Hello all,

After about a year or so after applying the Seal-Krete floor-tex product I am now having a few issues in several areas of my pool deck. Usually immediately (up to 6-12 hours) after a very heavy rain, like we had here in Florida yesterday, I run across several areas of the textured paint bubbling off the concrete which is shown in the first attached picture. When I notice the bubbling I can then very easily scrap the product off which then leaves a very uneven appearance when compared to the surrounding "good" paint which is shown in my second picture.

From what I can tell I pretty much followed the directions and did put down the a lock-down product first over a textured concrete. Since this product is failing so quickly and considering it rains quite a bit here I'm assuming this cycle will just continue to repeat itself. From what I can tell the concrete isn't necessary leaching water from underneath, but it could be due to water intrusion through tiny cracks in the surface or some humidity differential? "Most" of the deck appears like it has good adhesion for "now" so I don't want to have scrap everything off or worse yet pay someone to do that so I'm looking at something to help rectify this problem. I can certainly try to scrap as much bad product off - acid clean those infected areas and try to repaint, perhaps with a better product or stain, but I was hoping you might have some advice on what to try or apply?

Needless to say I've got a very unhappy wife at the moment!

 

According to the tech sheet on the coating, you pretty much needed a pristine surface prior to installing. It also mentioned a "lock down" primer for stubborn areas. And it is not recommended to go over any oil based coatings. Given that...

Who know what went on in the past that could have stained the concrete and is causing bad bond. Something as simple as dropping a salad fork could have left an oil stain that is causing grief now. Rather than waiting for it to bubble, you can probably find the spots that are loose in one session. Take something like a stiff putty knife and turn it on its side (like a knife) and tap on the concrete. If there is a spot not well adhered, it will sound hollow when you tap it. You can then scrape that area. You will have to crawl around on your hands and knees for a while, but it will help you locate trouble areas. I would then look into their primers to seal those areas.

Next step is how to address these areas so that they blend better into the surrounding texture.

 

czizzi, thanks for taking the time to reply to my post. I did put down thier lockdown product before applying the first coat. I believe there was already one application of a water-based stain on the the bare concrete before I applied the floor-tex. I did email the company and from what I understood this should have been fine as long as it was clean and the lockdown went down as recommended. As for the scrapping, this is exactly what I have been doing to knock down the bubbles. Like I said - most of the deck is fine - just several areas that are not adhering well for whatever reason. I can certainly continue to do this, but am wondering if even more areas might fail or not? The problem like you mentioned will be getting the new and old paint/texture to be even and match. I know some might recommended taking the entire deck coating off, but that is the last resort.

 

I got a hold of the manufacturer today and they want me to send in a sample of the peeled off paint. They think it is delaminating due to misture - tell me something I don't know already!

It rained heavily again today so I'm probably going to find more bubbles when I return home from work

 

Moisture or some other contamination caused the bubbles but I doubt it's moisture from above. The rain can saturate the ground getting under the slab which will in turn cause the coating to lift

 

Yeah, good point. If that is the case what are my options? Will the rest of the deck eventually peel then

 

There isn't a whole lot you can do to prevent moisture from coming up thru the slab after the fact although the type of ground and location helps to determine how big an issue it will be. If your ground is extra sandy with good drainage - it's not apt to be a big issue. If it's low lying, maybe near water - it could be a big problem

 

Well, we have had a lot of rain the past few weeks, but I do live along the coast here in central Florida so the soil is very sandy. There is a rentention pond located ~30-40 ft down a slope away from the pool, so everything should drain in that direction. Several folks in my neighborhood have a pool and usually have the "cool deck" spray and from what I can tell are not having the same issues that I am seeing. Although, the difference is I instead used the seal-krete product line and did it myself. One other, perhaps important peice of info is that the pool deck is only about 3.5 years old.

BTW, I did notice a few more bubbles last night after some rain

 

I used to live a little west of you - Bithlo
Often the coatings available to diyers isn't as good a quality as what the the pros have access to. Also it's possible your prep work wasn't up to snuff It's hard to say from our vantage point what the exact cause is but I wouldn't be surprised if you don't wind up removing the coating and starting over

 

Very neat - I'm over in the Melbourne area

Yeah, that's what I am fearing the most. Question is should all of the coating be removed on the entire deck or can a do a patch and restore on the failing sections? My guess is that more of the deck will fail in the future if it's a moisture problem and I'll constantly be patching every few months. I'm sending in a sample of the failed paint to the manufacturer today, but not sure what they are going to tell or do for me that I already don't know.

 

Wish I had an easy answer for you. Obviously all/any of the failing coating needs to be removed. I'm not sure there is an easy way to tell, if the coating is the biggest culprit - then it should all be removed. If it's caused by a surface contamination, just redoing those spots should be enough. If it's water from the underside, it's anyone's guess as water always looks for the easiest exit.