Brick coping repair

[fjacquette]

I have a 20 year old in-ground concrete pool with bullnose brick coping in southeast PA. A couple of years ago some hairline cracks opened in the joints between some of the bricks and water began damaging both the coping and the tile around the edge of the pool and the adjoining spa wall (see pics below - the water's gross because I just opened it for the season.) I've spent the last two seasons trying to find a contractor who would come out and work on things without success - nobody wants to deal with such a relatively small job. So, I'm going to give it a shot myself.

My plan is to fix the coping first, then pull off and redo all of the affected tile. Tapping on the coping, I have about 25 bricks that sound hollow and need to be removed and replaced; some of them are damaged and will need a complete replacement, but if I can salvage most of them (especially the ones with the long cuts to fit the tight curve) that will make my life easier.

So, simple questions: what mortar should I be using to reattach the bricks? Should I use the same material to fill in the joints? Should I then use a sealer to protect against water intrusion, or are there epoxy-based mortar/grout products I should use instead? I've found suggestions recommending everything from 3:1 sand/cement mix to specialty epoxy products.

Thanks!

 

[kimkats]

Welcome to TFP! I will ping a couple of people who might know.

@AQUA~HOLICS and @ajw22

 

[ajw22]

Welcome to TFP.

Type S mortar for coping and thinset and grout for tile.

Sealers don’t prevent cracks from ground movement.

You need to do periodic maintenance on joints, grout, and the expansion joint to fill in hairline cracks before they cause damage.

It is not clear that you have a good expansion joint between your coping and your deck.

Expansion Joints and Coping - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[bmoreswim]

Allen and @Leebo - I get an error clicking on the wiki link in Chrome on a PC. The requested page could not be found. (Code: invalid_route, controller: -, action: -)

 

[ajw22]

Allen and @Leebo - I get an error clicking on the wiki link in Chrome on a PC. The requested page could not be found. (Code: invalid_route, controller: -, action: -)

The link is fixed. I butchered it early in the morning on my iPad.

 

[fjacquette]

Thanks for the answers. There's an inch-wide elastomeric filler between the deck and the coping; it's been colored and textured to match the joints so it's not easy to tell from the pictures.

While I've had a small amount of settling over the 20 years since the pool was built, I've only got a handful of hairline cracks in the deck, most of which are probably from the pool cleaner line starting to leak underground before I capped it off. This section of coping is the only one that shows even hairline cracks, and I suspect that some of that is because the safety cover puts a lot of pressure on that corner in the winter. I'll see what I can do to fix it up and then go around and re-seal everything. Thanks again.