Upgrade from plaster to tile: now white substance leaching out of grout lines

jtnjw

New member
Jul 2, 2023
2
sedona az
A few months ago we had plaster pool resurfaced with tile. Within a couple of months, there were a couple of white spots in the grout lines. Now, approx 6 months later, there are hundreds of spots with a white substance on the grout lines. On the pool sides, the white substance is oozing down from the grout lines. Chemistry continues to maintained just as it was before the tile was installed. We never saw anything like this in the plaster pool that we maintained for 13 years before deciding to do the upgrade. It is salt water pool - always has been. The water is hard in the area.

Possibly unrelated - but the bottom of the pool is extremely slippery as well.

Any advice would be appreciated. What are the best practices for prepping a plaster pool to install tile? Should the plaster have been removed? Was there a sealer that was needed before installing the tile?

Thanks for your help.
 

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Entire pool was resurfaced with tile over plaster to minimize pool surface maintenance for the long term. Pool is a solar heated (May-Sept) saltwater pool in Sedona, AZ with Pentair chlorinator. The local (city/community based well) water is very hard. The work was done in October and we could see the beginnings of the stalactite-like formations on the grout started in December. The work was done by a very experienced tile person in the local region but probably does not do many saltwater pools. The pool was built around 2007. The plaster was not in bad shape but wanted to stay ahead of the eventual plaster to pebble/other replacement. Now we are very concerned. We do not live at the pool full time and are not there now.
The pool is maintained by a combination of strips, test kit and occasional high end in-store professional check. With the chlorinator it is always a task to keep adding acid on a weekly basis in the summer months when the chlorinator is on. Chlorine tabs during the winter months. We did not add anything to make the hardness "in-spec" initially because it will quickly become overly hard and have to empty the pool. Here's the current readings from the tile person who manually removed the "formations" but has never seen this level of this phenomena before. He said he has seen it happen a few times but it is in just a few places in a pool rather than a couple hundred. There appears to be no more exacting understanding of what is going on, thus our post to TFP. The readings were taken the day before our weekly pool guy came to service the pool. FC 0.9, TC 1.2, pH 8.1, TA 123, CH 218, CYA 66, Phos 331, iron 0, copper 0.1. Back on January 12th I took it to Leslie's and reading were FC 1.5, TC 1.74, pH 7.8, TA 131, CH 95, CYA 47, Phos 49, Salt 3150. I added salt in March and it is now at 3500. You can see the Hardness is quickly ramping up. Prior to the tile rework the hardness had gone up to over 800. In the summer the pool temp is set to 85 degrees and is only at that temp for a few hours per day. Does this help? Hoping to find a pool tile expert who understands tile being put onto plaster. The plaster was not removed and not having to hammer out all the plaster was an attractive benefit of the tile install as recommended to us by the tile installer. The pool was installed on clay and we have had issues with settling and broken plumbing so being gentle on the pool for resurfacing was attractive to us. Thanks for the help!
 
Any advice would be appreciated.

You have Efflorescence - Further Reading coming through the grout areas.


What are the best practices for prepping a plaster pool to install tile? Should the plaster have been removed?

Yes.

Was there a sealer that was needed before installing the tile?

Waterproofing layers are recommended.

Here is the recommended glass tile installation process from Oceanside Glass & Tile...


https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0429/0022/6199/files/OGT-Pool-Water-Feature-Installation.pdf?v=1625588595
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PoolMath

Your people may not be doing a good test on the water. The CH is suspect as it does not just go away.

Test strips=GUESS strips :( They are not worth the time it takes to open the bottle.

The only good test is one done on site using one of these test kits: Test Kits Compared The stores computer tester is only as good as it's last calibration.

My guess is your water is not balanced and that is causing some of the problem.
 
 
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