HELP! New Gunite project has a "cold joint".

Hello,

I am having a 20x40 gunite installed. They "shot" it last week on the hottest day of the year. They started shooting the deep end walls at 7 am, around 2:30 they ran short of shotcrete mix and called for a final 4 yards, it took a couple of hours for the final concrete truck to come, and I noticed that as they trialed the bottom of the deep end, the guys boots were only sinking 3", this was at 5:30 pm, basically in the deep end area where the end of the job meets where they started. PB said dont worry, but I ended up with my boots on in the hole. I stuck the area of concern with a stick, 3-4" wet.

My PB got in with a shovel and started digging down, we hit hard concrete. I can measure at the hole for the hydrostatic valve and tell I have about 11" of in the bottom. Earlier in the the "pour", we had a deep end wall slide out and lay a lot of concrete in the bottom, that helped facilitate the problem, because the concrete that ended up in the bottom earlier in the day, is what set up. I know I have a cold joint at about 3.5" down, on top of another 7-8" of bonded concrete, in the very bottom of the deep end. Whether it all bonded I dont know. Very concerned about moving forward without being sure this wont be a problem in the future.

What should I do? Thanks in advance!

You'd be better off posting on poolspaforum.com. There are a lot of pool guys there.

However, some caution -- the concrete pool guys I know aren't literate enough to enjoy participating in a forum. It's a pretty rough job. That may not hold true everywhere, but I think it's pretty common. So odds are you'll end up talking to someone who may know guys who shoot gunite, but who hasn't ever held a nozzle himself.

A better bet might be to ID another concrete guy in your area, and pay him to take a look.

Good luck!

Thank You!