Hi all, I realize this subject has been touched on a few times before but I was wondering if anybody has any updates to previous repairs or other suggestions. I have a 44 foot 1990 Boatel houseboat in the CA Delta. When I bought this houseboat six years ago we had the pontoons sandblasted and coated with a 2-part epoxy mixture of Tar Coat. The boat has been pulled in the past but we never retested the pontoons as there didn't seem to be a problem. However, this year we pulled the boat and noticed some leakage and decided to test all the chambers in the two pontoons. Each pontoon has 7 chambers so altogether there are 14 chambers. We discovered that 8 of the chambers have some sort of leakage. One chamber has a small hole about the diameter of an ice pick, another chamber has a rusty corner about 14 inches long where the bottom of the side of the pontoon meets the bottom of the pontoon. In addition, I can see lots of mini rust spots (specks for lack of a better word). The Tar Coat has peeled away where most of the leakage occurred but all in all the Tar Coat is still covering 90% of the pontoons so I can't really tell if there are additional problems. Essentially I have identified 8 different zones that need repair.
Is spot welding these 8 areas the most recommended treatment? I realize that I could sandblast the entire pontoons again but I don't just want to throw away money for an overkill solution. My thoughts are to have the 8 main areas sanded and welded. I'm not sure what to do about all the specs though. It seems most of these specs have found their way through the Tar Coat but given that each spec is about the size of a pin head it almost seems as thought they could be washed off with some sort of cleaning product to expose a small portion of steel and then I could re-roll all of the pontoons with another application of Tar Coat. And then comes the discussion of the inside of the pontoons. I hear some oil or antifreeze might help inside. I hear most people don't like the idea of filling with foam. Is there a product on the market made to dump inside the pontoons to slow the corrosion? What about a tar coat for inside the pontoons? Any suggestions or discussions would be appreciated.
Is spot welding these 8 areas the most recommended treatment? I realize that I could sandblast the entire pontoons again but I don't just want to throw away money for an overkill solution. My thoughts are to have the 8 main areas sanded and welded. I'm not sure what to do about all the specs though. It seems most of these specs have found their way through the Tar Coat but given that each spec is about the size of a pin head it almost seems as thought they could be washed off with some sort of cleaning product to expose a small portion of steel and then I could re-roll all of the pontoons with another application of Tar Coat. And then comes the discussion of the inside of the pontoons. I hear some oil or antifreeze might help inside. I hear most people don't like the idea of filling with foam. Is there a product on the market made to dump inside the pontoons to slow the corrosion? What about a tar coat for inside the pontoons? Any suggestions or discussions would be appreciated.
