Fiberglass Pool Repair and Resurfacing in Kempner, Texas
Killeen Pool Resurfacing handles fiberglass pool repair and resurfacing in Kempner, Texas, the Lampasas County city at U.S. Highway 190 and Ranch Road 2313 on the Lampasas River. The gelcoat is the colored resin surface of the shell, and River Pools, a fiberglass pool maker, describes the spider cracks that show up in it as small hairline cracks that are typically cosmetic, not structural.
Kempner had an estimated 1,297 residents on July 1, 2025, and 74.0% of its occupied homes are owner-occupied. Whether your home is off U.S. 190, Ranch Road 2313 or near the Lampasas River, a free estimate sorts out whether the shell needs a patch, a coating or a full refinish, and calls are answered at any hour.
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Kempner homes and fiberglass pool repair
A small city of owner-occupied homes
Kempner had 1,146 residents in the 2020 Census, in 484 housing units, 443 of them occupied. The Census Bureau's 2020–2024 American Community Survey puts its median year of housing construction at 1989, its median home value at $249,200 and its median household income at $75,357, and it records no homes in buildings of five or more units. The City itself incorporated in August 1997.
Fiberglass makers disagree on when a shell first shows its age. River Pools puts the usual age at which a fiberglass pool shows a need for refinishing at 20 or 30 years; ecoFINISH, which makes a refinishing coating, sees most shells start to show wear after 10 to 15 years of regular use. Coatings, epoxy paint and re-gelcoating are compared on our fiberglass pool resurfacing page.
Cracks, blisters and dull spots
River Pools says spider cracks usually form when pressure on the shell goes past what the gelcoat can flex, and it lists the causes: improper installation, the most common, then an uneven base or debris underneath, poor manufacturing or gelcoat application, and shipping or handling. Latham's manual adds that hairline cracks in the gel coat are not uncommon and that patch and repair kits are available from an authorized dealer. Blisters are a separate problem; River Pools blends a vinyl ester resin layer behind its gelcoat to act as a watertight barrier against osmotic blistering.
For dull spots the makers give opposite advice. Latham's older care manual says they can be restored with a body compound followed by a coat of fiberglass boat wax, while Tallman Pools says to use only stain removers made for fiberglass and never to sand, polish or buff the gelcoat unless a fiberglass pool professional directs it. Killeen Pool Resurfacing will look at the shell and talk through which approach the pool's maker allows.
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Get free estimatesKempner's swimming pool ordinance
Kempner has its own swimming pool ordinance. It says no building, structure or swimming pool, or part of one, may be "constructed, erected, altered, placed, or demolished" within the city unless the permits it sets out have been issued first. The fee for building a swimming pool is $80.00, except for pools designed to be assembled and disassembled by the user, and general building permit fees run from $15.00 for 100 square feet or less to $300.00 for 10,001 square feet and over.
Starting permitted work without the permit doubles the fees and charges, a violation can bring a fine of up to $500.00 a day, and the Mayor, the Chief of Police or a designee may revoke permits and issue stop-work orders. A floodplain development permit, filed with the City's Floodplain Administrator, costs $125.00. The ordinance doesn't say in its own words whether a repair or a resurface counts as altering a pool, so ask the City before work starts.
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Get free estimatesWater from Stillhouse Hollow Lake
What the 2025 report shows
Kempner's water utility is Kempner Water Supply Corporation, franchised by the City. Formed in 1973, it serves nearly 20,170 customers in Bell, Burnet, Coryell and Lampasas counties, and its water is all surface water from Stillhouse Hollow Lake, treated at the Cliff and Eldine Poe Regional Water Treatment Plant and supplemented by water bought from Central Texas Water Supply Corporation; it also sells wholesale water to the City of Lampasas and Salado Water Supply Corporation. Its 2025 water report lists chloramine averaging 2.21 ppm (range 1.86 to 2.55 ppm) and prints no hardness, alkalinity or dissolved-solids figure.
Without a printed hardness, a fiberglass pool's calcium is a test-it-yourself number, and the makers set it low. River Pools' ceiling for calcium hardness is 120 ppm, with pH held between 7.2 and 7.4, because high pH combined with high calcium damages the surface. Tallman Pools' range is 80 to 120 ppm, and it says a pH over 7.4 with calcium hardness over 120 is all scale needs. Latham's warranty, by contrast, lists 250 to 350 ppm, so follow the maker of your own shell.
Drought stages tied to the lake level
The utility's 2024 drought plan sets five stages by Brazos River Authority declarations and Stillhouse Hollow Lake levels: Stage 1 at a 610-foot lake level, Stage 2 at 604 feet, Stage 3 at 602 feet, Stage 4 at 579.5 feet and Emergency Stage 5 at 578 feet or a major supply failure. The Texas Water Development Board's provisional reading for October 4, 2026 put the lake at 621.44 feet, 98.4 percent full. The plan's list of discretionary water uses names landscape irrigation; washing vehicles, hard surfaces and buildings; aesthetic ponds, fountains and water features; and dust control. Pools aren't on it, and the stage pages don't mention filling them, so ask the utility about refilling before a pool is drained during any stage. At Stage 3, surcharges run $7.05 to $12.27 per 1,000 gallons depending on the volume tier, and at Stage 4 they run $7.19 to $22.91.
From Pickett Valley to Kempner
Five names in thirty years
Families named Pickett settled the area in the early 1850s, and it became known as Pickett Valley. It was briefly Brummersville in 1865, then Taylor's Creek, after a post office opened in 1873 at Dan W. Taylor's store, and then Slaughtersville, with a post office from 1878. In 1882 the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway was built two miles from the old store; the post office moved to a frame building near the tracks and was renamed Kempner, after Harris Kempner, a Galveston merchant and a director of the railway, and the railroad doubled the population.
The town held near 103 people from 1904 to 1926, rose briefly to 300 in 1927, fell to 125 by 1933, then grew from the mid-1960s to 420 by 1974 and reached 1,004 people and fifty-four businesses by 2000. Its yearly festivals include the All-West Roundup and the Octoberfest.
Harris Kempner and the missing marker
A 1964 Texas Historical Commission marker on the north side of Highway 190, near Pickett Cemetery, named Harris Kempner (1837–1894): an immigrant from Poland who joined the Confederate Army, was wounded in the Red River Campaign and left for dead, recovered, and later became a philanthropist, banker and railroad magnate who "helped to rebuild Texas." The marker has been reported missing since June 23, 2009. The Kempner Cemetery is reached by going north from Highway 190 on CR 3300.
More pool work near Kempner
Besides fiberglass repair and refinishing, we take on replastering, quartz, pebble and glass bead finishes, pool painting and vinyl liner replacement, new waterline tile, coping and decks, and concrete-pool crack, skimmer and leak repairs.
For Copperas Cove, at U.S. Highway 190 and Farm Road 116, the town page is about commercial and residential pool replastering in Copperas Cove; Lampasas gets its own page on pool replastering in Lampasas.
How a fiberglass repair job runs
Find the cause
At a free estimate we'll look at the cracks, blisters or stains and at what River Pools lists as the usual causes, from installation and an uneven base to manufacturing and handling.
Ask the City and the utility
Check the permit question with the City of Kempner and the refill question with Kempner Water Supply Corporation before the water comes down.
Check the groundwater first
Before any work that lowers the water, Tallman Pools has the groundwater inspection port checked, and any water found there pumped out slowly, stopping if sediment shows. Draining is a job River Pools leaves to authorized fiberglass pool professionals; with most manufacturers, it says, a drain by anyone but an authorized dealer may void the warranty.
Brace and drain in dry weather
River Pools' order is a dry forecast for the whole job, then bracing: usually three braces spanning the pool's width, set 18 to 24 inches down the side walls, since the walls can push inward and the floor can rise while the water is pumped out.
Repair the gelcoat
In FGCI's gelcoat putty method the damaged spot is cleaned, dried and roughened, the putty is catalyzed with MEK-P at 1.5 percent, and the repair is overfilled, left to cure and then sanded level. River Pools adds that a solid, single-layer gelcoat is easier to match than a multi-layer metallic or flake finish, and that few repairs end up completely invisible.
Refill
A sprayed polymer coating dries almost at once, and River Pools says a pool finished that way can go back to full the same day. FGCI's putty needs 12 to 24 hours for a full cure, after gelling in roughly 10 to 15 minutes at 77 degrees.
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Get free estimatesKempner fiberglass repair questions
Is a spider crack in a fiberglass pool serious?
Usually not structurally. River Pools calls spider cracks typically cosmetic, and Barrier Reef Pools, another maker, places them in the gel coating rather than the structure: they form where pressure at one point is more than the gel coat can flex, and they happen most often in transport. Latham's warranty also says spider cracks and crazing in the horizontal beam, the top edge normally hidden under the coping, are not a cause for a warranty claim. Killeen Pool Resurfacing will check a cracked shell at a free estimate.
Do I need a backflow preventer to refill a pool in Kempner?
Kempner Water Supply Corporation lists swimming pools among its potential residential cross-connections, with lawn irrigation, hose bibs, water features and toilet float valves, and those need an approved backflow assembly. Testable assemblies must be tested every three years, except reduced-pressure (RPZ) assemblies, which TCEQ requires to be tested every year. Ask the utility what it wants on your fill line.
What does fiberglass pool repair cost?
In typical Texas pricing reported in 2025, crack, leak and other structural repairs ran $1,000 to $5,000; a basic gel coat resurface, $5,000 to $8,000; an epoxy or polymer coating, $7,000 to $12,000; replacing the full fiberglass layer, $12,000 to $20,000; and the refill water and chemicals, $300 to $700. None of those is our price; a free estimate starts with a look at the shell.
Request a free fiberglass pool repair estimate in Kempner
Killeen Pool Resurfacing takes fiberglass repair calls from across Kempner, U.S. Highway 190 to the Lampasas River, around the clock.