Hi I'm New, Plaster Question

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jennybug35

0
Nov 13, 2009
74
Carlsbad, CA
Hi,

I'm new to this wonderful site and would love some information and advice.

We live in Carlsbad CA approx 1.5 miles from the ocean with mild weather. Our pool will have plenty of sun exposure and we are pretty torn about solar panels. We would not be able to place any panels on our south facing side of the house so I'm not sure if it would be worth it.

Here is my question. Our contractor told me it would cost around 10k for pebbletech so we are going with plaster. Our pool will have a waterfall so I'm not worried about "moulting sp?" Will a dark grey plaster help heat the pool?

Has anyone gone with a medium to dark grey plaster and what are your thoughts?

TIA!!

I'll attach pictures.. today they finished the steel.
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You will want 100% of the surface area of your pool represented in solar panels at the beach, and orientation is a big part of getting the full benefit. You may realize a slight (I'd say 3-4 degrees) rise in water temp with the colored plaster, and you will see the effects of the hard water on the plaster (mottling). At some point the water feature will be off, so if the mottling is going to bug you I wouldn't do it!

Press your builder for a hard cost on upgrading to PebbleTec. Don't let him give you a "guesstimate" price to see if you'll bite! He has money built in for plaster already, and, from the picture, the pool does not appear that large (not that is looks small, but 10K is a pretty steep upgrade price!). He needs to credit the price he has for plaster to the price to PebbleTec it. Don't ask me how I know, but I think he is off by a wee bit!

Congrats on the new pool, and welcome to the 'page!

Bruce
 
Thank you so much for your information Bruce.

I'm going to contact him and work on the cost of pebbletech. I would prefer it over the plaster.

I'm not sure if we will be able to do the solar. The last solar contractor said 640 sq ft which is not 100% of the pool.

Thanks for the welcome!
 
Do your homework

Hello~~

May I pop in and add a few words? If you haven't had time already, please go to the PebbleTec website and spend an hour there. There are nooks and crannies on that site that I didn't find the first few times I went there. Also, down at the very bottom of their site they have their phone number--call them with any questions you have after you have studied their products. The folks who work there are very helpful, and oddly, seem very tolerant of residential consumers who are in various stages of their pool projects.

(They referred me to the one central dealership in my area of the country, who I then contacted to find the two authorized builders in my area who handle their product. I say this so as to not sounding completely like a P-Tec ad.)

PebbleTec is a brand name that is, only in my opinion, the gold-standard for aggregate surface material for in-ground pools. Should I ever need to sell my house and my beloved pool, I will feel proud that one of the key value-points will be this surface and tile in the pool.

Lana
 
Thank you Lana, I am going to do that. I wonder if I can work with my current contractor or if I can use another dealer to install the pebbletech.

Tsunami, the front of our house faces South. We live in a new development with a strict HOA. I really dont think it would go over well if we placed them facing the street :O( I'm pretty sure I read they cannot be facing the street. We went through so much with them just to get the pool and landscaping approved.
 
The California Solar Rights Act of 1978 prevents HOA's from putting unreasonable restrictions on solar energy installations. Local solar contractors can confirm this. Here's a link with the details. They can't prevent you from installing the panels on the south side because installing them elsewhere will reduce the efficiency of the system. Scroll down to section 3.2.1 for more details.

My neighbor went through this with our HOA. They gave him problems because his panels had to be on the front side of the house. He won. The case never made it to court. It opened the door for us to install ours with no problems from the HOA. And we're on the same side of the road. :party:

http://www.sandiego.edu/epic/publicatio ... rFINAL.pdf
 
jennybug35 said:
Thank you Lana, I am going to do that. I wonder if I can work with my current contractor or if I can use another dealer to install the pebbletech.

Tsunami, the front of our house faces South. We live in a new development with a strict HOA. I really dont think it would go over well if we placed them facing the street :O( I'm pretty sure I read they cannot be facing the street. We went through so much with them just to get the pool and landscaping approved.
Click to expand...

Since you've gotten to this point, I'll come clean; I am the PebbleTec guy in your area! Additionally, there is no other applicator in the area that is certified to apply P-Tec at this time. Since I am not your builder, I would be happy to answer any questions that are not answered on the web site or from your builder, as long as it does not create a conflict! PM me if you want any info.

Lastly, the State of California sees solar as an alternative energy source, and no HOA can override that. In other words, if you decide to use solar and the front of the home is the best area, you are allowed to install it there. You may be respectful of your neighbors, but no one can tell you that it cannot be installed anywhere on your roof.

Hope that helps!

Bruce
 
I wish I found this site before we started.

Tsunami thank you for this! I'm going to use this when we submit to the HOA. Since you live in Oceanside and we are neighbors do you have a solar contractor you would recommend? I have only met with one and after found all kinds of complaints online.

Simicrintz.. YES I really do want to talk to you! I'll PM you.
 
tsunami said:
The California Solar Rights Act of 1978 prevents HOA's from putting unreasonable restrictions on solar energy installations. Local solar contractors can confirm this. Here's a link with the details. They can't prevent you from installing the panels on the south side because installing them elsewhere will reduce the efficiency of the system [...] http://www.sandiego.edu/epic/publicatio ... rFINAL.pdf
Click to expand...
simicrintz said:
[T]he State of California sees solar as an alternative energy source, and no HOA can override that. In other words, if you decide to use solar and the front of the home is the best area, you are allowed to install it there. You may be respectful of your neighbors, but no one can tell you that it cannot be installed anywhere on your roof.
Click to expand...
Thanks for posting this analysis of the California Solar Rights Act of 1978 (USD School of Law, 2007). I downloaded and read the paper last night. The article's discussion of the Solar Rights Act is useful as a broad outline of the Act's provisions. It sought to curb arbitrary and unreasonable restrictions imposed by HOAs and promote use of solar energy generally.

My takeaway was that Home Owner Associations and local gov'ts still have considerable power to establish rules and restrictions. The CC&Rs of an HOA still have the authority to dictate how a solar installation is placed on the roof. The Act permits them to layer on restrictions provided they do not increase the system cost by more than 20% or negatively impact efficiency. (See 3.2.1 Cost and Performance Criteria for Reasonableness Restrictions, p.6)
 

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I'm not in the industry; just a pool owner. Even my medium blue plaster mottles which is okay in some lighting but bothers me in some lighting. The plaster is 13 yrs old and has calcium scaling due to mismanagement for years, prior to finding TFP. I acid washed it last summer (third time in 13 years) which removed all of the scaling on the sides but not the bottom. It is so bad in some places we were afraid to put too much acid on it the last time we did an acid wash. It is now lifting somewhat during and after the recent AA treatment. Also most of the metal staining was on the scaling, which was more resistant to lifting than the blue plaster. If you stick with TPF you probably won't have scaling though. I imagine it would look pretty bad in a very dark pool.

That being said, one of my neighbors has what looks like black plaster. When I've been over there, a few times for neighborhood parties, I didn't know enough about pools to ask what the material is or what color it is. Sorry anyone who has a black pool, but it looked a little creepy to me even filled with joyful kids. I've only seen it, though, in late afternoon prior to it being lighted at night. I haven't seen it when the bright sun is up in the sky so it may look different. He is the neighborhood "green thumb" with incredible landscaping all around. The pool, pool decking, patio, and house are BEAUTIFUL and spacious. I just felt uneasy, for lack of a better word, looking at and down into the pool. I've spent my life swimming in just about any body of water you can imagine, lots where visibility was nearly 0, and I've done lots of scuba diving in deep, dark, places, most with great visibility but some with little, so I don't think it is that kind of uneasy; just can't quite figure out what it was. :?

Neighbor may have used the dark color to help it blend in better in our native woods or maybe even to help with heat retention; just not sure. After seeing all of the beautiful pools here on TFP, where lots of natural colors and stones are used, I can say those pools certainly would blend more naturally in our environment, than my neighbor's pool does.

I've only seen other dark pools in pictures where it is really hard to get a good "feel" for the pool.

gg=alice
 
Get the Solar!

I have a new pool and have been getting great tips here. I thought I'd make my first post a response rather than a question :)

I am just a little south of you in the Carmel Valley/Sorrento Valley area, about 4 miles as the crow flies to the beach. With solar, our pool is still 80 degrees and the kids are still swimming. Everybody else we know with a pool and without solar has long since stopped swimming. We keep the pool covered, and the temp goes down about 3 degrees overnight. In the last 2 weeks, the peak early afternoon pool water temp has ranged from 79 to 85, with only a single day not hitting 80, and most days hitting 82. I am not expecting this to last much longer, but it has exceeded my expectations to be swimming in Southern California to mid November with solar heating. We have 100% solar:pool surface coverage.

Don't let the HOA scare you out of your right to use the south facing rooftop. Placing it significantly from South facing impacts efficiency by a factor that easily surpasses 20%, so they are limited in how much they can dictate where to place it on the roof. Our roof faces roughly NNW and SSE, so even though the SSE facing roof is facing the road, the HOA could not tell us to put it on the NNW facing roof as that would render the panels essentially useless this time of year.

Weth
 
jennybug35 said:
Tsunami thank you for this! I'm going to use this when we submit to the HOA. Since you live in Oceanside and we are neighbors do you have a solar contractor you would recommend? I have only met with one and after found all kinds of complaints online.
Click to expand...
You're welcome! If they're really strict, I wouldn't be surprised if they try to deny your application for solar. Stick to your guns, the Law is on your side!

jennybug35 said:
Since you live in Oceanside and we are neighbors do you have a solar contractor you would recommend? I have only met with one and after found all kinds of complaints online.
Click to expand...
Our solar contractor did a fine job. I'll pm you with the info tomorrow.

jennybug35 said:
Tsunami, the front of our house faces South. We live in a new development with a strict HOA. I really dont think it would go over well if we placed them facing the street :O( I'm pretty sure I read they cannot be facing the street. We went through so much with them just to get the pool and landscaping approved.
Click to expand...
Where did you read this, in the HOA's CCR's? Looks like they'll have to revise them! :lol:

Even after our HOA was presented with the Solar Rights Act, they still hired a lawyer who wrote an intimidating letter to our neighbor. When the lawyer realized that our neighbor was well informed of his rights, he told the HOA that there was nothing that he could do.
 
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