As much as I like John, I have not been happy with his work.
About 9 months ago he did the mastic on our pool. In March I realized that snails were eating the mastic around the hot tub. In addition, there were many spots around the perimeter that were pulling loose from the edge. John said he had never heard of snails eating mastic but would talk to the Sika representative. Sika sent a letter saying this is a well known issue. They also said that the reason it's pulling away from the edge is due to expansion of the concrete joint.
I asked why they're using a product with these problems that fails in six months and John said we've always done it this way. Neither John nor Sika would fix the mastic under warranty.
I figured out why it's failing. John removes the old material from the gap and then fills the gap with foam backing and sand prior to covering with the mastic. The manufacturer recommends 3/8" - 1/2" of mastic. However, John pours a much thinner layer 1/8" to 1/4" thick. It's not thick enough to hold tight to the edge. If the sand works its way down in to the crack, there's nothing supporting the mastic and it comes loose.
I told John about this and since i like him I said I would pay him to redo the job using a different mastic called Deckoflex that I heard works better than Sika. I assumed he would pour the new mastic much thicker than before as recommended by the manufacturer. Unfortunately, I'm just realizing now that he did not and the brand new mastic is failing after 2 weeks.
When John redid the mastic, he decided without asking me that he was not going to redo the vertical part of the stairs leading up to the hot tub. So now that part doesn't match the rest of the project and looks unprofessional.
I thought that John would give me a decent discount on the redo, since this was a failure due to issues with the mastic but also because it wasn't installed thick enough with sufficient backing, However, he did not. read more