Best/Worst Pool Paint

Jun 4, 2007
139
Putnam County, NY
Hey All,

I am about to embark on an I/G paint job (cement bottom w/fiberglass walls) and looking at all the different brands of paint.

I like the ease & cost savings of the no-prime epoxies such as the Ramuc EP Hi-Build Epoxy but am I risking adhesion failure by not priming?

Anybody have a brand or product that they love/hate?
 
I need to refinish my pool also.

I have been attempting to research different products and the Zeron paint with Gunzite primer seem to be a pretty good choice.

I must admit that I read this on poolforum but the product data sheets are impressive.

It can be used to fill voids and on multiple surface materials IE: concrete & fiberglass.

Has any one here actually used this product?
 
Good afternoon.

Sorry for the delay. My daughter got married this weekend so I have been occupied and away from the computer.

My thread was the one attached above.

We used a Gunite primer and the Super Poxy Shield from In The Swim. It is their house brand but when I was doing my comparisons I didn't see any diffence between that and the Ramuc brand name. We got a deal with a coupon.

We were very pleased with the results. The primer and paint filled all of the hairline cracks in the fiberglass sides. You can't even tell they are there.

We used permaseal to fill the seams and were pleased with that product as well (turns out there is a less expensive version that I cannot remember the name of right now).

I just added a couple more pictures of the finished product to the thread above.

Good luck with your project! Let me know if you have any questions about what we did.
 
Bpotter said:
I was looking at the UltraGuard website.

That had a ton of very interesting information.

Don’t know what to believe since they are selling a product but I would sure appreciate some input from the members here.


This is the site:
http://www.poolrestoration.com/

That looks like some kind of liner/rubber material. Especially since they keep referring to it as a "membrane".

Well, I went ahead and ordered some TSP, permaseal & patching material. It will be a few weeks before I am ready to paint I am sure. Hopefully one of the on-line places will have a sale between now and then!
 
I have a little experience with Ultraguard. In March of last year, we decided to use it to refinish our pool and purchased the Ultraguard 6000 and the bond coat. I also was replacing the tile on our pool, which occupied me until about the middle of April.

The first thing to know about Ultraguard is that the prep is MUCH more extensive than they let on. You have to go through the TSP/Acid/TSP washes, which really aren't that big a deal (took about half a day). Then you have to pressure wash the pool, which seemed like an easy deal. Well in my case, a BUNCH of the old plaster just melted off during the pressure washing, so we had extensive patching work to do.

So after doing the patch work - which was hard, backbreaking work (patch, sand, patch, sand - and still didn't get it as smooth as I wanted), you have to let the pool dry out completely. Easier said than done in our climate with the high humidity. And to top it off, last summer was very wet for us, so we went all summer without getting a sufficent length of time for the concrete to dry out completely. They claim it takes 2-3 days for the concrete to dry enough, but in reality it takes more like a week with our humidity.

So finally, last fall we get a window where the weather was nice and the humidity was low, get the pool cleaned up again and dried out, then we go to apply the bond coat. We open up the 2 parts of the epoxy to mix, and one of them has hardened completely and is unusable.

I talked to the guy at Ultraguard and at first he was trying to say it must have been because the product was allowed to freeze. I explained to him that the product was shipped in March from Florida to Houston, and had been stored inside all summer, so freezing was out of the question. Then he agreed to replace it, but I never received the replacement.

So I called back and then they were claiming that it was because the product had sat in one place for too long (they never mentioned that being a problem, and I specifically asked them about the shelf life of this stuff). Anyway, he said that all I needed to do was (get this) - get a space heater and throw a black tarp over the space heater and the bucket of epoxy, to heat it up enough so that it liquified again. Not wanting to burn my house down, I refused to do this. He finally agreed to sell me a new bucket of primer at his cost, plus shipping which nearly doubled the cost.

By this time, it was November and any hope of getting the pool done last year was gone, so we thought about it over the winter and decided to cut our losses. We just had the pool replastered a few weeks ago, and it looks awesome. The whole Ultraguard thing was an expensive and time consuming mess, and very humbling as it was the first DIY project I ever failed at. Between buying the ultraguard, tools, prep materials, etc., we probably wasted at least $2k, which would have almost paid for the replaster job in the first place.
 
Mikster,

Thank you very much for sharing your story. I was very close to ordering this product and now I will not.

That kind of treatment is the last thing one would expect when a product is this expensive.

They say on the website that that kind of shelf life is acceptable so that excuse is nuts and the space heater thing is crazy.

Again a appreciate youe input.
 

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Also Looking to repaint my pool with paint

Here are a couple of sites I have been looking at for paint.

http://www.nelsonitepoolanddeck.com/

http://www.kelleytech.com/olympic/default.asp

I have also looked at the ultraguard and the polyonecaot although I have not gotten an email from anyone about the polyonecoat.

If the other guys are having problems with the ultraguard I would rather go with just a pool paint. I thought with ultraguard you did not need to do an acid wash if you had their primer but it looks like you do.

Anyone else try olympic or the nelsonite brands for painting.
 
I've never personally applied this stuff on a pool but I have used it extensively on chemical containment areas made out of gunite. I can tell you it holds up very well in that application. It's not as good against straight bleach but is impervious to acid. Of course in a pool it won't be subject to anywhere near that abuse.

A couple of my waterpark customers have also used it and swear by it.

It is a bit pricey and you've got to dilute it down with acetone and get it on quick because it has a very short pot life.

http://www.polysolutionsinc.com/
 
Bpotter said:
I need to refinish my pool also.

I have been attempting to research different products and the Zeron paint with Gunzite primer seem to be a pretty good choice.

I have narrowed it down to either the combo you mention (Zeron/Gunzite primer) or the Gunite Primer/Super Poxyshield from In The Swim. I seriously doubt that In The Swim makes their own paint, and most likely just rebrands one of the major manufactures. Judging from the colors samples & product names...I wouldn't doubt if it isn't Olympic as well! It is also a bit cheaper.

I am confused on coverage/square feet. I have a 15x30 with your typical 6 foot deep end. By the calculators thats 675sf. Do I really need 5 gallons of paint?! Seems like a lot, but I would hate to run out and have to order one. I want to do this in one shot.
 
This is the directions from the website http://www.kelleytech.com/olympic/olymp ... e-area.asp


"The amount of coating you will need for your pool is closely related to the
smoothness of the pool surface. You will also need to know the total square
feet of your pool interior.

How to figure the square feet in your pool
Find the form represented below that most closely resembles the shape of
your swimming pool. The formula underneath will give you the approximate
square feet of surface in the pool's interior. Check the coverage of the
product you select to determine how many gallons you will need[/b][/i].

RECTANGULAR
Length x Width x 1.6 equals total square feet

LAZY L
Length x Width x 1.65 equals total square feet

FREE FORM
Length x Width x 1.6 equals total square feet

OVAL
Length x Width x 1.65 equals total square feet

ROMAN
Length x Width x 1.55 equals total square feet"


I don’t see how this accounts for depth (walls) but this would make you Square footage 720.

Coverage for Gunzite Primer is 100-150 ft2 and the Zeron Paint is 125-150.

It is my experience with these things that the low end coverage estimates are usually barely enough especially with the primer since it will fill in imperfections as you squeegee it on.
So I’m my humble estimation you will need more that 5 Gallons.
Even at your ft2 number that would be 6.4 and 6.75 gallons respectively and even more with the web site calculations.


When are going to do this project?

I am also leaning heavily to this product but won’t do anything until winter.

If I could learn from your project that would be great for me  :)
 
When I did ours the calculations said one gallon of primer and one gallon of paint. I was short on the primer but i like to put primer on pretty thick. We ordered a half gallon of white for the coping and relief at the top and ended up ordering two gallons of Blue for the bottom. I did not have to open the second gallon of Blue but it was extremely close. I would definately order one gallon more than you think you will need. I am hoping that the unopened paint will last long enough to be used for touch ups or recoating at some point in the future. If you use more than one color for any reason you will need to wait at least overnight to let the first color dry some before putting on the second color. We had some bleed through that I was not happy with.
 
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