Hello! I live in Texas and am having an issue with some spalling in the radius steps of the pool that came with this house and also a few spots on the bottom of the pool. The gunite pool was put in in 1986 and has not been replastered that we could find. The previous owners kept fairly good records. We bought the house 8 years ago and have been making some improvements as we can . Our project this year was getting a new pool cover (done), repairing the Kool deck (half done), and sealing between the deck and the tile at the top of the pool (done). We did hope to replaster the pool using sidercrete but due to health issues that has to be postponed indefinitely. We drained the pool to work on it and it was empty during freezing weather. We then noticed the edges of the radius steps, the radius edge of the swim-out platform and a few places on the bottom of the pool flaking or loosening. I read about "spalling" and that definitely looks like what has happened on the bottom of the bottom of the pool. I purchased Patch-it from Leslie's pools to do the repairs and the instructions say to chip out the area to a depth of at least 1/4". I can understand doing that on the radius of the steps as people step on the getting in and out, but the areas at the bottom of the pool are only about 1/16" deep. The bottom of the "hole" does look and feel like small pebbles. I don't know if this is the gunite showing given that the original plaster has been on for 36 years. I have started preparing the steps for the plaster repair, almost all of the edge needs repair. (When I touched the newly exposed after chipping it would turn to powder so I chipped it down/out to 1/4"). I have also sanded one place on the bottom of the pool and it seemed to feather out nicely. I sanded two places on the top step and they look a lot better too. I was wondering if I should/could sand the ones on the bottom and blend them in to the rest of the pool bottom or do I need to chip it down to the depth of at least 1/4"? The surface of the plaster has always been rough, the swimmers have to wear swim shows so they don't rub their skin off when climbing out of the sides as has happened when we first used the pool. when experimenting with sanding the bottom spall areas I sanded gently on the rough plaster. This smoothed it down somewhat but did not make it baby butt smooth. i did not sand hard as I didn't want to go all the way through whatever plaster remains. The sanding also helped with the staining that does not come off with power washing. Thanks for your help in showing me what i need to do to fix these areas.
Plaster repair on radius steps and bottom of pool
- Thread starter Micwtx
- Start date
- Jul 21, 2013
- 53,268
- Pool Size
- 35000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-60
As you know you have old plaster which has lost a lot of its thickness over the years to etching. IT looks like you have minimal thickness between the plaster and the gunite. I think the brown areas are the gunite showing.
The roughness maybe calcium scale. You can get rid of the scale with sanding. The loss of plaster from etching would not cause raised point roughness.
How well your plaster patches stick all depend on good surface preparation.
You can patch that pool but I hope you are saving up for a replaster within the next few years.
The roughness maybe calcium scale. You can get rid of the scale with sanding. The loss of plaster from etching would not cause raised point roughness.
How well your plaster patches stick all depend on good surface preparation.
You can patch that pool but I hope you are saving up for a replaster within the next few years.
Yes we are planning to replaster in the next couple of years. Just want to get the patches done correctly. Do I need to chip them out to 1/4" depth or can i just sand them as they are only 1/16" deep now and blend them to the rest of the surface? Thank you.