How is your Travertine doing with your Salt Water Pool?

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ellsian

ellsian

0
Jun 26, 2014
231
Peoria, AZ
Inquiring minds need to know!

Especially if you live in a very hot area (AZ, TX, etc), and have kept your travertine and SWG for a long time now :)

Are there any problems? Does it look as good as the day you put it in? Or is it awful and falling apart, and you wish you had a time machine to undo this atrocity?! :drown:

I'm *this* close to swapping over to full travertine for my build, but using a SWG and reading the internet is really scaring me. My other idea is to keep a concrete coping that's acid washed and color matched to a travertine deck. The idea being that the coping would survive, and the deck would be somewhat less exposed and easier to replace specific pavers on.

TFP! Please share your stories about the infamous Salt Water Chlorine Generator (aka, destroyer of all pool hopes and dreams).
 
Although I don't have first hand experience, I have read of several on here who apply a sealant every year or two and have never had a single problem. How would it last with no sealer? I'm not sure anybody has tried, so hard to say. Who wants to take the chance?
 
We are going with a SWG and travertine coping and spa surround. Our PB is recommending Dry-treat 40SK to seal all the stone including our moss rock waterfall. He says it is much better than the Dupont salt water sealer and it lasts much longer. Info on it says it can last up to 15 years, it has a 3 week cure time.
 
firehunter said:
We are going with a SWG and travertine coping and spa surround. Our PB is recommending Dry-treat 40SK to seal all the stone including our moss rock waterfall. He says it is much better than the Dupont salt water sealer and it lasts much longer. Info on it says it can last up to 15 years, it has a 3 week cure time.
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What the heck, is it liquid gold? They want $235.00 for 1 gallon :confused:
 
Would 1 gallon of it cover 600+ sqft?

Edit:

Found it: Total application rate is approximately one litre per 0.5 to four sq. metres (five to 40 sq. feet per quart) depending on absorption.

My goodness. Assuming it does the full 40 sqft per quart, and there are 4 quarts in a gallon....I would need 4 gallons of this stuff for 600sqft of deck/patio. A $935 investment in sealer alone!
 
I don't know what all the fuss is with SWG and stone. My flagstone (unsealed) really looks exactly the same as it did day one 4 years ago. Everyone said that it will be destroyed! At this rate of deterioration I predict that my flagstone will last at least 147 years. I have read tens of thousands of threads on TFP and not one actual example of natural stone being damaged by a saltwater pool. Put in your travertine and run your SWG. If the travertine looks bad in a couple of years then think about sealing it.

Same for the maple floor that we put in the kitchen 10 years ago. Everyone said, oh my! you can't put a wood floor in a kitchen! It will be ruined by all sorts of dastardly things. Still looks great 10 years later.
 
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pooldv said:
. Put in your travertine and run your SWG. If the travertine looks bad in a couple of years then think about sealing it.
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I agree with you on the extreme claims of imminent and irreversible disaster. By the accounts of these PBs, Galactus himself will come and devour any salt pool with travertine.

As for the quote, you can't do that with DryTreat 40SK. If you want the 15-year warranty, the stone has to be installed by a licensed DryTreat installer and each stone has to be pre coated (or dip coated) BEFORE installation. So, not only will you pay a lot for the material, the installation labor charge will be very high.
 

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Well guys, that is reassuring :)

And yeah! I keep hearing about how awful it is on travertine, flagstone, limestone, etc but yet I've never actually come across a person that has a personal complaint or gripe about it on their own pool. Even after calling 3 different paver/tile companies, I get three different answers: First one suggests to seal it all costs, and will even recommend a guy to do it for me for 'only' $2 a sqft, after they install everything at $12/sqft (gee thx..)! The second one denies having any problems at all with salt water and the travertine they sell, and the third company says they've only "heard" of it happening, and never seen it themselves and that sealing wouldn't hurt -shrug-

I've searched this forum, and others, and people talk about the boogeyman SWG and stone damage in a general sense, but I haven't found a post from someone who actually lost their travertine coping/decking to a SWG. I'm leaning towards the idea that it may be pretty rare, and more a problem from bad chemistry upkeep, and/or some cheap low quality stones.

I'm sure I'll probably do a sealer anyways.... just in case :cool: I do NOT want to become the first TFP person to be cry posting to everyone about my ruined travertine coping from my SWG! Gah! LOL
 
JoyfulNoise said:
I agree with you on the extreme claims of imminent and irreversible disaster. By the accounts of these PBs, Galactus himself will come and devour any salt pool with travertine.

As for the quote, you can't do that with DryTreat 40SK. If you want the 15-year warranty, the stone has to be installed by a licensed DryTreat installer and each stone has to be pre coated (or dip coated) BEFORE installation. So, not only will you pay a lot for the material, the installation labor charge will be very high.
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galeatspool.jpg


Bwahahaa
 
FWIW, SWC and Travertine is very common here. Ours is limestone (similar) but new. That said, other family have had Travertine/SWC for three years, no unsightly issues. We looked at 25 houses with pools recently, around half travertine and SWC which is a common combination here. Oldest would have been around 10-12 years. I didn't see any issues and it sure looks nice. Fair to mention it doesn't freeze here. Just my own opinion, but given that non-SWC pools also have salt, I have to wonder if there's really an issue.
 
We have a SWG Pool and travertine, both done in 2007 and the travertine looks awesome still. It was a rough surface travertine, but doesn't show any signs of deterioration. We have only owned the house for less then one year, so my comparison is with other tiles in the area, the area around the pool looks the same as everywhere else on the patio.
 
Someone should do a study or poll or something on this so there's better consensus among the pool industry on SWG vs traditional chlorination. Seems to me to be way overblown now, with some PB's even requiring people to sign waivers on their SWG. There just doesn't seem to be the data there to back up such measures. Thanks for all the replies guys! I had no idea Aussies have been using SWG for decades to no issues. So strange it's become such a scare over here now.
 
I bet every pool with travertine has at least 1,000ppm salt in their water if not more because of chlorine, I wonder if pool companies will make everyone that uses chlorine of any kind sign waivers for having salt water :)

Who has travertine and no SWG? if you do, can you test the salt content in your pool?
 
I've had my SWG for just about a month. Before that I was using a Stenner with 8.25% bleach additions. Before adding salt I testing my pool, and with less than a year of bleach additions, my salt was at 1400ppm. I only needed to get to 3200ppm so your pool already has salt. I have not sealed my travertine but we picked a tumbled variety and like all the character it has. If it develops "more character" from the SWG then that is fine. I still believe water chemistry is the key and testing and balancing is most important.

I am planning on converting my Stenner to an acid addition tank soon.

When I was adding bleach my family was a little shocked that I was adding bleach to pool. I found it much simpler to remove the plastic Walmart label and then just called the plain white bottles of bleach "pool chlorine". Once I did that no one had an issue.
 

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