Did anything I do cause this plaster damage?

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A

Agrabah

Well-known member
Jul 22, 2022
77
Las Vegas, NV
Pool Size
10800
Surface
Plaster
Chlorine
Salt Water Generator
SWG Type
Hayward Aqua Rite (T-15)
This is a slight continuation of another thread A little over a year since the last drain and fill, should I drain again? Calcium Hardness through the roof I was looking into getting my autofill moved to help reduce increasing CH due to the fact our source water is about 290 ppm.

I happened to notice a spot on my pool floor that looked like there were several pieces of plaster chunks. Turns out a small area seems to have either delaminated or something else. Only one spot that is obvious, hasn't seemed to get any bigger.

Tonight's numbers:
FC 3.4
CC 0.0
pH 8.0
TA 80
CYA 50
CH 870
Salt 3400
Current CSI value 0.62 (added 38 oz to bring pH down to 7.0)

The pool was finished in December of 2022. The plaster company has already made claims at least once that I didn't "brush enough" and the PB had to fire back with they haven't had a customer who brushed as well as I did. I was going out multiple times a day for over a month. The plaster company denied damaging my kool deck paint that was applied and I had to show video of them dropping their hose right on it and damaging it before they actually did something about it, so I already have a history of them trying to make themselves not liable.

All that said, they are coming out for an "inspection" in a few weeks to determine what is going on and whether they are covering it. $100 on them blaming pool chemistry. Hoping I don't have to get a lawyer but I will if I need to, assuming the general consensus is that I couldn't have caused this by keeping improper balancing.

Pictures attached. Honestly looks worse in the pictures than it does in person and the black marks were me poking it with my brush pole because I thought the water was playing tricks on my so I wanted to "feel" the drop that I could see and sure enough, it was there. It's much more visible at night when light hits it as all plaster imperfections show up quite easily like that. Visibly looks about 6" x 2" or so. All the pieces I was able to retrieve (there must be more but I can only assume they got sucked into the main drain or something because I have ran a vacuum to collect more and I've only seen a few more smaller pieces. All of them seem to be roughly the thickness of a quarter. To me, it seems like delamination and the fact it isn't happening everywhere would indicate this isn't a maintenance problem but was a problem at the troweling phase.

Photo Jul 21 2024, 6 04 23 PM.jpg

Photo Jul 21 2024, 10 45 05 AM.jpg

Photo Jul 23 2024, 8 05 52 PM.jpg
 
To put it simply there is no bad water chemistry that can cause delamination and plaster breakup like you have. None, Nada, Nope!

That is an installation failure after less then 18 months.

Was this a new pool build or a replaster of an existing pool in December 2022?

Plaster Installation and Maintenance - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com

@onBalance @AQUA~HOLICS may have thoughts.
 
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They finally showed up today, didn’t care about the actual problem, only taking chemical readings. I put their numbers in. Still waiting on a response as to what they are going to do. They said cya was at zero but it wasn’t and I knew it wasn’t so I ended up testing everything except for CH and everything else matched what they said. I tested it the other day around 600.

Now we play the waiting game.
 

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They did exactly what I said they were going to do.

They took a second test and said my water is “highly acidic” because their TA test showed 40 (it’s not although that would significantly help my pH rise issues). But their pH tests were between 7.9-8.0.

They are “willing” to sand down the problematic spots but claim it is my fault and it will get worse.

“From the image shared by h/o his device shows a target of 50-90 for Alkalinity which is in no way correct. If h/o keeps the water like this, it will continue to get worse.”

50-90 is also acidic 🤣
 
Talked to the GM of the PB and he is coming out tomorrow. The plaster company started draining today and the GM wants to inspect with me. He said they were very wrong in saying the pool was acidic and didn’t like the response they gave at all, down to the fact they said they were going to sand the affected areas down. He knows that isn’t going to resolve it. I said I would like to not have to rip and replace the plaster but it’s possible that might be the only real solution. It seems like wherever I notice “mottling” or unevenness in the plaster (only visible at night) is where it is coming up. Seems like voids in the plaster causing it to get loose and pull up over time. We will see tomorrow what everyone says.
 
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Came out today. Said that there’s some calcium build up and calcium nodules. I said that’s funny, you guys told me my water was too acidic. How can I have calcium build up with acidic water 🤣

They are polishing now…

The PB is going to call Hayward because I told him how often I’ve had to add acid to try and keep levels low and he may suggest moving away from SWG altogether. I asked about an acid dispenser system and he said every single one they’ve installed they ended up having to pull (this was 15~ years ago) and they haven’t done any since because of the issues they’ve had with them over dispensing and causing more issues.

I told him with the cost savings on having to buy liquid chlorine I’d rather deal with the inconvenience of adding acid.
 
Old school pool builder, use tablets, regular fill water, and drain the pool each year. That may not be as acceptable going forward with the LVVWD.
 
TinFoilHat said:
DO NOT let them take the SWG out. Once you get the pool properly balanced and your CSI between -.3 and 0 then your SWG will be a breeze. You do have a proper test kit and you do follow the TFP methods, right? If so then you'll be fine.
Pool Care Basics
Test Kits Compared
FC/CYA Levels
Click to expand...
Yup. Been using Pool Math since day 1 to keep records. I keep it slightly negative as long as I can. Without doing a daily acid dump though I usually have to add at least 32-64oz a week of 31.45% MA.
 
They doubled down. They said every issue I am having is due to keeping the water acidic for too long and there's obvious etching on the plaster on the walls. So basically, going forward. I am just going to deal with scaling and calcium. They said they can't believe anyone would ever recommend keeping TA lower than 70 regardless of the fact that the pH level is always high. They are saying that numbers should be based off Carbonate Alkalinity and not TA. Cabonate Alkalinity takes into account the amounts of cyanuric acid.

carbonate alkalinity = total alkalinity - (cyanurate acid concentration / 3)

This, I believe, is what Leslie's uses as a calculation.

They don't seem to care that regardless the pH stays high.

Dropping pH to 7.0, without SWG running it bounces back to 8.0 within 3-4 days. With SWG running usually within 24 hours.
 
Agrabah said:
acidic
Click to expand...
The definition of acidic is "having the properties of an acid, or containing acid; having a pH below 7;" Oxford dictionary. Absolutely no mention of TA. *GRRRR*

They are avoiding responsibility for a bad re-plaster.

AQUA~HOLICS said:
If you and the plaster company cannot come to an agreement on a solution you may want to contact the NPC for a “neutral” option.
Click to expand...
Maybe you missed this ^^^
 
PoolStored said:
The definition of acidic is "having the properties of an acid, or containing acid; having a pH below 7;" Oxford dictionary. Absolutely no mention of TA. *GRRRR*

They are avoiding responsibility for a bad re-plaster.


Maybe you missed this ^^^
Click to expand...
I did not miss it. I reached out to NPC twice, with no response.

It’s not a replaster. This was a new build. New plaster.

‘However, if a pool is experiencing constant acid demand and pH rises too quickly, TA can be safely lowered as far as 50ppm to compensate for this. Despite what the “pool experts” will say, keeping your TA on the low end will not “rot out your equipment” or “destroy your plaster surfaces”.’

This is exactly what they are saying.

They specifically said “if you expected us to come out and say we did a bad plaster job that’s not going to happen”

I see what they are talking about with the blotches of white along the wall. They are claiming this is due to bad chemistry and the water being acidic too long.
 
When the pool was drained and inspected by the PB and you, did you see other areas of plaster that had delaminated or had cracks? How many small areas have delaminated?
This problem with your plaster has nothing to do with the water chemistry. Neither calcium scaling or acid (aggressive) conditions would cause the plaster to crack or delaminate.
I would insist that the PB make his plaster subcontractor fix the problem.
 

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