Ep 098 ASR - Concrete Cancer in Swimming Pools - Luxury Outdoor Living Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mike (00:00):
Today we're going to talk about the perfect storm.
So if you've ever watched the movie from2000 with George Clooney, it's a classic.
If you haven't seen it,you ought to check it out.
But the perfect storm is where,everything that could go wrong.
Did go wrong.
And so the odds that were generallyfor him went totally against him.

(00:25):
We're gonna talk about thattoday and we're gonna talk
with an expert, John McIntyre.
And John is a professional engineerin Texas with over 46 years of
diverse professional experience andstructural electrical, mechanical
and aquatic engineering design.
The aquatic one's the important for us.
He holds a BS in architecturalengineering and a BS in physics from

(00:48):
the University of Texas in Austin.
He's the VP of McIntyre andMcIntyre Incorporated, which is an
architectural engineering and aquaticconsulting firm in Austin, Texas.
He's active in PHTA.
That's the Pool Hot Tub Alliance,both in central Texas chapter and with
the PHTA National where he serves onthe A SR Task Force Committee Chair.

(01:13):
He's an advanced certified buildingprofessional and PHTA, I think he's
actually a master's now though.
We'll ask him about that.
A Genesis instructor, a Hague certifiedroofing inspector, and serves as
an expert witness and forensicconsultant in construction litigation.
John has also been asked.
Commissioner in the city ofAustin Building and Standards

(01:36):
Commission from 2015 to 2019.
So let's welcome John.

Intro (01:44):
Welcome to Luxury Outdoor Living Podcast with Mike and Trey
Farley of Farley Pool Designs.
For over 40 years, we've helpedhomeowners turn their backyards
into personal retreats, spaces ofjoy, relaxation and unforgettable
memories, and whether it's a cozy as.
Scape or a resort style oasis.
We design it all.

(02:05):
We know how overwhelming a projectcan feel, and nothing feels worse than
a homeowner having a bad experience.
And that's why after decades of designingand teaching in this industry, we're
here to share our knowledge, helping you.
The process with confidence.
Every week we break down designtrends and insider tips that
turn your vision into reality.

(02:26):
And since this is about creating somethingamazing together, drop a comment.
If you have any questions, ideas, orjust want to be part of the conversation,
if you find this helpful, a like helpsget this out to more people like you.
And if you want to keep upwith what's next, go ahead
and hit that subscribe button.
We'd love to have you along for the ride.
Let's build your paradise together.

Mike (02:54):
Good afternoon.
This is Mike Farley from Farley PoolDesigns, and again, we're hosting another
episode of Luxury Outdoor Living Podcast.
So we have a special guest today,and as I said in my intro a little
bit about John and his bio, we'regonna talk about a SR but before we
get into it why don't you introduceyourself, John, and tell us something

(03:16):
interesting that wasn't on your bio.

John (03:19):
I am an engineer in Austin, Texas, which is kind of the Texas central
hotspot for a SR problems right now.
I grew up most of junior high and highschool time in Bryan College Station,
where my dad was a professor at aand m for, oh, what, 27, 28 years?
Something like that.
But then of course, being a goodobedient son, I defected and went

(03:41):
to Austin and attended ut so I gotmy degree from here in architectural
engineering, and that's pretty muchwhere I've remained ever since.

Mike (03:49):
Okay.
I, I understand how that goes.
I went to Texas Tech and mywife's father taught at ou.
So what did our son do when it cametime to pick who he was rooting for?
He met Colt McCoy and decided hewas a UT fan, so he would show up
at every family gathering as a youngchild with his orange Longhorn jersey.

(04:10):
it, it was uh,

John (04:11):
well,
We uh, when Dad and I used to watchthe Texas and Texas a and m games
on Thanksgiving before they splitconferences, but are now back together
we used to of course I'd read for Texasand he would root for a and m. And I
said, there was always hope back then.
A and m wasn't doing quite as well asthey have done in more recent years.
And I said, there was always hope fordad 'cause he would root for a and

(04:32):
m but he wouldn't put money on 'em.

Mike (04:34):
Yeah.
they are doing better these days though,so they are a SRI I'm an education nerd.
I was in the secondclass Genesis ever did.
I have every one of theircertifications, I've been in
every one of their constructionclasses water shape university.
I've done the same thing becauseI'm a believer and you can
learn stuff from everybody.

(04:54):
So I'm always looking forthings and I never saw anything
about a SR over five years ago.
I don't remember it ever beingtaught in a class or being
explained or anything like that.
So Do you have any idea when

John (05:09):
where it all started?

Mike (05:11):
Yeah.
So I know that SR now has been aroundthere's isolated cases of this that show
up all over the United States, but we'vegot a real hotbed, as you said you're in
the middle of it down there in Austin.
So can you explain, firstof all, what is a SR?

John (05:29):
A SR is a reaction between reactive aggregate that generally has
a lot of silicon oxides in it, and thehydroxides in cement in the presence
of moisture that forms an expansivegel inside the concrete matrix.
So it expands much like freezingwater inside of a water pipe.

(05:49):
It expands and it cracks theconcrete from the inside out.
Okay.
The telltale signs you very often see arewhat they call spider web or alligator
cracking on the surface, inside surface ofthe pool which is just a random cracking.
It's it looks like alligator skin.
It doesn't have any linearityto it, it's not like a shrinkage

(06:10):
crack that tends to be more linear.
It's just random crackingall over the surface.
And that all started with the passageof the EPA passed the Clean Power
Act back in 2016, I believe it was.
Okay.
And so by about 2017, that causedall the coal fired power plants, or

(06:34):
good portion of them to switch overfrom coal to natural gas fly ash,
which is one of the main constituentsthat you add to the concrete mix.
To prevent fly ash among other things.
It makes it more waterproofand it makes it also stronger.
The concrete.
But the fly ash it's a, andit counteracts a SR formation.

(06:56):
This was typically added intoconcrete mixes prior to 20 16, 17.

Mike (07:01):
It was almost like a filler, right?
Yeah.
A lot of people didn'tthink it was a big deal.
They just put that fly ash in the mix.

John (07:09):
It was a waste product.
They basically gave it away.
So it has benefits for concrete.
So they the suppliers put it in the mix.
and you never heard about a SR becausethere was fly and almost all the concrete.
Fast forward to 2017, now the plantshave shut down the fly ash disappears
from the market, and some of thedistributors now are not putting

(07:31):
fly ash in their mixture anymore.
Because now you've gotta go buy itfor about the equivalent of cost
of cement or a little more ratherthan having it basically being
given away for free to add in.
and it had been so long, peopleforgot some of the reasons why
you put fly ash in concrete.
One of them being counteracting aSR 'cause nobody had heard of it
'cause they'd been doing it so long.

(07:52):
Nobody was aware that they'd forgottenthat was the cure for A-S-R-A-S-R
was discovered back in the 1930s.
So it's been known about for a long time.
It's just, it hadn't been a problem.
So people forgot about it and they thoughtwell, we'll just go back to straight
Portland cement without the fly ash in it.
And they forgot some ofthe consequences of that.

Mike (08:13):
So one thing I heard also is back in that your area, there was a huge
government contract with the highways.
Which they specified that fly ash be used.
And because there was reducedamounts, that's where it all
got shuttled over to as well.
Is that kind of part of the story?
Yeah.

John (08:32):
It reduced the reduced amount of fly ash that was available.
A lot of it got consumed in there.
Now that being said, China isstill burning coal like crazy and
you can get it from over there,

Mike (08:43):
right?

John (08:44):
There was only a couple places in Texas that actually you want
the class F Flash, I believe it is.
Is the one that, you wantto use for a SR prevention.
That is what pretty muchdisappeared from the market.
There was one plant, oh, it's eastof what, Waco or Tyler, somewhere
up in there that is the mainone in Texas that provides it.

(09:05):
But they ran in short supplyand most of theirs was going
to the highway department.
Most distributors they just didn't get it.
And they had to then order itfrom China and there were shipping
delays and things like that too.
The consequences, it got cutout of a lot of the mixtures.
So all of a sudden pool contractorswho'd been ordering from these same
suppliers for years, thinking they weregetting the same mixture, all of a sudden

(09:29):
now we're getting a different mixture.
But it takes around here, thesweet spot time for a SR to develop
is around two to four years.
There are some that come earlier, somethat come later, but the majority of the
ones that I've seen are somewhere betweentwo and four years is when you start
seeing that spider web cracking on thesurface and the obvious effects of it.

(09:50):
So you go to 20 17, 20 18, by thetime the fly had run outta the
supplies, you go forward a coupleyears and it was about 20 19, 20 20.
This crack started showingup in the pools because there
was no flash in the mixtures.
the quick aside is that Gunite is lesssusceptible to flash, not 0%, but it's

(10:12):
less susceptible to fly than Shock Creek.
Shock Creek because it has largeraggregate and a bigger surface
area for the reaction to takeplace, is more susceptible to it.
So anyway, back to 2020,the cracks start showing up.
Everybody knows pools can getcracks for a variety of reasons.
Before a SR became a problem, therewere cracks and pools and crack

(10:33):
repair was routinely performed.
So the contractor would go out, repair thepool, month or two later he'd get a call
back, Hey, there's another cracker or two.
They'd go repair that.
Another couple months there's more cracks.
It got to the point wherethey couldn't keep up with it.
Then they started doing somefloor tests, send it to the labs.
Found out that it was in fact a SR. Itwasn't just random cracking from shrinkage

(10:56):
or deflection or, any of the normal quoteunquote reasons that a pool might crack.
So it wasn't until late 20, early21 that people really started
discovering that a SR was the issuethat was causing all these cracks.
Then you go 21 to 25.
Currently at least around centralTexas here, it has now become the

(11:17):
hot topic among pool contractors.
And unfortunately, everybody nowis scared to death that any crack
in their pool is an a SR issue.
Since there is not a cure for aSR, although we'll talk about in
a minute, don't let me forget.
There are a few things you cando to extend the life of the
pool, but they're not cures.
But everybody is scared to death thatyou're gonna have to rip the pool out.

(11:40):
Well, A pool that.
Cost, $150,000, five years agonow probably cost $250,000.
Plus.
You've gotta add on 50 grand,60 grand for demo and haul off.
Not to mention the damage you doto your yard, your fencing, your
irrigation system, whatever else.
And depending how much deck aroundthe pool that you've gotta tear

(12:02):
out with, it is collateral damage.
You can be looking anywhere from two50 to $500,000 very easily to have a
pool taken out and removed, dependingon the size and the collateral damage.
So it's not a cheap thing to do.
People are worried and rightfully they'vegot concerns about it, and it has become
the hot topic issue in central Texas.

Mike (12:24):
The ironic thing is shotcrete.
Is done over gunite using the largeraggregate over sand because it's generally
believed to be a stronger product.

John (12:34):
there's several reasons and we should differentiate.
Part of the confusion comesis from the nomenclature.
' cause technically both guniteand shotcrete are both shotcrete.
Gunite is dry process shock cre, wherethe material the cement and all is shoved
down the pipes dry, right water and air isadded at the nozzle and it's sprayed out.

(12:56):
So the nozzle and controls the mixture.
He has a lot of control over themixture, which can be good or bad
depending on how good your nozzle man is.

Mike (13:03):
A hundred percent

John (13:04):
the shock crete, which is technically wet process shock Crete comes
from a typical concrete mixing truck withthe big drum that you see all the time.
Those are very carefully weighed.
The components are weighed.
The water moisture contents are monitoredand they are all mixed at the plant.
So you get a very uniformmixture from truck to truck.

(13:25):
So if you're doing larger jobs likecommercial swimming pools, wet chare is
generally preferred because it's a moreconsistent delivery from truck to truck.
It also has larger stones in it,so you get a little less shrinkage.
The main part, stone isobviously an inert product.
It's a chunk of rock.
It doesn't shrink or swellduring the carrying process.

(13:47):
It's the concrete and the porespaces that shrink and swell as a
result of the hydration process.
In Gunite you've got sand and cement.
It has a smaller surface area.
The typical sand grain is about amillimeter, maybe a little bit more.
Whereas on aggregate you've got a threeeights rock that has somewhere between a

(14:09):
hundred and 150 times more surface area.
So what happens is on the guniteand again, it's not a 0%, but you
hardly ever get a SR in Gunite.
I will reiterate though,there are exceptions to that.
There're few, but they are there.
So it depends on the aggregate reactivity.
There's about four different classes ofreactivity for aggregates, and around

(14:34):
here in central Texas, one of the mainreactive aggregates is the chit rock.
It has a lot of silicon dioxidein it and that's what reacts with
the hydroxides in the cement.
But the chit rock, can go froma zero rating to a three rating.
There's three, four categories.
Zero being non-reactive, which meansyou're never gonna get a SRA three rating.

(14:56):
Yeah.
You may wanna go find another supplier'cause you likely to have some problems,
in between you can work with it.
But even if that, there's a wholeselection matrix that I believe it
was Texas a and m came up with this ofa selection of what kind of products
you're building, the likelihood ofdamage, what you can tolerate, things

(15:16):
like that is to how much fly ash youshould add into those mixtures to keep
them with an acceptable limitations.
And typically for pools.
And around here in central Texas,you're looking at somewhere in a 20 to
25% of the cement, not the total mixof the cement content of the mixture.

(15:37):
That you replace with fly ash tocounteract a SR with gunite, it goes
down because the reaction, it takesless to counteract the reaction.
You only need somewhere inthe neighborhood of 10%.
That being said, very few of thegunite companies had the capability
to add fly ash into their mix.

(15:58):
'cause it requires a separatebin to mix it before you put it
in the trucks to, pump it out.
The biggest caution isputting fly ash in the mix.
If you do it, you're probablynot gonna have problems.
If you don't, around here, atleast you're very likely to.
Now it's not just limited toTexas, like you mentioned earlier.

(16:18):
Up along the East coast, you get inthe Washington, DC, Virginia area.
They've got some cases there.
You get up in Northeast Vermont,New Hampshire, Maine, up in there.
They've got cases you get overon the West coast, anywhere from,
Seattle on down to San Diego.
There's cases there.
Not as many as CentralTexas, but they're there.
If you live, I think it's inMontana or North Dakota, you're

(16:40):
probably not gonna have a problem.
I suspect that's 'cause nobody buildsswimming pools there 'cause it's too cold.

Mike (16:45):
Could be.
But,

John (16:47):
it's not just in Austin, but Austin has so many more cases than anywhere else.
It's the hotspot and the reasonis that most of the aggregate
here is sourced along the ColoradoRiver between Austin and Bastrop,
which is the next town downstream.
And, the floods have washed the sameaggregates down the river, deposited 'em,

(17:07):
all these areas that are now quarries.
And so you're getting prettymuch the same material.
But it can vary the, even within areasof a quarry, it can go from less to more
reactive and at different depths it can gofrom less to more reactive and vice versa.
So the biggest caution on that,and I may be jumping a little ahead

(17:28):
here, but is to test your aggregate.
And there's several tests thatare available for that, but.
You've gotta be carefulon some of these tests.
'cause some of them have a fairlyhigh percentage of false reporting.

Mike (17:41):
That's Yeah, I was gonna bring that.
The typical one, that's what I heard.
Yeah.

John (17:45):
Yeah.
The typical one that's probably mostoften referenced is a s TM C 1260.
And that's where it's a mortar bar test.
And they take and they make a barof concrete, I think it's three
or four inches square and 16inches long and maybe 18 inches.
And they cast that, let it cure.
Then they put it in a brine solutionat elevated temperature somewhere

(18:08):
around a hundred to 110 degrees.
And there's a 16 day test thatif that sample expands more than
0.04%, the aggregate is consideredreactive and that you're likely to
get some a SR issues out of that.
The problem with that test.
Is that there's over a 50%false reporting rate on that.

(18:32):
Now, some of those

Mike (18:33):
not great odds.

John (18:34):
Yeah, no, they're not.
It's better than nothing.
But it's not definitive becausesome of those reportings will say
that good material is bad and it'smaterial that really could be used.
But other false reportsare saying bad materials.
Good.
Which is the one thatreally will hurt you more.
There is a two year version of thattest, which is much more accurate.

(18:54):
However, who has two years to wait.
If I come to you and say, Hey,I want you to build me a pool.
You say it's gonna be two years so I cantest the material before I can start.
I'm gonna go find somebody else whocan build me a pool this summer.

Mike (19:06):
Yeah.
We can get that boat fromChina by then, right?

John (19:08):
Yeah, absolutely.
There are some tests out therethat you know, you can do.
Now this is that kind of the preliminary,but I would say to the, pool builders.
Make sure your aggregate's tested.
If you look in the specifications,A-S-T-M-C 33, which is the aggregate
specifications, there's one for courseaggregate, and there's one for fine

(19:28):
aggregate, but they both say exactly thesame thing, except for course and fine.
And it says that the aggregateshall contain no materials that de
deleterious react with the cementto cause bad deleterious expansion.
I guess it's, and that puts the onus onthe suppliers to test this stuff and make

(19:50):
sure that the aggregate at least appearsto conform whether you're doing it.
The two year test, typically whatwe've heard around here is the
quarries will do tests monthly orsome of them even biweekly, and
then they will keep a running tab.
On an annual basis, to getthe longer tests on there.
So you get, you can look at the monthlyand that kind of gives you what they're

(20:13):
being core right now versus what hashistorically been taken out of that
pit and how the two of them compare.

Mike (20:20):
So a homeowner, the question they need to ask their contractor
is, A, are you using fly ash inyour gunite or re Okay, absolutely.
B, if you're not are you gettingyour aggregate certified?
Because this all happened before.
who's responsible for all this?
I mean, I guess that's awhole different side note.

(20:41):
Going down, that's the

John (20:42):
basis of a lot of lawsuits in Austin right now.

Mike (20:46):
'Cause there wasn't a single contractor out there that
knew to ask those questions, Ithink six or seven years ago.

John (20:53):
Yeah, no, there's a lot of good contractors that have been put
out of business because of this.
Yeah.
And it's unfortunate.

Mike (20:59):
Yeah, I know When you go to the

John (21:00):
suppliers, they say we didn't know what it was gonna be used for.
We didn't know if it was gonna bewater immersed or, if you take like
a House Foundation and now house, youcan get a SR and a House Foundation,
but you don't hear about it very often.
Number one is because you've typicallygot polyethylene under the slab
as a vapor barrier, and then upabove you've got air conditioning.

(21:21):
So you've got a climate controlledhumidity, so there's not enough
moisture to, you need about70 to 80% relative humidity.
To promote the a SR reaction.
So in a house, very often, unless you'vegot a very high water table or something,
in the only two instances of foundationa SR have seen have been at lake houses

(21:41):
where the water table is very high.
So it can happen, but not very often.
But in a pool, you've got the outsidepool that in the wintertime it's rains
and it's low evaporation and cool.
It stays moist.
And of course, on the inside you'refilled 24 7 with a readily available
supply of water that's gonna seepthrough any crack and plaster.

(22:04):
Although it is the main waterproofingmembrane in a pool is not a
hundred percent waterproof.
No, unless there's cracks in it.
It doesn't allow wet waterthrough, but it allows water vapor.
And as I said, you don't need wetwater to form a SR, you just need
about 70 to 80% relative humidity.
It'll start forming.

Mike (22:24):
Okay.
So those are two questionsthe homeowner could ask.
Is there anything else they couldask to make sure that they get
a product that wouldn't be thefly ash and the certifications.
Anything else you can think of?

John (22:38):
The ones I would ask it's number one, if it is shock first you want to
ask if it's Shock Creek or Gunite andmake sure they understand the difference.

Mike (22:44):
Yes.

John (22:45):
If it's Gunite, your chances of a SR are much, much lower of ever occurring.
Not zero, but very low.

Mike (22:51):
I heard.
Personally, that there's onlyless than 10 cases that have
showed up in Austin with Gunite.
I don't know if that's true.
I don't know the exact number, butit's a very, it's a very small number.
I heard one installerhad no cases whatsoever.
but a very small number.

John (23:07):
I, I know I've talked to one of the bigger pool builders here
that's a national pool builder,and he said that they have had
no cases in their gunite pools.
All of their problems havebeen in the Shock Creek pools,

Mike (23:17):
okay.
Okay, so we established that first.
Is it Gunite or is it Shock Creek.
Okay.
Very good.
Right.

John (23:23):
So if you've got Shock Creek, is there fly ash in it?

Mike (23:26):
Okay.

John (23:27):
They need some sort of a report from the material company.
The, usually if you got ReadyMix,you can get a ticket with it and it
lists all the components on there.
So you should ask your before it.
Two cases, and we'll start with the,if you're building a brand new pool.
Yes.
Then we'll address, if you're gonnago buy a house with an existing pool.
Perfect.
So building a pool, you wanna makesure you get the mixed tickets from the

(23:50):
builder, that he collects them and hasthem to you and you can look at 'em.
'cause it's gonna list all thecomponents that are in that mixture.
And if fly is in there,it's going to show up.
If it's not, it's gonna be void.
If you see a mixed ticket and youreally, the, there needs to be
some homeowner education as well.
Because there's a lot of guysout here that don't understand

(24:11):
all the nuances of this.
So if it doesn't have fly in it,you wanna reject that mixture
before it ever gets shot.
That's in a perfect world, most homeownersaren't that knowledgeable about it.

Mike (24:23):
You would hope your pool builder would be though, that
he would be checking that.
You would be

John (24:27):
amazed that even in central Texas.
Just in the last two weeks,I have run across someone who
did not know what a SR was.

Mike (24:35):
Whoa.

John (24:36):
How you can do that and be in the business, in the center hotspot
of the worst, plague in the country.
I don't know.
But it's been on the front pageof the American Statesman on the
Sunday edition twice it's been onthe K view on your side, one of the
consumer protection shows they've got.
Yeah, I read that four or five times.
It's been pretty well broadcast.

(24:57):
And the pool community, once people havepools, they start to talk with each other.
And you get a lot of conversation there.
But anyway, so you wanna check guniteor chare, does he have fly or not?
Has the aggregate been tested?
And we talked about the testing.
Now the one thing you want to be carefulwith, I know some of these guys are
going out and getting the aggregatetested at one of the local testing labs.

(25:18):
And if it meets the a s TM 1260of being less than 0.4% expansion,
they say, we have an engineeredmixture and you will not get a SR.
That's not what the test says.
The test says it has limited expansion,which means you are less likely to
have a SR. It is not a guarantee.

(25:40):
So if somebody says, I've had anengineered mix and you will not get
a SR absolutely will not get it.
That is incorrect.
Okay.
It means they have gone a step furtherthan just taking it verbatim and using it.
So that's good.
But it doesn't mean thatyou're guaranteed anything.
You're completely free of a SR liability.

(26:00):
Okay.
Yeah.

Mike (26:01):
Okay.
those are great questionsfor them to understand.

John (26:04):
we're gonna move on from there.

Mike (26:06):
Gonna buy a house, wanna hit

John (26:07):
something else?
If you're gonna go buy a house,

Mike (26:09):
okay, buy pool.

John (26:10):
We're getting a lot of questions from realtors who
are coming up and saying, sure.
You go to a house, it's got a pool.
And people used to go,oh boy, we got a pool.
Now they're going, oh boy, we got a pool.
What year?

Mike (26:19):
year was this pool built?

John (26:20):
Yeah.
that's the first thing you wantto ask is when was it built?
If it's over five years old, you areon the rapidly declining side of the
probability curve that you're gonna everhave a SR If it hasn't developed, at least
in central Texas, in other parts of thecountry right, where they use different
aggregates, it can be up to 10 years.

(26:41):
But around the Austin area, as Imentioned the kind of the sweet
spot's about two to four years.
But once you get out to five yearsyou're dropping off very quickly as
to the probability that you're gonnahave a SR. So it's over five years old.
You're probably okay.
I get calls from people thepool's a year and a half old.
My first question is that if you've gotcracks it's most likely something else.

(27:02):
Maybe a shrinkage crack or something else.
But that's awfully early for a SR.That being said, I looked at one pool
that was a year and nine months oldhad one of the worst cracking patterns
I have seen in any pool, new or older.
So it can happen.
That means that particular poolhad very reactive aggregate in it.

(27:23):
But you want to ask the age of the pool.
You want to ask is itGunite or Shock Creek?
And make sure you know the differencebetween those because a lot of, and
I wish we could come up with betternames to fully differentiate these
rather than wet mix and dry mix.
'cause when you say shockcreed there's somewhat of an
ambiguity between the two terms,

Mike (27:40):
right?

John (27:41):
A lot of people use, it's like when you say, do you want a Coke?
Do you want a brand nameCoca-Cola or do you want a Cola
Soda Pepsi or something else?
That's part of the problem.
And some of the people, when they sayGunite, you're getting Shock Creed.
As a matter of fact, I know one of thecompanies, local companies around here,
they pretty much exclusively provideshock Creek, wet Process, shock Creek.

(28:03):
And I know a number of pool buildershave put, have specified Gunite in their
pool contract and the truck rolls upand they think they are getting gunite.
Which is actually a trade name for theearly version of Dry Process Shock Creed.
And what gets applied iswet process shotcrete.
and it's because the builders don't know,there's no licensing requirement in Texas.

(28:24):
So some of these guys reallydon't know the difference.
So you gotta be aware.
And the other thing you want toask is, has your pool contractor
had any history of problems with aSR? Who is their material supplier?
There's about four orfive of 'em around here.
If it's one of those, you are verylikely going to have an a SR problem.
if it's Shock Creek, didthey get the mixed tickets?

(28:46):
Do you have copies of those?
is there any sign of cracking in the pool?
The spiderweb cracking, the randomdirectional cracking, those sort
of things you wanna look for.

Mike (28:54):
So can you core sample a pool and test it and find out if it's got a SR?

John (29:01):
You can.
Absolutely.
Okay.
It's called a petro graphictest, and you go take a three
inch core, you drill it in.
What I usually do is get aboutthree or four samples and I'll test
at least two of them and, and holdtwo of 'em reserved just in case.
In case we need 'em.
Take it to here in Austin, WJE isthe only firm in town that does
spectrographic testing for this.
I think the next nearest labthat does it is in Colorado.

(29:24):
There may be one inbetween here in Colorado.
There's not very many of 'em inthe country that do this, so we're
lucky to have one right here.
However, then when you take it there, theywill look at it under electron microscope.
And they will determine if thelittle pockets of a SR are there,
that you can see that how much isthere, how much it's progressed.
If there's micro cracking where theexpansion, the GE expanding gel has

(29:47):
cracked the concrete inside, and thisusually starts interior to the concrete
and then works its way to the surface toget that spiderweb cracking because it
has to crack the shell and then translatethrough the plaster to get the cracking.
I have heard of a few rare instanceswhere you can actually get some of it
in the plaster, but not that often.

(30:08):
Those have been extremely rare cases.
So when we do in ground pools,the two areas we see the reaction
starting is somewhat in board of theexterior face, where the wet soil
in the winter provides moisture.
And on the pool face, where the pool, ofcourse has 24 7 inundation, especially
if there's a crack in the plaster, thenthat provides a path for the water to get

(30:32):
interior mixed with the concrete matrixand form the A SR. So cracking is the
main thing you look for visually, but thepetro test basically gives you an x-ray
picture of the interior of the concrete,and that interior micro cracking will
start first and then progress out tothe surface where you actually see it.

(30:56):
So by the time you see it on thesurface of the plaster, it's been
going on for a while inside the shell.
So this is where a petro traffictest can be beneficial, and
it's kinda the gold standard forseeing if you've got a SR or not.
The problem is it's not cheap.
By the time you get someoneout there to core it, you're

(31:16):
probably spending $1,500 or more.
The test is usually anywherefrom four to $6,000, depending if
you get one or two cores tested.
So you wind up at paying and by the timeyou get a couple other people involved,
you know you're gonna spend eight, eightto $10,000 on a petro graphic test.

Mike (31:32):
It's probably not fast either.

John (31:34):
Yeah, they're getting better now.
You can get 'em backin three to four weeks.
But during the height of this, acouple summers ago, it was taking
eight months to get the results back.
'cause the lab was so backed up, theywere having, four or five different
samples brought in every day.

BBQ Intro (31:52):
We are gonna take a break here for a second and get into outdoor living.
So with outdoor living, we like togo to barbecue bits here we're gonna
share some information of everythingthat you may want to consider in
your outdoor living space as far asfeatures, especially for the kitchen.
Hope you enjoy this.

Mike (32:12):
I am an egghead.
Uh, I, I love my egg, but a lot of timespeople are like, well, the next step.
After becoming, uh, an egghead andcooking on lump charcoal is, I'd like
something that makes life easier for me.
Uh, and so they look at pellet grills.
Sure.
Okay.
And so walk me through this Memphis unit.

(32:33):
It, walk me through pelletversus cooking on lump charcoal.

Bobby (32:37):
Sure.
So pellet grills is gonna give youthat fire, wood fire flavor, um, that
you're not gonna get off of a gas grill.
Also, you get space and ease of use.
So I can set my timing on thisparticular grill, but one thing about
pellet grills that, that they havenot figured out that this company has
Memphis, is it just doesn't look good.

(33:00):
And this company is sexywhen you build it in.
You've got two models.
You've got a 30 inch pro andthen a 40 inch wide, uh, elite.
And it just looks like itwas meant to be built in.
But also, most of your pellet grillswill be made of metal or iron.
In a built-in scenario, it's justnot gonna last long where the 3 0

(33:21):
4 stainless is meant to last a lotlonger and defy any of the elements.
The pellets are loaded in the back.
Um, this particular grill,you can mix flavors.
So if I'm doing a couple of, uh, chickenbreasts or even a pork shoulder, if I
want to mix oak and cherry or pecan andcherry, I can separate the flavors and

(33:44):
infuse 'em together and cook with bow.
So it's a really cool option.
Also, I can see the whole cooking processon my phone with this particular grill.
Now, if I want to, if I wanna do acouple of cowboy, uh, you know, bone
in ribeyes, I can get this grill to700 degrees in about 12 to 15 minutes.
Uh, get a nice sear, that's what it is.

(34:04):
It's a Memphis Wood-Fire Grill.
So when we do that.
This is the diffuser plate, and we'llsear over this with your locking medium.
Rare to well done.
You've got plenty of, uh,surface area, warming rack area.
You can buy other racks as our customershave done together to increase, uh,
the holding power from, uh, anywherefrom a Turkey leg to a, a chicken

(34:28):
half to uh, thighs, to to, to meats.
And then if I'm doing a really largebrisket, I have an access entry here.
The meat probe that will go intothe meat and it will tell me
everything going on on my phone.
I can see all of that.
Pretty cool, pretty cool item.

Mike (34:46):
Don't have to keep your eye on it as much.

Bobby (34:48):
You do not, you do not.
Versus charcoal.
So charcoal is not as ease of use,but then the value added piece
of charcoal is its flavor, right?
So if you're wanting to go out there andhave a mixed drink, watch the Cowboys
on TV and uh, relax a little bit.
Maybe the charcoal grill from a big, biggreen egg as we saw earlier, might be

(35:12):
something would be value added for you.
So,

Mike (35:14):
so we talked about earlier, uh, smoke and a vent
hood and that type situation.
Right?
So this is gonna put outa similar amount of smoke.
It,

Bobby (35:22):
it is.
If we run an interior wall,you definitely want vent a hood
over this particular grill.
Okay.
That's correct.
Great, great question.

Mike (35:28):
Awesome.
Well thank you for the detail.
I bet.

BBQ Ends (35:31):
So I hope you enjoyed the barbecue bits that we just featured today,
and we'll have more coming up next week.
If there's something in particular thatyou're interested for, let us know and
we'll get back into the episode now.

Mike (35:45):
if I've got a structure that isn't built as well, the moisture's
going to get to the aggregates.
Faster.
And therefore the As SR probablyis going to show up faster than
a pool that's really well built.
But if it's well built, even you'resaying like five years, then the chances

(36:09):
are it's not gonna show up in the shell.
But the ones that are poorly built,it probably shows up quicker 'cause
they're more susceptible to cracksor steel ratio's not as good.
The shock Crete, it's not as dense.
Their waterproofing'sprobably not as good.
So those are all things thatwould help reduce the water

John (36:27):
And the reactivity, the relative reactivity of the aggregate
being the most important thing.
Yeah.
Okay.
But yeah, even well-built pools,if all the conditions are there
for a SR formation will in.
A fair likelihood developa SR at some point?
Will it take longer?
Yes, absolutely.
What some of the guys have been doingis mixing things, the waterproofing,

(36:48):
like X pex, mixing it, integrallywith the mixture so that the entire
cross section is waterproofed.
As I mentioned, the three thingsthe reactive, the high alkaline
cement, the reactive aggregateand water are the three.
That's the magic triangle tomake a SR form gel formation.
If you cut out any one ofthem, you stop the reaction.

(37:09):
You need the rocks and the cement.
Obviously, you can'ttake them out of the mix.
So what you go after is thewaters limit the water to get in.
If you could waterproof a poolperfectly, then yes You could eliminate
a SR. That's very hard to do though.
Even with good waterproofingagents, there's a certain
amount of porosity in a pool.
Yes.
Will it take longer to develop then?

(37:29):
Yes, absolutely.
But will it eventually developed?
There's a good likelihood.

Mike (37:34):
Okay so we're gonna buy a house.
We've checked out the history.
We know that we're past five years.
Okay.
We're not past five years.
We could core sample a pool to find out,but it's gonna take a long time, probably
more than my closing time in the houseto know, if that's possible or not.

(37:55):
Is there things that you can do to anexisting shell to limit the likelihood
of it or slow down this process?

John (38:06):
If you can apply a waterproofing agent, which that
would protect the inside shell.
Several of the majormanufacturers a mere coat.
Any one of, four or five othermanufacturers make coatings that
you can put on waterproof coatings,

Mike (38:19):
correct.

John (38:20):
That will slow it down from the inside, but if it's an inground pool,
it's still getting wet from the outside.
How do you stop that?
You you really can't, you can't dig upthe pool and waterproof the outside.
You can put things and I know MiraCoat, Lare, SITA, there's half a dozen
make this, there's a three part coatingwhere you put a waterproofing layer
on, then you put a flexible membranethat is a rubbery type of coating.

(38:44):
That's oh.
Usually a couple.
You put on a 30 mil layer, embed a fibermesh, reinforcing it, and put on another
30 mil layer and then put a pond coatover that so that the plaster will stick.
That will work over acertain amount of cracking.
There are some pools around here thatwith a SR that has been applied to
and five years later they're stillworking and they have not racked.

(39:08):
There's others that have beendone that way and within less
than a year they have racked.
So it depends on the severity of the aSR and how much reaction is occurring.
Another thing you can do is putsomething like a vinyl liner in the pool.
This does not cure a SR, but it willextend the useful lifetime of the pool.

(39:28):
If you're going to do something likethat, you want to get the thick vinyl,
not the thin vinyl, because thosecracks as things move, temperature and
all that, and middle ground movementexpansion, contraction around here, we
have a lot of expansive clay that'llmove the pool ever so slightly, but
it will, and it kinda braid the liner.
If you don't get the thicker linerthat will extend your lifetime.

(39:49):
It's cheaper than taking the pool outand replacing it, but it's not a cure.
I mean, Eventually at some pointyou're gonna get to where the concrete
has deteriorated quite a bit and theliner just, won't hold up anymore.
But maybe you get 10, 15 yearsof additional use out of it.
And that is worth it to a lot of people.
A lot of people can'tafford two 50 to $500,000.

(40:12):
And right now the insurance companies, alot of them are balking at paying on this.
They're trying to use the silicaexclusion to get out of payment.
Which is not what the silicaexclusion was intended to be.
It was after the World Trade Centers gottheir planes flown into 'em and collapsed
and all the concrete dust, and of courseconcrete has silica in it, in the sand,

(40:32):
got in all the air conditioning unitsup in the air and New York City, and
people started filing suit to get theirair conditioning systems cleaned out.
And the insurance company's going,we can't clean the whole city.
We don't have the funds for that.
So they started putting silicaexclusions into the insurance policies.
They were.
So whether on purpose or just notwell written, they are trying to apply

(40:56):
that to pools where the silica is allencased, encapsulated in solid concrete.
, It's not a pollutant, it'ssomething that's contained in
the material that you're using.
There has been, I understand inall the cases going around here.
One of the district, I think afederal judge or a district judge has
shot that down as a reason for theinsurance companies to deny coverage.

(41:20):
So that may make some of themmore prone to want to settle.
I have started to see somecases that are settling but
it is a slow, arduous process.
There's a multi-district litigationgoing on in Austin where all these
cases against one supplier have beenconsolidated into one defense case.

(41:40):
So you try the defense one timeand apply it to all the cases
rather than doing it 300 times.
That is still in court.
It has not been decided.
There have been someinterim rulings on it.
But it is still progressing.
And it could be another yearor two before it's settled.
These people have already beengoing through this several years.
So you're looking at, three, fouryears without the use of a pool,

(42:03):
unless you do something like a vitalliner or some sort of a coating.
Otherwise, if you try and use it, thepool leaks and your water bills go way
up, you start leaking into the ground.
If you've got expansive soil and you puta lot of water into it, you're gonna cause
shifting, maybe break pipes, there's a lotof downsides to just leaving it as it is.
Wow.
Some people are just taking and fillingit in and making a planter out of it.

Mike (42:25):
Yeah.
It's a sad story.
'Cause people have invested hundredsof thousands of dollars into creating
paradise, and now they've got,a train wreck in their backyard.

John (42:36):
Yeah.
And they have done nothing wrong.

Mike (42:37):
They've done nothing wrong.
The builder did nothing wrong.
in most cases.
But if you've got builders running aroundtoday that don't know what a SR is in your
particular area, then that's not good.
But and this

John (42:51):
is where it's so important to have the groups like Genesis and P
HT A and that are promoting educationon this stuff and getting it out.
Matter of fact, I should mention PHTA.
If you go to their website, pta.organd I have to be the chairman of the
As r committee there are a couple ofpublications on there that you don't have
to be a member that you can get on thereand it, there, it's a listing of the

(43:15):
different tests that you can apply whatto look for, what the time spans, a lot
of the things we've been talking about.
And there's one that is geared towardsconsumers which would be more like
somebody going out, getting ready to builda pool or to buy a house with a pool.
The other one is a little more technicallyoriented towards builders and it has a
more thorough description of the varioustests you can perform beforehand to

(43:39):
make sure that you're not gonna havethe problem and what components you
should add and how to determine that.
Okay.
But that one, you've gottabe a member to get to.

Mike (43:46):
Gotcha.
There's classes, I'm sure, the last coupleof times either at the International
Show or the Southwest show, there'sbeen classes on that as well to help.
Yeah,

John (43:57):
I've taught one of 'em Yeah.

Mike (43:58):
With additional education and be familiar with it.
And to me it's something,even if it's not in your area,
that you need to be aware of.
'cause a lot of times consumers getconfused about details about things,
and so it's helpful to help themunderstand what it is and what it isn't.
I've got a home now.

(44:21):
And I've got a pool that's gota SR and that's been determined.
So does someone reach out to an engineer?
Or who do they go to try to figureout the next steps that they
can go through in the process?

John (44:38):
You can go to an engineer, but you need to make sure it's an engineer
who's familiar with pool construction.
Okay.
I know some excellent engineerswho can build you a five story
building in their sleep thatyou'll never have a problem with.
Same engineers cannotbuild you a good pool.
Sure.
It's a different niche in the market.

Mike (44:54):
A hundred percent.

John (44:55):
One of the things you can do is go to phd.org and they will connect you with
people in the area who are P HT A members.
Hopefully as good members, theyhave contin, you're required to
take continuing education, and theyhave kept up with this subject.
I know in the central Texas chapterevery time we have a meeting,

(45:15):
which used to be monthly, but afterCOVID it's going back to quarterly.
And then in the interim we put outnewsletters on the alternate months.
Every one of those, I put outa piece on some form of pool
construction code requirements.
A lot of that lately has dealt witha SR in the last couple of years.
So they have been well educated,other, and I've gone to Dallas and

(45:37):
a couple of other areas and spoketo their chapters on the same thing.
in Texas, the word is being put out.
And PHTA is well aware of it, and thatis a good source of information to go to.
You don't have to be a member toget a lot of this information.
You can just as, public, you can go in andaccess quite a bit of information on this.

(45:59):
There's several webcasts.
The pages I mentioned are frequentlya FAQ, frequently asked question
pages and some other typesof information there as well.

Mike (46:09):
there's been several articles also in trade journals that if you actually do
a Google search, you can find those forhomeowners on a SR and swimming pools.
So actually you were quoted quite a bitin I think both the articles that I read.
One here recently andone several years ago.
But that's a nice choice.

(46:29):
Yeah.
There's,

John (46:30):
there's, there was one even put out in Texas monthly that dealt with this.
Yeah.

Mike (46:34):
it's something that I think if you're in the Austin area, you definitely
want to be aware of and be familiar with,but in other areas it doesn't hurt to
ask your contractor if they, how theycan handle and deal with making sure
that you don't have an a SR situation.

John (46:52):
Absolutely.

Mike (46:53):
Okay.
Other thoughts or tips that youwould have for someone that's
looking at this situation?

John (47:00):
one of the things, for anybody considering building a
pool can be built well safely and.
For all practicality, a SR free.
It just requires a little education andon your part as the pool owner and making
sure that your contractor is educated.
As I mentioned, there's no licensingrequirement in Texas, which is

(47:20):
a shame, but you need to makesure that your contractor is well
aware of what he's dealing with.
Another thing I deal with in alot of my I call 'em tech talks.
They're the shorter versions of alonger seminar is proper construction.
What's the right amount of steel.
You'll see, and I even mostengineers will quote they quote
a STM three 18 and the amount of0.2% for shrinkage and temperature

(47:47):
reinforcement, crack prevention.
That's fine for in a house whereyou're gonna cover it with a wood floor
vinyl carpet or something like that.
You take me to any 10 houses in townthat you selected, I'll, you pull up the
flooring and I'll find cracks on the floor

Mike (47:59):
all the time.

John (47:59):
That's not good for a pool.
For a pool, you really wantmore in the 0.5%, 0.6% range.
Also, if once, what I've seen moreoften than I would like to admit is
contractors who are well intentionedand they put a thicker wall there,
like a 12 inch thick wall thinking I'mgiving them a thicker, stronger wall.

(48:20):
This is a better pool.
Yes and no.
The problem is that as you put moreconcrete, you need more reinforcing to
counteract that shrinkage as it cures.
If you don't do that, you're going to getshrinkage cracks, and that steel needs to
be within about three to four inches ofthe surface that it's trying to protect.
Well, If you've got a 12 inch wall witha layer in the center, that closest

(48:43):
steel is about six inches away fromwhatever surface it's trying to protect.

Mike (48:48):
Yeah.

John (48:48):
Assuming it's in the middle.
It doesn't work.

Mike (48:50):
Yeah.

John (48:51):
And you're gonna get cracks and that's going to accelerate a SR

Mike (48:54):
you need a double mat of steel in the, anything

John (48:56):
over 10 inches should have 10 inches and over should have two mats of steel.
Right?
Absolutely.

Mike (49:02):
Yeah.
And that's always tricky toowhen you're shooting that you
don't get, voids that process.
And that's where your nozzlemen's a key factor in how all
that works and everything.
That's right.
Yeah, I would say that when you dealwith investment of this level, you
want to deal with people that areprofessionals and they know what

(49:24):
they're doing and they understandwhat they're doing and they know the
procedures that they have to go through.
The chance of you getting a gooddeal by dealing with somebody that's
new or inexperienced is not a wiseinvestment in most cases unless
they can prove otherwise anyway.
But that's just my 2 cents worth.

John (49:45):
And part of what added the problem then was when COVID came along,
rather than people traveling and takingvacations, they went we'll take that
vacation money, we'll build a pool andwe'll stay at home and have a staycation.

Mike (49:56):
The demands skyrocket.
Had

John (49:57):
people coming out of the woodwork try who all of a sudden had a pickup
truck and we're a pool builder.
How hard can it be to dig a hole inthe ground and put some concrete in it?
Yeah there's a lot more to it than that.
And that led to a lot of cases.
I think just in Austin, they wereissuing something on the order
of 3000 pool permits a year.
That doesn't includethe surrounding towns.

(50:18):
Round rock, butta, everything that wentLiberty Hill all around Cedar Park.
Didn't include those.
You look at the total number ofpools that were built between
about 2018 and, 2022 or so.
You could be looking at 20 to 30,000pools easily that could potentially
have the problem of a SR in them.

(50:39):
Of course not all of them are goingto, but that's your statistical pool
that you're starting to deal with.

Mike (50:44):
And your qualified subcontractor base didn't increase
at all during that time period.
No.
And so there were all kinds of people thatwere flying by the seat of their pants.
'cause I did something like this andnow I'm gonna go do a swimming pool.
So yeah, we're dealing with thoseramifications already today, which is

(51:04):
sad to see so many structural failures.
Yeah.
Which have nothing to do with a SR.
Just very poorly built vessels thatare having to be totally redone.
but luckily I designed new pools.
I don't have to deal with all theremodels although some cases we
blow them up and start over, sothat's the easiest thing Okay.

(51:25):
Very good.
one of the things is we have a sectionin the podcast that's called True Crime.
So is there something you wouldsay for a homeowner today that if
they didn't do this, it would bea true crime for that to happen?

John (51:41):
The main thing would be educating yourself about pool construction.
I mean, This is probably goingto be the second largest.
Investment you haveright behind your house.
Even your car is likely, unlessyou got a pretty fancy car, is not
going to cost as much as the pool.
So you need to do a little education onyour own and learn about some of this.

(52:04):
when you go to buy a house, youcall a house inspector to come
look at it and go through thehouse and find out what's wrong.
There are some inspectors that canlook at pools, but you need to be
very, careful of who you get on that.
But you're basically doing, unlessyou're gonna go into full testing, you're
doing a visual inspection and there'sonly so much you can tell on that.
That's for a already built pool.

(52:25):
If you're getting ready to build one,go to things like PHTA, ask around,
get some information and find outwhat the proper way to build it is.
There's people at PHTA you can contact.
Find builders that are educated.
Don't talk to just one, talk to several.
You can google a lot of this stuff too.
It's not as readilyavailable in a concise form.

(52:47):
I've spent a lot of hours on theinternet going through articles and
things, but they are there and willtell you about, what it is, why
it forms, and how to prevent it.
So the biggest thing is not preparingyourself doesn't mean you're a bad person.
It just means you should do somepreparation because others are not always
looking out for your best interest.

Mike (53:09):
This is true and just about everything.
But yeah, there's a lot of people thatdon't know what they're doing and as you
do your investigation, you're gonna be thesafest with those that do do some research
on it and work with educated people.
So how did you get involvedin the swimming pool industry?
I'm just curious as an engineer.

(53:30):
Uh,

John (53:31):
Oh gosh.
I've been doing this for 35 yearsor so, somewhere in that range.
Started out and had some people hadsome pool problems and my background
is architectural engineering with astructures major and looking at the
pools and finding out why there werecracks in 'em, they'd have a problem or
it had settled a lot of it around here.
We've got a lot of expansiveclay and differential moisture.

(53:53):
C creates movement problems over time.
Got more and more into itand, started designing them.
As a matter of fact, one of the buildersI know was doing some pools and asked
me to design several pools for him.
So did some research intowhat needed to be done.
And, knock on wood, we've not hadany callback issues on our pools.
I will admit that I tend to be a littlemore conservative probably than some.

(54:17):
When you get to the west side of townwhere there's clay, I will not design a
pool with less than double Matt Steel.
Just because you get such anincrease in structural strength.
my phrase is it's the cheapest insuranceyou can ever buy for that pool.
And it goes a long ways towardsmaking the pool much more structurally
sound and preventing problems.

(54:38):
you know, That's just part of mine.
I do a lot of concrete design anyway, andit was a natural following into that with
architectural engineering that encompassesengineering of the building industry.
So I do electrical, not electronics,but electrical like distribution for
houses, branch circuits and panelsand things, plumbing structure.

(54:58):
Air conditioning, which reallydidn't apply to pools, but it
was a natural flow into that.
'cause several of thosecategories go right into it.

Mike (55:05):
Yeah.
Awesome.
Trey's not here, but Trey has somestandard questions that he asks, so we
get to know people better over time.
Okay.
So, I'll ask Trey's questionsfor him since he's not here.
So he wants to know what your favoritebook is, your favorite meal is and movie.
and then I always want to knowwhere your favorite place to go is.

John (55:26):
well,
You can put me on the spot here.
Favorite books?
I am a Clive Cussler fan.

Mike (55:31):
Ah,

John (55:32):
Sahara is one of the good ones, but any of the Clive Cussler books I love.
Let's see, what were the other ones?
Favorite food?

Mike (55:37):
Yes, sir.

John (55:38):
My wife is going to tell you that it is shrimp Enchiladas.
Anytime we go to Mexican food thateither that or a chili eno is the
first thing I order that kind ofsets the standard as to whether we're
coming back to that restaurant or not.

Mike (55:51):
Okay.

John (55:52):
movies.
Lemme come back to that onein a second thing about it.
I'm just drawing a blank right now, but,

Mike (55:56):
and then your favorite place to travel?

John (55:58):
To travel.
I will say Sweden.
I was originally born in Swedenand I have a brother over there
and we were over a couple of summeragos to visit him for a month.
Beautiful country.
I was adopted.
My mother is Swedish andmy father was American.
so we would go back when I was younger,she would visit her father who still lived
there for several weeks in the summer.

(56:19):
Had a little cottage.
On the side of my adopteduncle's dairy farm.
So as a kid, I would get to go workon the dairy farm, help milk the
cows, drive the tractors, stuff likethat, which I just thought was great.
And the country is gorgeous, very clean.
The people are very nice.
When we went back over there acouple of years ago and spent a
month just had a wonderful time.

(56:40):
It is a great place to go visit.
Would highly recommend it.
Stockholm is a wonderful city to go see.
Lots of things to do there.
They've got the old vasaworship, which was the pride of
the king's fleet back in 1628.
And back then you didn't havefull plans to build a ship.
You had boat rights.

(57:00):
The problem was that they got aDutch and a Swedish boat, right?
And they built their boatsslightly differently.
So the boat got built a littletoo narrow and a little too tall.
On the maiden voyage out intothe harbor out in Stockholm.
There, they opened the lower gunportsto do a cannon salute to the king.

(57:20):
A gust of wind came healed.
The ship over water came in and it sankless than a mile into its maiden voyage.
Now the advantage of the Baltic over thereis that the salinity is such that the wood
boars do not live and attack the wood.
So they were able to find the ship.
They knew where it was.
And back in 19, I'm gonna say it wasthe late sixties, mid late sixties,

(57:46):
they were able to raise the shipintact, which is the first time they
had done this to any ship this size.
'cause it's an enormous ship.
And they pulled it into a slip, whichis now the museum then built the
museum around it, drained the slip,had to preserve the wood carefully
over several years, moistenedit and put preservatives in it.
And it's now on display.
And when this last time we wentand were able to see it, I had seen

(58:09):
it before, just after like withina year after they had raised it.
And the wood was all very darkblack and, not that attractive.
Now you can see all the carving onthe the, what do you call the back?
The fan tail of the boat isjust immaculately impressive.
it represents different stories.
And of course this was the king'sflagship and the Swedes back then

(58:31):
were pretty much the domineeringforce of Northwestern Europe.
And this was a statement to people,you don't mess with the king
because this is what we've got.
Needless to say, when it wentunder, before it had reached a
mile out, he was not pleased.
And I think several book rightsdid not fare so well after that.

Mike (58:49):
Oh, I can imagine.
Wow.
cool.
Favorite movie

John (58:52):
movies?
Oh, some of the MissionImpossible ones are great.
I like those.
Let's see.
There was one I had onthe tip of my tongue.
What was it?
I like the action adventure movies

Mike (59:02):
that it goes with the books you read.
Understand.
I greatly appreciate you being onso if someone has some questions and
wanted to reach out to you, is therea good way to communicate with you?

John (59:14):
Yeah, they can email me at john@mibuildings.com and it's JOHN.
And I will be happy to answer them.
It may take me a day or two depending ona lot of times I'm out of the office for
several days at a time, but if they'repatient, I will get back and answer them.

Mike (59:33):
Awesome.
Again, we greatly appreciateyou for sharing today.
'Cause it's a topic of high interestto a lot of people and it helps people
understand what it is and what it isn'tand whether they need to have a concern
about it which is always important forus to help people understand what's
best for them to do in their backyard.

John (59:54):
Absolutely.

Mike (59:55):
Okay you have an awesome day, sir. We will talk with you soon.
Will you be in Vegas?
at the International Show?

John (01:00:00):
I don't know if I will make that or not.
I will probably be at the Dallas showand certainly at the San Antonio show.

Mike (01:00:06):
Okay.

John (01:00:07):
Matter of fact I'm teaching the three day pool construction course
for Genesis there in San Antonio.

Mike (01:00:12):
Okay.

John (01:00:13):
In February.

Mike (01:00:14):
I will definitely see you there, so We'll Alright.
Talk to you sometime later.

John (01:00:20):
Okay, sounds good.
I enjoyed it.
Take care.

Outro (01:00:23):
This show is all about helping you become a better buyer, a better pool
owner, and hopefully you're gonna findsome insights into how to enjoy your pool
even more so how to help your friends,your family, anybody looking to buy a
pool in the future or that want to remodeltheir backyard, add an outdoor fireplace,
fire pit, add an outdoor kitchen area, addsome shade cells, or whatever else it is.

(01:00:46):
We wanna be that resource for you, andthat's the end goal here, and we promise.
That there's gonna bea ton of information.
We'll try to go through it, youknow, as relatively quickly, but
also slow so people can understand.
But the intent of the show, thereason Mike and I are doing this
is because we just got a lot inour heads and we wanna share it.
So we hope to see youhere every single week.
Thanks for listening.

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Ep 098 ASR - Concrete Cancer in Swimming Pools

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep 098 ASR - Concrete Cancer in Swimming Pools