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Fechino Files: Concrete Pavers around a Pool

Words: Steven Fechino

Many folks over the years have placed concrete pavers around their pool as a nice form of decorative pool deck. Early in the 2000’s, I took a class held by the Interlocking Concrete Paver Institute, then known as the ICPI. At the time I attended the class, I had been working on estimating and managing masonry site projects and was comfortable with several key parts of the masonry and concrete paving processes. With still much to learn, the class turned out to be very valuable in my understanding of “why things needed to be a certain way” and definitely what should be avoided. Today, the ICPI and National Concrete Masonry Association, NCMA, have united to form the Concrete Masonry & Hardscape Association (CMHA). ICPI certification will soon be under the CMHA name. I recommend looking into this class as it was a positive learning experience and allowed me to be a bit more successful.

When I built my pool, I used concrete pavers around the skirt of my pool. I compacted, compacted, and compacted even more than I needed to, and I am very glad I did. 20 years later, they are still as flat as when they were laid. I used a gravel Number 57 stone over compacted grade, compacted the Number 57, and then used sand not greater than one inch under my pavers. Installing the pavers was a relatively quick process as I had good open spaces to fill. I did not use polymeric sand at the time as I was new to the product and was unsure how it would hold up. This is 20 years later, talking. I will be installing it later this summer.

Okay, as you know, if I am writing an article, somehow, somewhere something went wrong. As always, I am not saying it is my fault on this one, but if you know, you know…ok, it was.

Hopefully, this helps you avoid doing what I did. A few years ago, the pavers were looking a bit flat, so I decided to put a surface coating that included about 15-20 percent acrylic polymer in the mix. Initially, it looked great, and then over a good bit of time, it began to fade. The next spring, yup, I did it again, looked great, but for a shorter period of time. We received a ton of rain that spring, and the reaction began. When I applied the surface coating that contained the acrylic polymer, I basically created a shell over my pavers, being that it is a pool deck and open to the elements, rain fell on the pavers, and since I had detailed between my pavers only a sand joint, it absorbed all of the rainwater it possibly could. The pool is nice in the summer because it gets hot here, creating absorption of moisture from the substrate through the concrete pavers and getting stuck between the surface of the paver and the surface coating that is acrylic-based. The result is that my pavers had a blush reaction. The blush basically turned the pavers from vibrant colors to a dull “white-esh” appearance.

So, this is where I am at the moment. I will try Xylene, an industrial solvent that has a slower evaporation time than Toluene and should be able to soften and thin the acrylic polymer film and allow it the ability to flow back into the capillaries of the concrete paver, resulting in an almost original appearance. It is still too cool outside (ambient temperatures are great during the day, but the material temperature is still too low for the solvent-based product to effectively function as intended). I will let you know this summer how it works. The Xylene method can be used around plants and will not have chemical residue from pressure washing to fly everywhere when you are doing final clean-up, as long as you protect the surroundings.

Enjoy the spring,

One over two, full send.


About: Fechino Files
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