New Pebble Questions

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kolbajen

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Sep 28, 2007
35
Austin, Texas
Our pebble was sprayed Friday. Saturday they came and acid washed and did some "patching" on some areas. We put in a sandy colored pebble and there were several places where the fat was more concentrated than the pebble. They actually chipped out the fat spots and pebble reapplied or patched. That took all day Saturday and Saturday night we started filling the pool.

It's Sunday night, we have the pool filled and the pump running to circulate the water. We've turned on the lights and there are a few spots where they chipped out the fat and didn't fill them or the fill didn't stick and now we have these gouges in the bottom of the pool. Also, at some of the patch spots, there is a streak of lighter pebble surface running from the patch to the deep end of the pool.

Also, at our bench in the deep end of the pool, they had two areas of the pebble that didn't stick right away during the spray and they kept going back over it again and again. You can see these two areas on the bench wall.

So, my questions are these:

Are the few gouge marks acceptable?

Is the patchy look on the wall acceptable?

Will the streaky, lighter looking pebble areas running down from the patches begin to blend as the chems get worked out and as we continue brushing?

I do accept that this is a human applied product and will not be perfect. I understand that there are imperfections in a product like this. We used a lighter pebble and these items seem to show more than they do on our friends' pools that are darker pebble.

Also, will these gouges impair the integrity of the pebble product?

Are these things that everyone has and we just see them more in the lighter pebble?

And....the water is pretty icky green right now. Our contractor says that once the chems are set up that will clear out and the color will be prettier.

I'm really kind of sick to my stomach over this. We DIY'd everything except the pebble application and everything looks incredible. Are we being too picky on the pebble's final application?

Thanks for the input.
 
Some streaking is to be expected since the acid wash is never completely uniform. Gouges don't sound right, that shouldn't happen, though I can't really say for sure without pictures (and even then it is often difficult to tell). Get the builder to look at it; given the attention they already put into it they should be prepared to resolve any open issues.
 
We are ending up draining the pool and doing some work on the pebble before another acid wash and refill. The company has been extremely responsive and will be paying the water cost of refill and will have it done by next week. They have said if I am not happy with the job they will repebble.

Apparently, the streaks in pebble aren't so uncommon. I guess that is nice to know. At this point, I would still highly recommend this group.
 
question

kolbajen,

I am also in the Austin area with a DIY pool. Would you mind sharing the names of the companies you used for the following?

1. pebbletech
2. coping/tile
3. pool lights/pumps

Thanks. I hope to finish mine in the next couple of months.

carlos31
 
Tile: MasterTile on Rutland - We had to order through Tile Guy, they will pass on their reduced price. We laid it ourselves.

Coping: We bought our stone from Bedrock on 620 N. We hand cut the slabs to fit around the pool.

Lights/Electrical: We snagged the guys next door at our neighbors new pool build. I'll see if I can dig up their names. They specialize in pool electricity.

Pump and equipment: We buy our chems from Warehouse Pool Supply. We recently bought a Polaris online and received it, hooked it up, sent in the warranty card, and it works fine! Found a tremendous savings online. We do all the equipment repairs, hook up, etc ourselves.

We used H&H Plaster for our Pebble. We received quotes from Austin Plaster and Centex. H&H was the better price and we have been thrilled with their service and product. We have some streaks that they are addressing today. Since we were doing so much ourselves they really worked with us on our timeline and doing part of the job first and then coming back to finish after we did our part.

Centex was recently bought by another company, fyi.

Austin Plaster wouldn't give us a direct quote. We had to go through another start up type company that did all the GC for a pool remodel. Austin did the original plaster on our pool some twenty years ago and we would have liked a quote directly from them. When I called them, they put me directly in touch with this other company. I disliked the issue of having to go through someone else.

The pool business appeared to us to be very closed to anyone trying to do things themselves.

We hired a company to do our start up and we ultimately decided that it's something we can do ourselves.

All in all, a good experience.

Good luck.
 
The tile was actually very, very easy.

We did buy a water level and that helped a great deal in staying level. We used thin sheets of mdf and nailed them in around the pool for our line once we had it marked out. Use standard thinset - we used a fortifying additive just in case - and spread it and layed it. The grout was easly. Regular grout.

The skimmer baskets were harder, getting those corners good and straight. We used a 1x1 mosaic tile and they were harder to cut than larger tiles. We used the grinder with a masonry cut off blade to cut them.

All in all, it took us two days to tile and grout and when it was finished our plaster guy said it looked better than most he sees done professionally! He offered my husband a job!

One thing that helped was that our neighbor just had a new pool installed. We were able to drop by regularly and look at the pool as it went along. We saw how they nailed up the level boards, where they started and stopped in tiling and how they set the skimmers. We could see their trash and saw what grout and thinset they used.

While I have no desire to do it again, it was definately worth the savings in what it would have cost to have someone else do this project.
 
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