First of all thank you TFP and all members. This is such a great resource for those of us that are new to pools.

I want to freshen up the look of my pool but we just bought this house and I am trying to do major projects and $$ in stages. The pool was a swamp when we purchased in April and with the help of my friends at Pinch A Penny I was able to clean it up and we enjoyed all summer long. The stains that resulted from the staining were just a bit to much though and I decided to drain it and acid wash. Success to a certain extent but there are still some drunken ones that I have treated three or four times and are still there.

I had three resurfacing contractors over and that is just not in the budget. They all said, however that the surface in good sound condition and could last for years as long as we can live with the few stubborn stains. The current surface is, what I believe, something in the way of a white marcite with quartz over what appears to be the original lighter blue/green marcite with quartz.
There is some areas where the white has worn through and I can see the blue not to mention I can see the newer looking expansion ring around the main drain to accommodate the most current marcite surface.

Now that I have acid washed and gotten the surface acceptable I am considering installing new tile to cover the existing dark ugly blue tile at the waterline. It goes down about 6". The existing surface stands about an 1/8" proud of the tile so if were to install new tile and keep the existing surface the tile would stand proud of the surface by about 3/8" to 1/2" tops. Is this advisable or should I just stick with what I have until we are ready to resurface the pool? The dots on the steps and shelf do not concern me as they are a lighter prettier blue that were obviously installed when the current surface was installed and the ugly blue blue tile at the waterline is obviously original to the pool.

Regardless I have some questions about tilling over tile in a pool.
- What prep other than roughing up the surface of the old tile do I need to do to insure good adhesion
- Is there specialty adhesive / thin set used in pools to set tiles?
- Is there special "waterline" tiles or material recommended? porcelain vs. Ceramic? Glass vs. Stone? I understand that with natural material with stone come much more maintenance (stone/grout sealer) which I imagine require the pool to be drained some what to be done
properly.
- special grout required / recommended?

Thanks!!!!!!!

Tiling over existing tile is not something I would do. A better place for solid advice would be Johnbridge.com. It is the best tile forum on the net and they would give you more information.

Half way into our pool build and just after my pool builder walked away from my job, we decided (actually, my wife decided) to switch tile (and coping). A ceramic tile had been installed and we were waiting for the pool builder to install the equipment and plaster the pool. We went with a glass tile, and I had to hire a tile guy to remove the old tile and install the new glass tile. The glass tile was very expensive compared to the ceramic tile, but the labor for removing the "old" tile and installing the new glass tile was very reasonable. By the way, we love the look of the glass tile.

Not quite the answer I was hoping for but I really appreciate the feed back. Thanks for saving me the disappointment of having the tile fall off later. Looks like reseal tile and grout and refill.....