First post here, but have been a reader for the last year or so since we bought this house. This place has been massively helpful in getting my chemical levels in control and keeping the water beautiful.
On to my issue - we didn't know when we bought the house 1.5 years ago, but the previous owners had recently painted the pool. There were several plaster cracks but the pool inspector said they were likely cosmetic / surface only. Its an in ground pool - concrete with plaster. After probably 6 months of owning it, it had begun to drastically fade. We also started to get areas of notable chipping (not huge, but quite a few, and visually ugly). We also found we had a water loss problem.
Got some quotes for a replaster which was much more than expected. We're saving up for that, but are still probably 3 years out at this point from having enough (its a lower priority as its just cosmetic at this point).
Last winter we leak tested the pool and found the concrete crack (which had previously been poorly repaired). Then drained it, repaired the crack the right way - with staples, and spot repaired the other cosmetic cracks. We sanded the areas with adhesion issues down to plaster and we scuffed the rest of the pool with 80 grit. We repainted using the exact same paint the previous owners had used (to avoid compatibility issues) - cheap INSLX acrylic.
Almost a year later and there are a handful of spots with flaking (likely insufficient prep on our part as theyre tough to reach areas in an empty pool), the paint has faded again as expected (its a royal blue so it starts off pretty dark) and we've got to touch up a couple of our plaster spot repairs (they shrunk a bit more than expected and collect dust now).
My question is - is it better to do the same thing again - just keep scuff sanding the pool and putting on this super cheap acrylic each year until re-plaster, or might it be worth sandblasting all the paint off and putting on a more expensive paint one time (in the hopes it looks ok for the next 3 years)? I think the cost will be about the same as quality paint looks to be 2-3x more than this cheapo stuff, but maybe it could save us 2 winters worth of prep labor.
Before anyone says it - I searched, and I get it - re plaster is the way to go. Its just not possible in the budget today (the pool needs several other major services done at the same time - both on the decking and coping, so the whole reno project is fairly expensive), and it already had paint on it when we bought it, so there's no going back on that.
Thanks in advance!
On to my issue - we didn't know when we bought the house 1.5 years ago, but the previous owners had recently painted the pool. There were several plaster cracks but the pool inspector said they were likely cosmetic / surface only. Its an in ground pool - concrete with plaster. After probably 6 months of owning it, it had begun to drastically fade. We also started to get areas of notable chipping (not huge, but quite a few, and visually ugly). We also found we had a water loss problem.
Got some quotes for a replaster which was much more than expected. We're saving up for that, but are still probably 3 years out at this point from having enough (its a lower priority as its just cosmetic at this point).
Last winter we leak tested the pool and found the concrete crack (which had previously been poorly repaired). Then drained it, repaired the crack the right way - with staples, and spot repaired the other cosmetic cracks. We sanded the areas with adhesion issues down to plaster and we scuffed the rest of the pool with 80 grit. We repainted using the exact same paint the previous owners had used (to avoid compatibility issues) - cheap INSLX acrylic.
Almost a year later and there are a handful of spots with flaking (likely insufficient prep on our part as theyre tough to reach areas in an empty pool), the paint has faded again as expected (its a royal blue so it starts off pretty dark) and we've got to touch up a couple of our plaster spot repairs (they shrunk a bit more than expected and collect dust now).
My question is - is it better to do the same thing again - just keep scuff sanding the pool and putting on this super cheap acrylic each year until re-plaster, or might it be worth sandblasting all the paint off and putting on a more expensive paint one time (in the hopes it looks ok for the next 3 years)? I think the cost will be about the same as quality paint looks to be 2-3x more than this cheapo stuff, but maybe it could save us 2 winters worth of prep labor.
Before anyone says it - I searched, and I get it - re plaster is the way to go. Its just not possible in the budget today (the pool needs several other major services done at the same time - both on the decking and coping, so the whole reno project is fairly expensive), and it already had paint on it when we bought it, so there's no going back on that.
Thanks in advance!
