Flag stone sand in pool

[Jbthompson]

Hi there. I have a two year old freshwater pool in North Texas. Over the past six months, I have noticed a lot of dirt in my pool. Chalked it up to pollen, wind etc. thought maybe my filters needed to be changed so I changed those out yesterday. We got a lot of rain today and my pool, namely the tanning ledge, is covered in dirt. I got a close up of it and it is sand coming off of my flagstone that’s surrounds the pool. This sand/dust has only been around the edges of the pool on the bottom.

Anyone experienced this? This never happened last year even with heavy rain. If I run my hands over the edge of the stone, I get sand all over my hands.

 

[Texas Splash]

Yes, our flagstone does this as well. Much depends on the type of stone installed as some stones are naturally much harder. Ours is also flaking is places. I suspect in the future a re-do will be in order for us at which time we have to evaluate all of our options for a new coping around the pool. You might ask around about a sealer to help prolong the life of the stone.

 

[Jbthompson]

Bummer. It’s a lot of dirt. It’s not really flaking almost dissolving.

 

[Texas Splash]

Yes, we see a lot of stuff like that too. I know some of it is from our flagstone, but we also live out in the country so some might just be dirt that gets blown in as well. Your signature shows a Pentair filter. Not a sand filter is it?

 

[Jbthompson]

No it’s a cartridge filter. I just put brand new ones in yesterday because I thought they weren’t filtering well.

 

[Texas Splash]

No it’s a cartridge filter.

Okay, good. Then we can rule out sand from the filter. We just had a couple days of storms roll through our area, so that really piled-up a bunch of dirt and sand-like substance around the bottom perimeter of our pool. Time to vacuum.

 

[mknauss]

Keep the old cartridges. They are still good. Cartridges should last many years.

 

[Jbthompson]

Thanks. I don’t have pool vaccum just the racer cleaner. Hmm. I’m wondering why it didn’t do this before. The pool just looks dirty all the time.

 

[Jimrahbe]

jb,

Cheap Flagstone is just not a good product to use for coping... I have a rent house pool that I had redone and we (unfortunately) used Flagstone coping. It has been shedding very thin layers for about 10 years or more.. Some stones are perfect, and don't seem to have the problem. Right next to a good stone will be a "bad" stone.. Not related to areas where there is splash-out or where the coping is subject to more pool water. Just random..

I have a low voltage robot which pics the sand up, but it has turned the white robot basket brown..

So far it appears it will take 20 or 30 years for it to get to the point of needing replacement. I almost wish it was disintegrating faster so that I'd have an excuse to replace it.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[Rich807]

1st pool I owned had flagstone around it. Huge mistake I didn’t make the 2nd time around. A
couple years in I was constantly fighting iron stains due to the flagstone flaking off & sitting on the plaster sun/wet deck.