A Concrete Pool Deck In The Sault Spends Nine Months Under Snow
Rubber surfacing lets a pool deck pass meltwater down instead of holding a puddle that freezes each night in March. A backyard pool in the P-Patch or Cedar Heights is open from June to Labour Day, and the deck sits under lake-effect snow for the rest of the year. The pool cover sheds water onto the deck, the deck sits on clay that is still frozen, and the only place the water can go is into the concrete.
That is why the deck is scaling at the coping and cracked at the corners by the time the pool is twenty years old. Rubber surfacing is porous and flexible, so the water drains and the freeze does not split it.
Wet Concrete Around A Pool Is Where People Fall
Wet or dry, rubber surfacing keeps its grip, and that grip is why most pool owners call in the first place. Smooth concrete with a film of pool water on it is a skating rink, and a broom finish that has worn down over thirty summers is not much better. Rubber surfacing keeps its texture because the grip is the granule itself, not a finish on top.
The same texture is softer under a fall than concrete and cooler under bare feet in a July sun. A pool deck in Sault Ste. Marie is used hard for twelve weeks, and rubber surfacing makes those twelve weeks safer and more comfortable.
What Goes Into A Pool Deck Rubber Surfacing Pour
We pour pool deck rubber surfacing on top of your existing concrete, once that concrete has been washed under pressure or ground back to bare, clean, dry material. Old sealer or paint comes off, static cracks are filled and bridged, and any moving crack is repaired before we prime. The rubber surfacing is troweled by hand, half an inch deep or a little less, with a finished edge at the coping and at every step.
The colour is EPDM granule, dyed through its whole body, so a light grey or a sand tone around the pool does not wear off in the traffic path. In full sun we use an aliphatic binder so a light colour does not amber over the years. Bare feet can use the deck the next morning; furniture waits two or three days.