Questions about tiling the spa spillover

[DoctorHousesCane]

Hello,

I hope I'm not breaking any rules, but I posted this same question on Reddit and an overwhelming majority of the responses have been that my pool builder's guys did an awful job tiling the spa spillover. They added a 1/4 or 3/8 inch lip over on the top of the spa spillover which caused the grout lines to not line up with the grout lines on the face of the spa. My questions are:

1. Why would there need to be a lip over the spa?
2. Why would the side of the spill over need a lip?
3. Why would the grout lines not match from front to top?
4. How bad is it for the factory edge of the tile to be exposed? I could honestly live with this

I'm posting here because maybe just a few of the responses mentioned there's actual reason for what the guys did, and I figured it's worth investigating further to gain better understanding before I talk to the pool builder tomorrow morning. Here's are some explanations for the lip:

1. "it helps make a consistent "sheet" of water when it spills over."
2. "The lip is for a clean sheet of water over the spillway. If you don’t do that the water will leak down the wall. Most of my clients want this feature if they do a raised spa. Of course you’re going to see underneath it, it’s cantilevering over. So is your coping."
3. "This time they did it without the lip. The water ended up not cascading off the spillover but rather just went down the wall. At first I didn’t mind because it was quieter but after a few months, the 1x1 tiles that were on that vertical wall started to pop off. I ended up replacing all the 1x1 at the water line and everywhere else with much larger tiles and this time did an edge like you have."

Some things to note: The tile I picked does not have a bullnose trim piece available, and I don't really mind either way if the water cascades down like a waterfall or not.

In case anyone's interested in reading the comments:

https://www.reddit.com/r/pools/comments/1f4frhp/wtf_are_these_jokers_doing_to_my_pool_set_me

Thanks.

 

[kimkats]

Hello and welcome to TFP!

First off I want to say the tile on the top looking down is very well done. You can tell they took their time and did a great job.

As for the overhang I suggest you get a water hose and have the water flow off the spill over to see what the water does. The thoughts of it allowing the water to spill over instead of flow over down the lower tile could be correct.

I am going to call in someone who does this for a living @AQUA~HOLICS to get his thoughts.

 

[AQUA~HOLICS]

My thoughts,
1. Having a lip over the vertical edge of the RBB is one way to help break the tension of the water between the horizontal and vertical surfaces.
2. Extending the side tiles, this I don’t understand, I personally don’t see this done on the applications I’m around.
3. Due to the way the lip is engineered into the layout, the distance of the lip has to be adjusted somewhere in the pattern.
4. The factory edges do have more of a bullnose than a tile that has been cut with a wet saw due to the glaze that typically runs over the edges of the tiles.

On a side note,
That spillway is going to be dangerous when wet and trying to walk across.
The last picture you provided, in my opinion the layout/cuts would not be acceptable at the joining intersection.

 

[ajw22]

Your tile layout issues are why a piece of stone is often used on the spa spillover.

The stone can be cut to size with the necessary ledge and a groove cut in the bottom of the ledge to break water tension for a smooth spillover effect.

Gunite Spas - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[DoctorHousesCane]

My thoughts,
1. Having a lip over the vertical edge of the RBB is one way to help break the tension of the water between the horizontal and vertical surfaces.
2. Extending the side tiles, this I don’t understand, I personally don’t see this done on the applications I’m around.
3. Due to the way the lip is engineered into the layout, the distance of the lip has to be adjusted somewhere in the pattern.
4. The factory edges do have more of a bullnose than a tile that has been cut with a wet saw due to the glaze that typically runs over the edges of the tiles.

On a side note,
That spillway is going to be dangerous when wet and trying to walk across.
The last picture you provided, in my opinion the layout/cuts would not be acceptable at the joining intersection.

Thanks for the detailed response. I'm happy with #1 and can live with #2. #3 is eh... I feel like they could've done better.

#4, for perspective, the spillover is about 2' above the water line in the deep end so I suppose it's not that much of a significant safety hazard. You're right factory edge is not sharp enough to cut but it's still an edge.

I don't think anyone's going to be walking across over the tiles with the current layout of the pool. We might jump off of it when the spa spillover is not running.

Regarding the layout/cut that's not acceptable... Are you saying it's poorly done but you'd do it differently?

 

[DoctorHousesCane]

Your tile layout issues are why a piece of stone is often used on the spa spillover.

The stone can be cut to size with the necessary ledge and a groove cut in the bottom of the ledge to break water tension for a smooth spillover effect.

Gunite Spas - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

I wish I had known before, but we reeeeeaaaaalllly like the tile selection. I suppose we have to live with our choices.

 

[AQUA~HOLICS]

Regarding the layout/cut that's not acceptable... Are you saying it's poorly done but you'd do it differently?

The BB wall at time of Shotcrete should have been shot thicker to accommodate the tile layout without having to cut the tiles to fit the width on the horizontal surface, also the tiles on the vertical side of the spillway would have fit without an overhang as it is now.