Traction underfoot, a real joint at the coping, and water that leaves the deck instead of sitting on it.
Larkspur is not pool country in the way a flat suburb with quarter-acre lots is pool country. The pools out here belong to custom homes on acreage, tucked into a clearing or set on a graded bench with a view of trees in every direction. There aren't many, and the ones that exist are a real investment, which changes how we approach the concrete around them.
The other thing that changes it: the swim season at 6,720 feet is short and honest about it. Most of the year that deck is a patio. It carries chairs, boots, snow shovels, a fire pit, and holiday traffic far more hours than it ever carries wet feet. We build for both jobs, because a surface designed only for August is a surface you'll be unhappy with from October through May.
The older housing in Sage Port includes homes from an era when a smooth steel-trowel finish read as high quality, and around water that's the wrong call. Those decks are slick when wet, and by now most of them have surface wear, tight cracking, and a coping line that's been pried at by twenty winters of ice. Some are excellent candidates for resurfacing. Some are past it.
Estate lots in Perry Park bring a different set of problems, mostly mature. Roots, settled sections where irrigation has run for decades, and grade that has quietly shifted so runoff now drains toward the shell instead of away from it. Newer construction out at Bear Dance is generally sound, and when we get calls there it's usually to extend a deck, add a spa surround, or fix a builder detail like a missing expansion joint at the coping.
First: the joint where deck meets coping. Shell and deck are separate structures moving at different rates, and bonding them rigidly means something has to give. Usually the coping tile or the bond beam, which is the expensive end of that trade. We hold a compressible expansion joint at that line and seal it with a flexible material rated for chlorine and sunlight. Treat it as maintenance, not a one-time item.
Second: where the water goes. Deck runoff carries chemicals, and it should never drain back into the pool or pond toward the house. We build a steady fall away from the water at roughly a quarter inch per foot, and where grade fights us, which happens plenty on a benched hillside lot, deck drains go in and get piped somewhere sensible. Standing water at this altitude becomes ice, and ice beside a pool is how people get hurt.
| Finish | Traction when wet | The trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Broom finish | Excellent, and the honest default | Plain next to a custom home, though color fixes most of that |
| Exposed aggregate | Excellent, with the stone doing the work | Rough on bare feet and knees, and it traps pine needles |
| Textured overlay with grit | Very good, and it can be tuned to the level you want | Needs a sound substrate underneath and a resealing habit |
| Light salt or sand finish | Good, gentler underfoot than aggregate | Small pockets can hold water and grit that needs sweeping out |
| Stamped with a matte sealer | Fair, and only with a slip additive worked into the sealer | Pattern grout lines trap debris, and it wants resealing every two to three years |
| Smooth trowel | Poor. We won't pour it around water | Looks sharp dry, dangerous wet, and it will not get safer with age |
We'll walk it, check the coping joint and the fall, then tell you whether this is a resurface or a rebuild.
Still unsure about something?
Call the crew at (303) 569-4046 and we will talk it through.
Get a free, no-obligation estimate from a crew that knows Colorado soil, Colorado weather, and how to finish concrete that lasts.
Accessibility
Adjust the site to fit how you read and browse. Your choices are saved on this device.