Folks, I'm going to tell you EXACTLY why the Reflecting Pool paint job is failing

[jmowreader]

I have dealt with coating systems for a long time. I sold them. I recommend specific ones to my company. I've applied quite a few of them.

As the nation is well aware, King Donald Trump had the inside of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool painted blue. The contractor chose an exceptionally good product called Rhino Linings PipeLiner 5000 11-70 PW to do the job. It's a two-part polyurea/polyurethane hybrid made specifically for long-term water immersion. It seals cracks and maintains its strength and flexibility over the long term. This coating is strong enough that if you were to get a big Teflon sheet, build up a layer of 11-70 PW that's about a quarter-inch thick, and peel off the Teflon sheet you could turn it into a hammock for Donald Trump that he wouldn't fall through.

Here's where they went wrong: In a rush to get the job done before Trump's birthday, they drained the Reflecting Pool, let the surface dry, recaulked all the expansion joints and laid down the 11-70PW immediately. Concrete absorbs water like a sponge. All the water that's soaked into the concrete pool walls and floor is coming back out and blowing off the 11-70PW. The hydrogen peroxide everyone keeps talking about? Unless they're dumping rocketry-grade high-test peroxide in the pool, it won't damage the finish. If they really are pouring high-test peroxide in a swimming pool the crew is in more danger than the paint job.

[Ocelot II]

1. So how long should they have waited for the concrete to dry

before applying the paint? Or was it even possible, considering that there would always be rain and humidity and maybe leakage from groundwater? Would there have been a way to seal the concrete before painting it?

[jmowreader]

3. The walls are probably six inches thick

If I HAD to do this job I'd drain the pool in early spring, set up a canopy over it to keep the rain out, then come back at the end of September to apply the coating.

Actual swimming pool paint is permeable to moisture, so you can apply it after a couple weeks of the pool being emptied. The tradeoff is actual swimming pool paint only lasts a few years, and Trump wouldn't have wanted that.

A system that would have worked really well is ceramic tile. The mortars used to lay ceramic tile cure by reacting with water, so the more water you have the better it likes it. The tradeoff is laying tile takes a really long time and the price of tiling something that big would have made some of Trump's other money-pit fuckups look absolutely cost effective.

[Resistance1]

4. A bigger question

Since they got $14 million to do the job, why didn't they know that if they are the pool experts.

[lame54]

5. Because no one challenges Trump...

They just forge ahead even though they know it's wrong

[vanlassie]

6. And now the poor schmucks probably won't get paid and

will be sued into bankruptcy.

[Maru Kitteh]

16. Don't feel bad. It's this guy

Link to tweet

He’s a Trump donor and fellow felon/swamp creature/Mara-guano neighbor.

[Resistance1]

18. The dyed hair, the cigar, paid escort and outfit just scream

SLEEZE BALL!!

[Maru Kitteh]

20. It's the circa 1990's Rush Deadballs look.

[jmowreader]

31. The fifty-dollar suit doesn't help matters any

[louis-t]

26. That's the second worst toupee I've ever seen.

[jmowreader]

30. I gotta ask

How many cigar smokers do you know who stick the band in their mouth?

[COL Mustard]

8. I believe the appropriate acronym here is...

TOFU. Trump Only Fucks Up.

[jmowreader]

10. They may very well have told Trump his timeline was unrealistic

Only to get the response "Do it anyway!"

[canetoad]

2. Thank you

Makes sense.

[BigmanPigman]

7. The "builder" is a "destroyer".

He is incredibly cheep, in a hurry, and knows more about everything and anything than every living person on earth. What could go wrong?!?

Make him pay to fix it back to how it WAS...he's grifted enough $$$$$$ in the past year alone to be able to pay back everything he has stolen from taxpayers.....I want my tariff refund, I want my health insur refund, I refuse to pay for HIS mistakes. He and his gross family are raking it in hand over fist....we should not have to pay a single red cent to put EVERYTHING back to how it was before 2016 when team/family tRump raped our country and continues to bleed it dry.

[videohead5]

9. This will now have to be fixed

The pool will have to be drained, and the paint stripped and cleaned up. More of our tax dollars.

[SunSeeker]

11. K & R

[PCIntern]

12. All this science stuff...ridiculous.

The MAGA’s were praying real hard for this to work. That should have “done the trick” but for some reason God has rejected this because of His Plan.

Just because you’re experienced and academically and scientifically competent is no reason to think that you’re correct. This is God’s Will.

just in case…

[choie]

13. I'll add on another reason

Everything trump touches dies.

[Ocelot II]

17. Everything Trump touches dies - except algae, covid, flu and ebola.

[Hugin]

14. Some questions for you...

When such coatings are used, beside a cured surface are any primers used below the coatings? Also, are the coatings typically applied to a smooth concrete surface?

I may be off based, but I recall that the bottom of the former reflecting pool is a porous cut stone. I don’t even know if the seams are mortared and if so with what. I doubt that if they are it’s nothing even remotely modern.

No surprise that it is peeling worse than a ‘75 AMC Pacer.

[jmowreader]

21. Primers are used. The concrete doesn't have to be smooth.

The product they used is designed to be sprayed, so there's no worries about your applicator not following the surface closely enough.

[edhopper]

15. Thanks for your expertise

But it sounds like this is made for nonporous material like water pipes and water tanks. Concrete, as you say, is porous. And it is obvious this job was done to quickly without the proper preparation of the surface.
Do you know if this is used for regular pool surfaces?

[jmowreader]

22. It's too expensive to use for "regular pool surfaces"

There are three kinds of swimming pool paint: epoxy, synthetic rubber and water-based acrylic. All of them are cheaper than polyurethane.

This is made for concrete water pipes and concrete water tanks - not fiberglass, PVC or what have you. "They make concrete water pipes?" Yes they do. It's used to make porous pipe and porous containers non-porous.

[edhopper]

23. So the application

was f*^ked up.

[jmowreader]

24. That's one way to put it

Another way to put it is "the customer was fucked up and didn't allow the contractor to do the job properly."

[edhopper]

25. From what I read about the contractor

They weren't qualified.

[ProfessorGAC]

19. Completely Agree

One add: if the concrete still has unbound water & the sealant goes over it, any increase in temperature will shift the vapor/liquid equilibrium to more vapor, less liquid.
That comes, obviously, with an increase in vapor pressure which would cause spalling of the coating.

[louis-t]

27. It's all about the prep.

I'm actually shocked that he went with a very expensive, tough finish. What I'm not surprised about is that the job wasn't done right at his direction.

[jmowreader]

29. The very expensive, tough finish would have made a lot of sense if Trump wasn't involved

Because the Pool wasn't built on solid ground, it has developed a lot of cracks during its life. This causes it to leak like a sieve.

The proper way to fix this would have been to tear out the Reflecting Pool, dig down to bedrock, and completely rebuild it on a solid foundation. This would take several years, cost more than Trump's ballroom and screw up the tourism industry in DC until it was finished.

If properly applied to dry concrete with suitable water barriers between the coating system and the concrete, this coating would have sealed the cracks and made the Pool hold water for the first time in its life. You know the commercial where the guy makes a boat hull out of window screen painted with Flex Seal and the boat floats? This product is like the platonic ideal of FlexSeal.

If you've got the most brainless president in American history screaming "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" and demanding the pool be blue and full of water for his birthday party...you get what we got.

[3catwoman3]

28. Interesting. Thnx. I have often said that DU is very educational.

No matter how esoteric a subject, someone on DU has expertise in it. Gotta love it -

[LeftInTX]

32. An article in the Atlantic stated that algae is made worse by a dark color due to heat absorption.

[legallyblondeNYC]

33. Question: Does the algae smell bad? n/t