Thanks for the reply. I can tell you without even testing the coping that it absorbs water immediately. Sometimes I wash the coping with a hose to remove dirt etc... and the water is absorbed right away. We have a pool builder in the area that sent letters to customers stating not to use their SWCG. He had a tremendous amount of coping failures. Someone said he used cheap stone or a "second cut" of stone. I don't buy the second cut line, but porous stone I can see doing that. How do you seal coping by the way. Since my CYA is over 100, I have to keep the chloirne levels about 8 to keep the algea at bay. It grows really fast here. I average 90 degrees in the summer. I know I should lower the CYA levels to keep less chlorine levels, but just haven't done that yet. I am not yet convinced I can get away with a SWCG, since I see the mineral deposits from the pool water leaching into the coping without any splash water. I saw somewhere on the forum something about a pool sealent that is put into the water and it seals the pool, plaster, tile grout, miny holes etc... any thought on that as well.
Rick