ASR, or “concrete cancer,” is a pool construction defect potentially impacting thousands of families while putting pool builders and subcontractors out of business.
AUSTIN, Texas — Alkali-silica reaction, or ASR – becoming known as"concrete cancer" – is a hidden defect in concrete mixtures that can make swimming pools unusable. ASR could be present in thousands of pools built in Central Texas since 2017. Finding out if your pool or jacuzzi is impacted can be stressful and expensive.
Now there's no ignoring the issue. Every yellow chalk line represents a fracture in the pool that civil engineer Don Spradling, owner of Spradling Engineering, and his team found. Records show McGuire filed a certificate of termination with the Secretary of State's Office in October of last year. ASR happens when concrete is not mixed properly and lacks fly ash. Water makes the concrete expand and crack and, in most cases, the only way to fix it is to demolish and completely rebuild – at double or even triple the original cost of construction.
Spradling performed a petrographic examination, which he said runs from $7,000 to $10,000, depending on how many samples are needed. He said to do the test, you need a minimum of two samples. Spradling said it used to take two to three weeks to get core sample test results back, but right now, it's taking labs two to three months because of the demand. In the Eberts' situation, they will still be able to use their pool after testing, but that isn't always the case.
"There's enough moisture on the exterior of the pool, coming from some of the features, that it's causing the concrete to stay saturated and to cause that ASR process to occur," Spradling said. "I mean, we took out a home equity loan to pay," Elizabeth Ebert said."We're still paying for this. We're going to be paying for it until 2030. You know, maintenance for it, increased insurance costs for it."
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