Article Published in the Paint Square Magazine December 1, 2021: In its fifth year, Technology Publishing Co.’s commercial honors program, The Elevation Awards, expanded its reach by partnering with the Commercial Painting Industry Association. As a result of the partnership, the Elevation Awards received the most competitive nominations that the judges had ever seen.

In recognizing the very best work in commercial painting, in addition to the people behind the coating jobs—the architects, painting contractors, interior designers, decorative artisans, manufacturers and suppliers—the annual competition continues to raise the bar for industry excellence.

Assessed by our panel of painting experts, the following project was awarded in the program’s “Exteriors, Commercial + Public Buildings” category:

Bellefontaine Neighbors Community Center Outdoor Pool

When officials from the Bellefontaine Neighbors Community Center in St. Louis decided that its outdoor pool needed an upgrade, they hired local painting contractor Bazan Painting for the job. According to Bazan, the existing surface of the pool was PebbleTec plaster and had begun to show signs of delamination and chip ups throughout the majority of the pool.

In restoring the structure, Bazan started by first identifying hollow areas in the pool and demolition of the failing plasters. This was followed by demolition with jackhammers and various demolition tools and hammers. Once the existing pool surface was removed, Bazan crews squared up the areas using a concrete saw so that proper repairs could be made to the mortar.

The product of choice to make these repairs was Tnemec 217 Mortarcrete, which required 160 kits to fill in all of the voids in the pool surface. After filling all of the voids, extensive grinding of the patched surfaces was required to smooth out these areas prior to coatings applications.

The pool was coated with three coats of Tnemec 161 Tneme-Fascure epoxy.

Bazan crews reported that one challenge in the project was that not all of the PebbleTec surface was able to be removed, which meant that the texture of the patched areas and the existing PebbleTec were significantly different. To solve this issue, the team broadcasted washed silica sand into the coating so that the texture would blend more naturally and hide the extensive patching that was required.

This process was done to the entire shallow area of the competition side of the pool.

Another challenge faced by the team were the existing expansion joints in the pool. Because most of the PebbleTec was failing at these areas, the expansion joints had to be completely recut and then filled with a Sika Duoflex NS polysulfide sealant.

On these issues, 2021 Elevation Awards Judge Kenneth A. Trimber, PCS, Former President of KTA-Tator Inc. said, “Not a large project, but interesting discussion of the challenges faced with repair of plaster in the pool, matching texture and recutting expansions.”