
was so weak it had split at a depth of 1/8. The blisters were cut out
using a sharp knife and the weak plaster underneath was removed by scraping
with a straight screwdriver until a firm substrate was reached.
The
contractor used BIO-FIX 911, a KevlarŽ rein-forced 5 minute epoxy
repair compound to smooth and fill the blister pockets. Consequently, the
final coating was possible within 5 minutes of application so as to avoid
extending the overcoating interval unnecessarily.
There was some urgency to
patch the blistered areas quickly not only because the pool owner was
anxious to have his pool restored to service but also because it was
necessary to stay within maximum overcoating time limits between the coats
of FASTONITE 700.
