fwadmin, They are fairly easy to replace if you are doing just a few. It's kind of unusual to see freeze damage on coping brick. Freeze damage normally appears as dime or quarter size flakes that have popped off the surface. You might look at the joint behind the brick where the concrete and the coping meet. There should be an expansion joint between the coping and the concrete around the entire perimeter of the pool. Movement in this area could be a source of the problem.

Thanks for all the input! I had already read about the leveling method before and am glad to see it confirmed here. I probably will have to play with the mortar thickness in places, because the coping pieces are not all of uniform thickness. We dragged them into the backyard this past Saturday and layed out a couple of pieces in the most curviest part of the pool. My pool is of an odd shape but actually somewhat rectangular, if that makes any sense without drawing... Is a heavy-duty tile saw something I could use to cut the stone? I have cut both cement and tile with both a circular saw as well as a tile saw respectively before and I would love to be able to avoid dust or getting shocked or cut while trying to use the circular saw with a wet sponge ;) @renovxpt: no worries about your first response! I am both determined and foolish enough to tackle this myself and I really appreciate the feedback. You can email me at sunkid @ iminurnetz . com (no spaces, obviously) and I would be happy to post the images here. If you want to post them yourself, upload them to a free hosting service (e.g. imgur.com or Google's picasa) and then add a link to your post's text like so: <img src="url of your image">

Oh, THANK YOU, Aces! I went to your album and that will be most helpful as we start this repair job. If you had not needed to replace your liner, would it have made the job more difficult? (Trying to protect it during the process) Or should we just factor in that we will need to replace it? Same with the steps. Did the old ones remain structurally sound after the concrete was broken up? I will spend more time looking at your renovation process this weekend. Thanks again.

In my area, SE Texas, cantilevered concrete coping in regular redi-mix is the same price as 9" brick or flagstone coping. Normally, I'll use an acrylic knockdown on top of the concrete, or colors and stamps during pouring for a patterned concrete finish. These both come in more than regular brick or stone coping. Coping is there for just the reason you mentioned, cosmetics. You could leave the gunite or shotcrete showing but it's ugly and not usually perfectly level. We use 6" strips of masonite, leveled, and nailed slightly above the gunite to set our mortar bed for the top of the tile line. This ensures that the waterline tile is level. Now the coping brick, stone, or cantilevered coping will be too. I hope this helps. See ya, Kelly