In Ground Deck Issues

[germaneighter]

Hi there from just north of Tulsa. I have an in-ground gunite pool about 30 years old. It has a cantilevered deck (I hope that is the correct terminology for a deck and coping all done with one pour....) It is a "Lazy L" design with about 3' of walkway deck all around with one end extending about 10' for laying out or whatever.

The deck has cracked (about 1/2" wide crack) pretty consistently around the perimeter, about 12" from the coping edge, with the exception of a couple places.

My initial thought was to bust up the deck and coping and do another cantilever pour after back-filling and compacting the soil. I had a return water line leak that I needed to repair so while I had excavated I decided to bust out a small section of the walkway deck to get a good idea of what it would take to remove the coping from the bond beam (correct term for top of the pool wall???). There was rebar that ran parallel to the pool through the deck but there did not seem to be any bar running perpendicular through both the coping and deck. After removing the small deck section I could see the coping and how it sat on the pool wall. As suspected the crack was right in line with the width of the pool wall. But the coping seems "bonded" to the bond beam - no pun intended.

I'm hesitant to try demolition on this small section of coping to try to remove it from the bond beam. Now I am having second thoughts about replacing the coping. I am thinking about renting a masonry saw and cutting a "clean" edge just inside of where the crack is now - leaving the coping there and pouring a deck up to the coping utilizing an expansion joint. But I am also worried the coping remnant will eventually come loose from the bond beam. I would also have to repair/patch a few sections of the coping.

Any ideas?

I have photos but I'm not sure how to attach.....

[germaneighter]

Just bumping this up to try to get some action. I was told this is the forum for good advise on structural issues.