[dOHd]

Interesting thread.

I spray polyurea. And I have posted with butch on Koi bito on the subject of his claims of the cost of polyurea for the DIYer and reality. I find that his claims to only need 50 mils for submerged service a bit of a stretch, and his applied cost figures are a bit off. Bottom line with the polyurea end of the business, he is less than truthful to his claims of coverage and in cost comparisons to a turn key job.

I have been to several training classes, and am a part of ongoing training with regards to different problems in applying polyurea over many different surfaces and in different applications.

As to manufacturing, he does have a valid point. I can buy polyurea from my supplier, add a bit of anything, just a few drops, and I can claim to have manufactured the product. We do it at our retail shop here with plants. We buy the small plants in 2 inch pots, repot them in larger pots and grow them out. Per our tax code, we manufactured the plants, therefore plant sales are tax exempt on plants. Same thing on our fish we bring in. By the time they have been through the Q process, we have fed them and grown them out, so by the legal standard we have manufactured the fish so they too are exempt from tax.

So when someone claims they manufacture a product, that does not mean much. I would be more interested in what makes him qualified to manufacture a product, ie training in chemistry etc.

On to Armor coat. I do a lot of fixes where people have used other products before deciding that even though polyurea is more expensive initially, over the long run, it is cost effective. I have seen many ponds done with the rubber compound mentioned above that have cracked and peeled within 2-4 years. I have only seen one done with Armorcoat that had cracked and was leaking. Dont know if that can be attributed to inproper installation, poor substrate, or product failure. They ended up having to sell the house, and it is someone elses problem now. So whether or not it is a good product, I cant say one way or another.

As has been posted, you can do many things cheap on a pond. I enjoy saving money as much as any one else. Problem is if you have to redo your pond every 5 years, how much are you really saving. And I see too many people that bragged on the front end how much they saved doing this and that themselves, when later on, someone else had to remove that application, and apply a good product that lasts.

The last pool that I had to remove product from, and then seal was in DC. the spraying cost was about $2000, but the removal of several (read many) coats of other products took the cost to almost $16,000 and took 38 days.

So please, before you just go slap happy applying different sealers, remember, if it dont work, someone is going to have to remove it. And the costs for that can be anywhere from 15-50+ a square foot.

BTW, there is a reason why most people dont paint their own cars. You can, sure. But when you get done, what do you have? The paint only costs a few hundred dollars, so why does a good paint job cost 2500+. And yes, you can get one done cheap, and it lasts two or three years and then starts to rust through. There are reasons for those extra costs.

From my personal experience, pond armor seems to be a satisfactory product. But if he runs his marketing for it like he has tried to on the polyurea, then I could see where problems like the ones posted above would happen. Dig deeper to compare true costs, not just claims.

Kinda like going in for a refi on your house, everything is set and done, and you walk in to sign the papers and "oh by the way, your interest rate is 6.9, not 5.3, sorry, im sure that isnt a problem is it?" I can see where that can leave a bad taste in someones mouth.

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