The best shotcreter you’ll ever meet. Ever.

Meet Trent Mathes from Ezispray.

We love concrete, so when it comes to who we engage to spray the concrete in all our pools we only go with the best. Enter: Ezispray. Using shotcrete and a range of leveling and cutting tools, Ezispray sprays all our concrete pool shells, ready to be tiled or finished off with Beadcrete. Owned by husband-and-wife team, Trent and Briana, Ezispray are with us on each and every pool we build. When Trent agreed to chat with us, we figured it was the perfect opportunity to drill him on the nitty-gritty aspects of his role. And also to find out why this absolute legend offered to donate to our Wanna Win a Pool competition.

An average day in the life of a shotcreter starts early.

“We’re usually the first guys on site,” Trent says. “We’ve got to go pick up the truck, then we’re on site by 6.30am. Finding a park can be tricky with a massive concrete truck, not to mention the task of rolling out all the gear. It can be anywhere between twenty or eighty metres up the back of a house. Then you’ve got to push your concrete through, prime the line, put the concrete through the end and put the nozzle on.”

Trent says the difference between shotcrete and normal concrete is the way it applies.

“It’s pneumatically applied,” he says, “with the air of an air compressor that actually blows the concrete out the end of the hose. It’s pumped through like normal concrete hoses but then there’s a nozzle at the end which combines the concrete with the air and shoots out the end, meaning the concrete can stick to the wall and the verticals of the steps.”

When your pool is getting sprayed, there’s a crew of about five involved. There’s one sprayer, two or three guys shaping, and another guy holding the sprayboards and moving around and passing tools. The whole spraying process takes anywhere between four and twelve hours, and it’s pretty tough work!

“You don’t have a lot of time to work with the concrete, especially in summer,” Trent says. “You’re in a pool and it’s physically challenging holding the hose on your shoulder up over your head.”

Trent says the best part of his job is getting to see the fast results.

“We get there in the morning and there’s not much to look at,” he says. “Four or so hours later the clients come out and can see what their pool is going to look like. It’s pretty cool.”

If you know us, you’ll know we’re real suckers for a great concrete pool. The fact that Trent and the boys share the same excitement for the shell going in as us is amazing. It’s a huge day for our clients when the shell goes in – what was once a big dirt hole, finally begins to look like the pool of their dreams. Trent says this is a hugely satisfying moment for him, too, but there’s not much time to soak it up.

“We pretty much have to pack the truck up and get going to the next site,” he says. “We have to eat on the go, the boys don’t get much of a break,” Trent says. “It can be pretty relentless. But sometimes if they’re smaller pools we’ll do four pools in one day and to be able to turn around and see four lots of people so happy is pretty amazing. So yeah, I love this job.”

At Cronulla Pools, part of the reason why we swear by Ezispray, is that the crew are so experienced, dedicated, and passionate about what they do. The boys always leave the site as they found it – they’re impeccable in this respect. And they’re always on time –  we run a pretty tight ship at Cronulla Pools, so aligning with trades who can manage their time down to the second is crucial.  Trent knows just how important this stuff is for our clients – he’s been concreting for 12 years, starting off fulltime with his dad at the age of nineteen. He started Ezispray five years ago and it’s just gone from strength to strength.

“We’re so busy,” Trent says. “We’ve got a massive overflow of work. So we really pick our customers, like Cronulla Pools. We’re pretty picky about who we work with and we put you guys at the top.”

 We are so chuffed to hear that.

 “Seriously, everything you guys do makes things easier for the boys and we appreciate it,” Trent says. “It’s almost like hanging out with your mates when we turn up on a job with you guys.”

 The feeling is mutual. We love these guys.

 One thing you have to know about Trent Mathes and the team at Ezispray, is they’re not afraid to dig deep. They give to a bunch of different charities every year, and when we told them about our Wanna Win a Pool competition, they were right behind us.

“It’s just such a rewarding thing to do, to physically give rather than just donating dollars. It’s the least we could do – we’d do it more than once a year if we had a shot. It’s a hard day for us but it’s only a little bit of our time to make a massive difference to somebody else.”

To learn more about Ezispray click here.

To learn more about the Wanna Win a Pool competition click here.