ANSI/APSP-12 Swimming Pool Plaster Workmanship Standards

ANSI/APSP-12 Swimming Pool Plaster Workmanship Standards 

The general public and pool industry at large need to know how and why, otherwise unacceptable workmanship finds it’s way into becoming “the minimally acceptable standard.”

In July 2014, the APSP (Association Pool & Spa Professionals) and the NPC (National Plaster's Counsel) announced a “joint” committee to write a new plaster workmanship standard, under the guise of APSP/ANSI-12.  

Because APSP is aligned with ANSI (American National Standards Institute), the resulting standards to would in effect become “statute” in many regions of the country.  Through ANSI's affiliation with the ICC (the International Code Counsel ironically publishes the International Building Code, which has been adopted across the US), this may just become law in your state. 

You can see where this is going.  It is a end around run on consumer rights and justifiable workmanship.  This forces consumers to settle for inferior workmanship, just because it meets the industry's own minimum acceptable level.  

Their proposals for this standard include defining acceptable "deviations" and explanations as to why pool plaster cannot achieve the levels of performance delivered by other plaster trades. 

These defined deviations will be governed by "accepted trade practices" and not by the BEST AVAILABLE PRACTICES.   

Again, locate and identify the lowest common level of performance and make that acceptable.  If a consumer has a project with poor workmanship, they will be forced to accept poorest quality job that the NPC can justify.

Fox in the Hen House

Trade associations writing their own workmanship standards is self-serving and against the general interest of the American public.  Even if a standard is written with the absolute lack of personal biases and interests, the end result will still be a self-serving document.   

This is what I take offense with… putting the fox in charge of the hen house.

In other words, "how bad can it get and still be defensible?"

Paolo Benedetti, SWD Aquatic Artist, Watershape Consultant, Expert Witness, International Construction Management 
Contact the author at: info@aquatictechnology.com or 408-776-8220 "Creating water as art."™ 
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