BROWNSTOWN

The concrete at the bottom of the Brownstown Pool is crumbling, and rust is going into both sections of the pool.

Resurfacing the pool would make it safer for swimmers and save on the cost of chemicals, town officials said.

Brownstown Town Council member Bethany Brewster recently shared that information with her fellow council members. She is the council’s liaison to the town’s park board, which is discussing making repairs and renovations to the pool.

The proposed work includes installing a PVC membrane or liner to resurface the pool. The pool shells are crafted from a 60-millimeter-thick, custom-textured and reinforced PVC material designed to make a pool watertight.

Brewster said the town has painted the pool every few years at a cost of around $6,000.

“It’s just kind of not cutting it anymore,” she said. “We need to do something that will fix it for the long term.”

Brewster and pool manager Jamie Temple researched companies that install the membranes and narrowed the choices to RenoSys and Natare Corp.

Brewster said RenoSys has done work in every state and some foreign countries. That company’s work in Indiana includes installing membranes at pools in Jasper, Indiana University in Bloomington and McCormick’s Creek State Park in Spencer.

Brewster learned that IU recently replaced its pool surface after 17 years.

“It comes with a 10-year warranty, but most pools are getting 15 to 20 years out of these liners,” she said.

After testing the pool’s gutter system, the company would encapsulate it with the membrane by welding on what it calls a skirt or an apron, Brewster said. They would spray an antifungal agent on the concrete, put adhesive over it and place a felt slip sheet over that.

Then the membrane, which comes in 6-foot-wide sections, would go over the slip sheet. Lane markings would be placed on the membrane.

“So once it’s done, it’s done,” Brewster said. “And it’s free-moving, so it can freeze and thaw, and you won’t get the cracks and issues like that.”

Brewter was scheduled to meet with RenoSys and Natare Corp. representatives last Friday, and she said she will share the companies’ quotes at an upcoming council meeting.

“This is just exploratory,” she said. “If it’s way out of range, we’ll just put the halt on it.”

Council President John Nolting said the work needs to be done.

“I think we’re going to have to do something or we’re going to lose that pool,” he said. “We’re going to have to start somewhere, I really believe.”