Pool Deck Repair in Florence, Texas

Pool decks in a town of older homes

Florence counted 1,171 residents and 456 housing units in the 2020 Census, and the Census Bureau estimates 1,245 people on July 1, 2025. Much of its housing is old. In the Bureau's 2020–2024 survey, 214 of an estimated 349 units, about 61.3%, were built before 1990, and 71, about a fifth, in 1939 or earlier. The median home dates from 1983, which makes it about 43 years old in 2026. Most units, 245, are single-family detached houses and 81 are mobile homes; about 76.6% of occupied homes are lived in by their owners, and the median owner-occupied value is $239,100. The sample is small, and the Census counts neither pools nor decks.

What breaks up an old concrete deck

The National Ready Mixed Concrete Association (NRMCA) explains that concrete swells and shrinks as its moisture and temperature change, and that it cracks wherever the design and the pour left that movement nowhere to go. The usual culprits it lists are skipped joints, ground that wasn't prepared, compacted and sloped to drain, an over-watered mix, poor finishing, and concrete left to dry fast with little or no curing. Settlement cracks are one of the common forms. Its reassurance is that most random cracks appearing early look worse than they are and rarely weaken the slab or cut its life short.

Repairing cracks, joints and sunken slabs

Joints that tell the slab where to crack

NRMCA isolates a slab from walls, footings and other fixed points with isolation joints so each part moves on its own, and it keeps contraction joints within 24 to 36 times the slab's thickness and no more than 15 feet apart. For pool decks, Mortex makes a PVC control joint that sets where the concrete cracks, is virtually unaffected by chlorine and pool chemicals, and carries side fins that keep water from flowing straight down to the soil, along with a replacement top that fits over a worn joint.

Resealing a failed joint

Joint sealant fails in two ways, W. R. Meadows explains in its care bulletin for DECK-O-SEAL. If it is damaged but still stuck to the concrete, the bad stretch is cut out and refilled; if it has let go, all of it comes out, the joint is cleaned and new sealant goes in. The maker's data sheet keeps the sealant 1/4 to 1/2 inch deep at a 2:1 width-to-depth ratio over a foam backer rod, and rules it out in joints narrower than 1/4 inch.

Lifting a sunken slab

In one pool deck case study, Prime Resins, which makes slab-lifting foam, blames tree roots heaving the concrete and poor drainage washing out the soil for the uneven, sunken slabs it found. It says structural polyurethane foam injected into the voids can steady a rocking slab and raise it back to its original position without digging it out or adding weight, and warns that cement-based mudjacking can crack slabs or lift them too far.

Slope and edges in the pool code

The 2021 International Swimming Pool and Spa Code sends the structure of a pool deck to the residential or building code and adds limits of its own: a concrete deck may slope no more than 1/2 inch per foot, and no more than 1/8 inch of water may stand on it 20 minutes after the water stops. Deck edges are radiused or tapered so no sharp corners remain. Which code edition Florence has adopted wasn't found in its published pages, so ask the City how these rules apply to your deck.

From Brooksville to a Highway 195 town

The Handbook of Texas says the site was settled in the early 1850s and briefly called Brooksville, and was known as Florence by 1857, when its first post office opened; where the name came from is uncertain. By the 1890s the town had stores, mills, a stone quarry, a bank and a cheese factory, and the Bartlett and Western Railway served it from 1912 until the line was abandoned in 1935. The population grew from about 350 in 1900 to a high of 1,000 in 1927–1929, dropped to 421 by 1931, and rose from 829 in 1990 to 1,054 in 2000. Today the City runs its own water system, pumping Trinity Aquifer groundwater and buying surface water from the City of Georgetown's Lake Georgetown supply.

Pool deck permit questions