valent
01-17-2005, 01:50 PM
In June of 93 I removed a brick decking around my pool and replaced it with a colored stamped concrete deck. The deck looked great until it rained. Within a few days after the rain stopped efflorescence started coming to the surface in spots. I had never seen this on my brick deck so I called the contractor and he just said that this was normal and that it would go away by itself when the weather warmed up. He was correct but I noticed that the finish on the concrete had been damaged in the areas where the efflorescence came through. At that point I started looking for a way to prevent this from reoccurring. I haven't had much luck and when the rains came this past October the powder returned. I live in the desert where we generally don't get more than about 3 or 4 inches of rain per year and things dry out very quickly but the efflorescence is very unattractive and seems to be worse this season than last. I'm also concerned about what it's doing to the finish of the concrete. In addition, I just had mexican pavers installed over a 25 year old covered concrete patio that abutts the new pool deck and even though it was sealed with paver sealer there is efflorescence coming through those as well. Any advice?