Leaves vs Travertine/Plaster

[imperator]

We've been debating pool plaster color for months now. One of our friends that we're relying on for advice swears that we should go with a dark color because they had horrible problems with stains on their white plaster finish. They say that just about anything will leave a stain on it. We have been really concerned about this, because we love our garden and trees and have planned from the start to leave all trees in place regardless of the clean up work this will create. (two sweet gums and a two medium sized live oaks basically directly over the pool). I know ... I know ... we're going to hate those trees within the 1st two months of pool use.

We've continued to lean towards a white bottom because we know several people who have that and it always looks fine to us. ( minimal stains even for those with a tree nearby)

This weekend, the heavy winds and rain left about a dozen sweetgum leaves on my travertine coping. After just 24 hours, I had a perfect imprint of a leaf on the travertine. It came off, but it took a cleaner and some scrubbing. Not a problem for now, but when my travertine pavers are in and fall hits, there's no way I'm going to keep up with that.

Needless to say, our level of concern has gone up on stains. Will the leaves create stains on my pool bottom? Will plaster color make a difference? Will I have a travertine stained nightmare?

 

[pooldv]

We have tons of trees around the pool. We went dark bottom because we like the natural pond look and we were hoping for additional heat gain. Turns out that the dark bottom also seems much cleaner than our white bottom pooled friends. We have rock salted and stained unsealed concrete deck and unsealed flagstone coping. After three seasons staining has not been an issue with anything. We do have to haul out tons of leaves, pollen and seed stuff in the spring and fall. But, we love our trees and we love having shade in the pool during summer.

 

[imperator]

Thanks for the info. We hope the trees help us out with no heat gain. I have a couple friends who haven't been swimming the last few weeks because it's like taking a hot bath. Louisiana can get pretty uncomfortable in July and Aug.

Any others?

 

[vudoo222]

Here in Arizona, we are putting in an aerator that runs at night to lower the pool temp.