Southwest Florida
Shellcrete pool deck resurfacing in Bonita Springs
Shellcrete by SRQ Modern resurfaces the pool decks of Bonita Springs, a city where more homes went up in the 1990s than in any other decade: 10,361 of 39,895, by the Census Bureau's latest five-year count. A deck from those years has had a long time under the same aluminium frame and the same Florida sun, and it has often been coated more than once.
So the job starts with what is already on the slab. A coating that is lifting comes off down to clean concrete first, and cool deck repair in Florida explains when patching the old surface is still the better call.
Where the slab underneath is sound, the topping is poured over the deck you have with no demolition, and the frame of the cage stays where it is.
Before any of that, two parties may need to say yes: a community design committee, in Bonita Bay and places like it, and the City of Bonita Springs, or Collier County at the south end of the island.
Decks we resurface across Bonita Springs
Bonita Bay, Pelican Landing, Spanish Wells and Bonita National, the river streets off Old 41 downtown, and out on the barrier island from Bonita Beach down to Barefoot Beach.
The screen cage comes first
Bonita Bay's design guidelines admit that many of the community's homes went up with screen enclosure frames and screen that fall short of today's codes, and they recommend the engineered frames and heavier 'super screen' newer homes are built with. Frames there must be bronze, charcoal or white, and the screen itself bronze or charcoal.
If the cage is going to be rebuilt, rebuild it before the deck. Its uprights stand on the deck edge, and a new frame bolted down through a new surface leaves fresh holes in it, where a new surface finished around a frame that stays put does not.
The city's own post-storm permitting guide draws the line on cages: putting new screen into an existing enclosure needs no permit, but work on the structural aluminium or the framing does. It is worth asking which of the two a cage company is quoting before the deck is scheduled behind it.
Bonita Bay's design review
Bonita Bay's guidelines treat a pool deck as an accessory structure, and the Design Review Committee has to approve one before it is built or changed. Owners in the villas, high-rises and condominiums go through their own neighbourhood association first. The application asks for samples of colour and material, and the community allows itself thirty days to answer in writing.
When the work is done, a committee representative walks it against the approved plans before the contractor leaves, so the deck that gets poured has to be the deck that was submitted. We bring a sample in your base colour and finish for the committee to hold, because a photograph of shell is not the surface.
Driveways there are the stricter case. The guidelines name brick and concrete pavers, and say that flagstone, stepping stones and precast patterned or exposed-aggregate pavers may be considered. Poured shell is not on that list, so in Bonita Bay a Shellcrete driveway begins as a request to the committee rather than as a material it has already accepted.
Along the Imperial River
The Imperial River runs through downtown Bonita Springs to Estero Bay, and in 2017 two storms came down it in under three weeks. Invest 92L soaked the city in late August; when Irma arrived on 9 and 10 September, levels in parts of the city were still 3.5 feet above where they had been before the first storm. At the peak, by the city's account, some areas stood 6.5 feet higher than at the end of July.
More than two weeks after Irma, some people near the river were only then getting back into their houses. A deck that sat under that water is a slab to read before it is resurfaced: a corner that has dropped, or a crack where one edge now stands proud of the other, is about the ground, not the surface. Repair, resurface or call an engineer sets out which is which.
A deck that holds water after an ordinary shower is the quieter legacy of a low street. The fall can be corrected in the pour, but only if it is drawn first, and pool deck drainage covers where the water should go.
Bonita Beach, and a county line on the island
Little Hickory Island, where Bonita Beach is, sits inside the city limits. Its south end does not: Barefoot Beach shares the 34134 ZIP code with Bonita Bay but lies in unincorporated Collier County, so a deck there is permitted by Collier, not by the city.
The island took the hardest of Ian. The National Hurricane Center's report on the storm puts maximum inundation at 8 to 12 feet above ground in Estero, Bonita Beach and Bonita Springs, with the worst of it confined to the immediate coastline and inland high-water marks of 5 to 7 feet. A beach deck that was under salt water in 2022 is checked for damage inside the slab before anything goes over it, and the Fort Myers page has the longer version of that test.
About two hours down I-75
Downtown Bonita Springs is about 110 miles from our Bradenton yard, a little over two hours on I-75. A crew working that far south stays until the deck is finished, so a whole deck, or a deck together with the lanai or the drive, is the sensible size of job here, and a patch repair is not.
Each batch is weighed out before the trip and mixed beside the pool. Naples is about seventeen miles further down US 41.
Questions we get in Bonita Springs
Does Bonita Bay have to approve a new pool deck surface?
Yes. Its Design Review Committee approves pool decks before they are built or changed, and owners in a villa, high-rise or condominium association apply through that association first. The guidelines also ask owners to meet a committee staff representative with their contractor as early as possible, which is the meeting to bring a real shell sample to. The application wants colour and material samples, and a written answer can take up to thirty days.
Is a deck at Barefoot Beach permitted by Bonita Springs or by Collier County?
By Collier County. Barefoot Beach is at the south end of the same island as Bonita Beach and uses the same 34134 ZIP code, but it is outside the city, in unincorporated Collier County. Little Hickory Island to the north is inside Bonita Springs, so two decks a short walk apart can answer to two different permit offices, and the paperwork follows the county line rather than the postcode.
Should the pool cage be rebuilt before or after the deck is resurfaced?
Before, if it is being rebuilt at all, because the uprights are fixed into the edge of the deck. In the City of Bonita Springs, re-screening an existing enclosure needs no permit while new structural aluminium or framing does, so the cage company's permit sets the date. In Bonita Bay the new frame also goes to the Design Review Committee, in bronze, charcoal or white.
Worth reading first
- Concrete pool deck ideas for Florida: colour, grip, joints and edgesConcrete pool deck ideas sorted by the decisions that matter in Florida: colour for heat, texture for grip, joints as pattern, the coping edge, borders, turf and what goes in before the pour.
- Exposed aggregate concrete vs exposed shell in Florida: how they differExposed aggregate and exposed shell are the same technique with a different stone. How they differ barefoot, in colour, and in cleaning and sealing on a Florida driveway or pool deck.
- Pool deck drainage in Florida: why water sits and what fixes itWhy water sits on a pool deck, how to tell a fall problem from a clogged drain or a settled slab, and what a new surface can correct once the drains are sound.
- Pool coping in Florida: which material belongs on the edge of your poolWhat pool coping does, how travertine, pavers, poured cantilever and precast edges compare on grip and heat, and how the coping has to meet the tile and the deck.
