Fiberglass Pool Repair and Resurfacing in Flower Mound, TX

Spider cracks and hairline cracks

Spider cracks are hairline cracks in the gelcoat, typically cosmetic rather than structural. River Pools traces them to pressure on the shell beyond what the gelcoat can flex, most often from improper installation, while Barrier Reef Pools says they most commonly form in transport. Latham calls hairline cracks in the gelcoat not uncommon, with patch and repair kits available from its dealers. FGCI's gelcoat putty, sold mainly for boats, is mixed with MEK-P catalyst at 1.5 percent, overfilled into the roughened crack, cured for 12 to 24 hours and sanded flat. Few repairs are fully invisible, River Pools says, and single-layer solid gelcoats match more easily than metallic or flake finishes. Cracks through a concrete shell are a different job, covered under pool crack repair.

Osmotic blisters

An osmotic blister forms when water passes through the gelcoat, meets contaminants and makes a larger molecule that can't leave the way it came, pushing the gelcoat out until it separates from the laminate behind it. Barrier Reef Pools ties it to a surface eroded by chemical imbalance, and River Pools calls the blisters cosmetic, not structural. Gougeon Brothers' repair guide for boats warns that the acidic blister fluid is often under as much as 200 psi, so blisters are opened with eye protection, and calls thorough drying the most crucial step. Makers' warranties cover blistering for different terms: Latham for as long as the original buyer owns the pool, Glimmerglass for ten years and Barrier Reef for 15.

Bulging walls

Bulging walls can come from sand backfill that becomes saturated and liquefies against the shell, River Pools says, which is why it backfills with gravel. Tallman Pools warns that excess hydrostatic pressure around the shell can cause shifting, bulging or even failure.

Stains and scale

Tallman Pools reads stains by color: green, brown or tan for organic stains; orange, brown or tan for iron; green, blue or teal for copper; brown, black or purple for manganese. Black spots called cobalt stains are a reaction rather than a stain, where water passing through the gelcoat reacts with the resin beneath. A drop of muriatic acid tells calcium carbonate scale, which foams, from calcium silicate, which doesn't and is best left to a fiberglass technician. Tallman allows only stain removers made for fiberglass and says never to sand, polish or buff the gelcoat unless a fiberglass professional directs it.

Flower Mound Pool Resurfacing will look at the cracks, blisters or stains and talk through a repair.

Latham warns that a pool drained without first relieving the hydrostatic pressure on the shell will buckle and crack, and that draining voids its warranty unless a dealer handles it. River Pools says only authorized fiberglass professionals should drain a pool, and Tallman Pools requires its written authorization. River Pools' steps are to confirm dry weather for the whole job, check for and remove groundwater, brace the pool, typically with three braces 18 to 24 inches down the side walls, and watch that the floor doesn't lift as the water comes out. Tallman asks owners to check the groundwater inspection port before any service that lowers the water, and to pump slowly so the soil, sand or gravel around the shell isn't disturbed.

Around Flower Mound, NOAA's 1991–2020 normals for Grapevine Dam make May the wettest month, at 4.73 inches, followed by October at 4.46, with August the driest at 2.09. Check the Town's water stage before the pool is emptied as well; in Stage 1, a refill after maintenance is treated as outside water use and kept to the watering-schedule days.