Limestone pool deteriorating

[JimDarling]

A friend of mine has a salt water pool that was installed about a year ago. The Limestone, which was sealed with miraclesealer, has some pretty bad deterioration on the parts of stone that are not always submerged by the water, IE the waterline.

Could this have been prevented by a different sealer specifically made for salt pools? Or is Limestone a mistake to use for saltwater pools?

 

[msgtdan]

I've heard that pools with softer stone shouldn't have a swg, but that seems to be a very quick deterioration.

 

[HouTex]

I agree with the above post. It depends on the stone. I've had friends who had some soft flagstone coping/decking say that their SWG was the worse thing they did. They had to replace their decking within a couple of years.

I have travertine coping and after 2+ years with a SWG I just noticed some minor errosion on one piece of coping. My travertine is not very porous and I used a good sealer. All-in-all, I'm pleased with my SWG.

 

[chem geek]

Welcome to TFP!

As was pointed out, porous stones, such as some limestones (it depends on the quarry), are a poor choice in general, but will deteriorate faster if there is saltwater splash-out and evaporation. However, whether this is a problem also depends on weather since in places with significant frequent summer rains, the salt is diluted by the rain especially if the humidity is high in between the rains so that there is minimal evaporation. It is the splash-out and evaporation cycle that builds up the level of salt in the stone and the evaporation results in salt recrystallization pressure that fractures the stone.

There seem to be more problems in some areas of Texas because of the combination of the hot dry weather with soft porous local stones. Arizona has some reports though not seemingly as many while Florida and the Northeast don't seem to get as many reports of issues.

Sealing the stone will help in all cases and using a less porous stone and sealing it will have it last significantly longer regardless of pool type (saltwater or not).

 

[JimDarling]

Thanks for all the great responses!