Diamond Brite Plaster rips your skin off.

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A

ajdevp

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Gold Supporter
Jun 8, 2012
11
North East New Jersey
Pool Size
30000
Surface
Plaster
Chlorine
Liquid Chlorine
Hello everyone, for a couple of swimming seasons now, my pool plaster has been very sharp and rough. It's 15 yeas old (Diamond Brite), and it's can rip your skin right off. Every Pool Plastering company out there wants to resurface my entire pool of course for $15K. I open, close, and do my own water chemistry monitoring via a Taylor K-2006 FAS-DPD complete kit. I am vigilant when it comes to my water chemistry numbers. I use the TFP's pool math app as well.

I'm wondering if there's a less expensive alternative solution to smoothing out my existing plaster and getting a few more years out of it (hopefully?) rather than spending the small fortune of re-plastering the entire pool. Any advice is welcome. I live in northeast New Jersey, so any recommendations of trustworthy contractors is also welcome.

One other question regarding Calcium Hardness. When I test for CH, the Taylor Kit instructs me to stop counting drops (reagent R-0012) when the water turns from red to blue. But... my water turns lavendar/purple first, then if you add more drops it'll finally turn blue, but it takes a substantial more amount of drops to go from lavendar to blue. This color situation makes me doubt (a little) whether I'm tracking CH accurately. Does Taylor consider lavendar same as blue? Are they color blind? When do I stop adding R-0012 drops exactly? I ask this because I know that the sharpness in the plaster is a result of a CH problem, and I'd hate to think I've been recording the CH numbers wrong after all these years.

I do need to call a contractor and remedy my sharp pool plaster situation.

Thank you everyone and stay safe.

Adrian
 
You, or some workers, can try sanding off the scale with 80 or 100 grit wet/dry sandpaper. It is just labor intensive.

I think any contractor will be reluctant to touch 15 year old plaster not knowing how thin it is and afraid of being held liable if they damage the plaster. So they all tell you it needs to be replastered.

The pool can be drained and a power diamond sander can be used to smooth the surfaces. But again we don't know if your old plaster will hold up to that treatment. Same thing with any acid wash.
 
Agree with Allen. I had the same problem with scale, particularly on the walls. I inquired with the PS about an acid wash. They said they wouldn’t do it on such an old pool for fear of causing bigger problems. After someone visiting cut their foot, I decided to drain the pool the next spring and ended up hand sanding the entire pool. Usuing 80 grit sandpaper. It was a LOT of work but in the end, quite worth it. Here we are 3 seasons later and the scale is still in check.

Of course after the 8” of rain the storm dropped on us a couple of weeks back (in SE Pennsylvania) our deck heaved a bit and we ended up with even more cracks than we did before. We’ve decided it’s time for a complete renovation… new deck, new coping, new title, and a new surface. At least we got cut free skin for a while!
 
My 15X30 Diamond Brite pool is 16 years old. I just received a quote to replaster the pool in addition to replacing all of my tiles for a little under $10K in Central Florida. The plaster alone is $5K. I see your pool is much larger than mine, so I guess that is in the ballpark.

Regarding the Calcium Hardness test, you're seeing a fading endpoint in your test. The lavendar/purple is not what you want.
See the video from Taylor linked below. You can add 5 drops of R-0012 at the beginning, test as usual and add the first 5 drops to the drops at the end once you get the blue end point.

 
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