By Jeremy Heersink
As one approaches the Montana and Saskatchewan borders, one will find the Town of Bow Island, Alta., named after a small island at the confluence of the Bow and Oldman rivers. Located about three hours southeast of Calgary, Alta., with just more than 2,000 residents, the outdoor community swimming pool plays a central role in the town’s life during summer.
Unfortunately, the operations team at the Bow Island Community swimming pool was stuck in a cycle of constant repair, year after year, having to sandblast and re-paint the pool before the start of each summer.
The winters in this town experience temperatures below freezing for extended periods, causing freeze-thaw conditions that damaged the pool’s interior structurally and on its painted surface.
Rather than continue to repair the pool, Ruben Cuevas, owner of RECA Vinyl Works based in Whitby, Ont., was able to offer the community a long-term renovation solution that would fix the problems and give the pool a facelift using a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) membrane to cover every inch of the pool’s interior—from the lap pool to the beach entry play pool.
The pool
Swimmers on Bow Island enjoy the large areas of the pool for both exercise and splash play. The pool has a 25-m (82-ft) lap pool with a diving deep end and a connected beach-entry splash play area complete with a disability ramp. This outdoor pool had been painted using traditional epoxy paint for many years. Unfortunately, having many layers of paint applied over many seasons combined with the region’s hard winter conditions, the paint cracked, peeled, and spalt. Preparing the pool surface every season to repaint was a huge undertaking—being both costly and time-consuming. With the summer season being short in this area of the country, the time it took to prepare the pool affected the opening date once the warm summer weather arrived.
Repair and renovation
The operations and maintenance team at Bow Island’s swimming pool felt trapped in an expensive and time-consuming cycle of having to sandblast and re-paint the pool before opening to the public every summer.
“When I spoke to the facility’s team, they explained they were frustrated by the constant need to repair the pool before opening every summer,” explained Cuevas. “Surface patches are often not long-term solutions. There may be underlying issues with the pool structure that are eliminated using a PVC membrane to create a completely watertight structure throughout the pool.”
The community elected to use a PVC membrane based on its long-life expectancy, low maintenance, and 100 per cent watertight guarantee.
“We were receiving complaints from users who found paint flakes floating in the water,” says Ben Hirsekorn, parks and recreation assistant manager for Bow Island and its community pool. “The foundation was lifting, peeling, and cracking, and these issues made it difficult to clean and vacuum the surface, which affected our ability to keep the pool water chemistry in balance.”
Hirsekorn says that after calculating the expense of yearly replastering, painting, and repair and the costs associated with water loss and chemicals needed to keep the [pool] water balanced, the team found renovating with a PVC membrane quite reasonable.
“In addition to the practical benefits of the PVC membrane, including the fact that it made the pool completely watertight, we also liked its look and feel,” says Hirsekorn.
The PVC membrane solved the maintenance issues caused by the deteriorating epoxy and rough, crumbling concrete, significantly enhancing the pool’s appearance.
Problem solver
Awareness of PVC membranes is rising, as is their popularity among commercial aquatic facilities. Cuevas has been installing them regularly for more than 10 years and is getting more requests from commercial aquatic facilities, health clubs, and hotel pools. As a result, pool professionals such as Cuevas find it even easier to suggest, sell, and install the PVC membrane.
“We find many facility managers and owners are looking for a way to stop having to resurface, replaster, and repaint every year—making it the perfect opportunity to suggest a PVC membrane that will give clients a clean, new-looking pool without the expense, inconvenience, or mess of replastering or repainting,” says Cuevas. “In this case, we used a 60 mil, light-blue, PVC membrane. The racing lanes and other safety and depth markers were done in a 60-mil black PVC membrane.”
Hirsekorn says he was glad to learn about the PVC membrane solution, saying: “When we discovered that this thick PVC membrane had a long life, we were excited about the prospect of no longer having to deal with painting and repair every year before the start of summer to open the pool.”
Hirsekorn also mentioned that his team has already enjoyed the benefits of the PVC membrane in this first season.
“We put a robotic cleaner in the pool every night to clean the floors and walls. But before we installed the PVC membrane, the robot couldn’t clean effectively with all the bumps and peeling epoxy. The dirt would get stuck in the concrete crevices and the peeling epoxy. Now the robot can quickly cover all the pool surfaces, which are now smooth, and the surfaces are much cleaner as a result.”
Keeping pool water chemistry in balance is incredibly important for commercial facility managers for the health and safety of patrons. However, painted pools with peeling paint make pool water maintenance difficult. Deteriorated plaster surfaces on pools can cause calcium to leach out of the substrate, especially as the surface becomes rougher over the years. The rough surfaces also allow more dirt to collect in the pool, thus requiring more chemicals to keep the water clean and clear.
As commercial aquatic facilities review their facility maintenance costs, many operations managers and owners are looking for a way to stop having to resurface, replaster, and re-paint every year. This is an ideal time to propose a PVC membrane, which offers a fresh, clean appearance without the repeated costs and hassle of yearly resurfacing or painting while also avoiding the challenges posed by weather conditions.
PVC membranes offer an efficient and long-lasting alternative for commercial pools facing ongoing repair needs. Refinishing plaster pools can be costly, and the pools could still leak, so many pool professionals recommend using PVC membrane as a complete waterproofing solution. Price is always a consideration; however, most commercial aquatic facilities find the price of the PVC membrane very affordable compared to the cost of resurfacing, replastering, and repainting the same pool every year over 15 to 20 years.
“It’s important for facility managers to consider the costs of having to structurally repair their pools year after year versus the cost of installing a PVC membrane,” says Cuevas. “Temporary surface repairs do not provide lasting solutions, and underlying structural issues can persist. A PVC membrane addresses these problems by ensuring the pool is fully waterproofed.”
Prepping and lining the pool surface
After applying a felt underlay, the PVC rolls are brought in. The PVC membrane is then rolled out and positioned within the pool. The material is essentially tailored to the pool on-site. Once the pieces are measured, cut, and positioned, a tack weld or pre-weld is used to hold them in place. Using a heat gun, each seam is heat welded on-site by melting the seams together.
A sealer was applied along the seam edges to add another waterproofing measure to ensure water would not seep into the material’s scrim over time. This procedure also rounds out the seams and adds an extra waterproofing layer to the liner at critical areas.
In addition to the base blue material, the racing lanes and other pool markings were welded using a black PVC material. This material is placed on top of the first PVC membrane layer (blue) to ensure proper location, style, and size during installation.
The results
In addition to drastically improving the pool’s visual esthetics, Hirsekorn and his team also report that it is much easier to clean, maintain, and control the pool water’s chemistry.
“The felt backing smoothed out the surface of the pool so that now a robotic cleaner can do a comprehensive job of cleaning the pool bottom at night, which wasn’t the case before the PVC membrane installation because the robotic cleaner couldn’t get into the divots and crevices that were present throughout the pool floor,” says Hirsekorn. “It is also much easier to clean the grime off the walls of the PVC membrane—the grime and algae stuck to the previous epoxy surface. Even the lifeguards and staff comment on how the pool surface is so much easier to wipe down and clean.”
As a thank you to the community, Cuevas arranged for Hub Aquatics to provide a special water feature in the pool, where there had previously only been a pipe that shot water.
“I arranged to have Hub Aquatics create a water feature that replicates an 18-ft [5.5-m] tall statue of ‘Pinto MacBean,’ who sits on the main highway and welcomes everyone coming into the town,” says Cuevas.
“Swimmers love our new ‘Pinto MacBean’ water feature that shoots water into the kiddy pool. He’s colourful with a huge smile and faces the changing rooms, so he greets everyone as they approach the pool,” says Hirsekorn.
The Bow Island Community Pool opened on July 9, 2024, and closed on September 1, 2024.
“It was a great summer with our newly renovated community swimming pool, and we look forward to a much easier pool opening and closing this year,” says Hirsekorn.
The polyvinyl chloride (PVC) membrane installation at Bow Island Community Pool showcases a sustainable approach to addressing long-standing structural
and maintenance issues.
Author
Jeremy Heersink, account manager at Poolside by CGT, has worked in various roles at Canadian General Tower (CGT) for more than seven years. Poolside by CGT’s reinforced pool membrane surface materials provide the perfect finish from personal backyard oases to multi-use aquatic centres.
