Trying to decide between pebble sheen French Gray or Blue Granite. Is one more of a blue water color than the other? Pool will go from 3.5’ to 6’. Don’t want any green. Does anyone here have one or the other that you’d recommend? Waterline tile is a grayish blue, white travertine patio and coping. Thank you!
PS French Grey or Blue Granite
- Thread starter Bw704
- Start date
Spoke to a previous neighbor yesterday who said he did the original pebbletec moonlit grey and he said it does have a lot of variation based on time of day, shading etc. He likes it. We just replaced our NPT midnight blue which had the pool showing partial lagoon and green whenever there was shade and in full sun it was green. The grey is supposed to have more blue but our pebbletec owner told us we risk green with any of the colors so we went Arctic White. It is icy blue but no green regardless of shade, clouds, or sun. I do wish I had a richer blue but there will be risk of green as far as I was informed. I would also have your PB show you the grey pools weather it be moonlit or french grey since I think they are the same except for pebble size. We show an NPT tropics blue and it was clearly emerald shaded, but it clearly has brown, tan, black pebbles along with grey. Be sure to have Pebbletech make you a large sample of your product desire..even if you pay for it..then you have a much better perspective and maybe can place it on the floor of a friends pool. I attached a sample of the large size they gave me when I requested larger sample. There are many discussioins re blue granite on TFP. The sample looks more like Tropics Blue which draws green vs French grey sample does not appear to have much black, brown or tan. I hope some of this helps. You can't take green out so researching before install is your best bet. I was given false promises and was extremely disappointed. Luckily there was enough wrong with the install, we switched to Pebbletec for the redo. The install from start to finish was so much better. In addition the minipebble is so much smoother, barely notice its pebble. Ellen M
Ellen, I hope you see this message. I just put in Midnight Blue and think it's too dark for our pool which is mostly in shade during the day. We also get 6 months of clouds/rain here in NorCal so I am worried the winter it will look like a black mud pit. How did you go about having it replaced? Did they have to strip it all out? How much did it cost? My husband says "no" but I just want to gather information. Thank you for your help!
Good day. You can always call me (858-205-6060) if desire too as email conversation may be limiting. So here is my story. First which is important, I am educated and a researcher to learn something I do not know about but want to know about. I almost a yr on this site reading everything about pools. So I knew that contractors, builders, and any of the people I would meet ...are just that people. My career (now retired) is assessing and treating people, so I am a good read of character. Now the story. I asked my builder earlier on to show us many pools so we could decide interior finish choice, design of tiles, step tiles, color of water etc. He is a great person, excellent pool builder/contractor etc with a heart of gold. However he always took on too many projects at once (and openly admitted it to me...as he knew I already knew). The pool showings just kept being delayed and I made many comments along the way that it is handicapping us to make an informed decision and choosing off the web is not what anyone should do. He kept promising. After studying the web photos we knew we preferred a medium/dark water...not a dark water. He was finishing a project in my neighborhood where the person chose the NPT cameroom mini pebble which is black and the water was black. He was standing there at that pool when I happened to drop by and the neighbor invited me to see her pool. He said he thought it was a lovely choice. I was very clear and said not for me. "If my pool ever looks like that, you will have to do a free redo". He heard me. As time went on he showed me a pool with midnight blue but the property had 100% sun. It was also a poor done job. This was the ladies 3rd house and 3rd pool and she was quite clear that if she wasn't elderly she would have pushed for a free redo. I then told him that if my pool looks like hers, I would make them redo for free. He agreed that the pool finisher has his A team and other teams. We also saw tropics blue pool again in full sun. And that was all he showed us, days before we needed to decide. My neighbor has the pool color I have now (light color) and I never cared for it. He tried to tell me why he liked it but I was set on darker blue/richer looking for me. Now I am meeting the interior finisher and my builder at my dining table and we start to discuss midnight blue. I said I saw emerald green in the ladies pool and I want medium/dark blue. He tried to say tropic or midnight is guaranteed to be blue. Now I just told him he was not accurate with the pools he showed me. Tropics had a grey base on all the stairs in the shallow water. I also said I read that the tri bag of rocks will cause the black, green look. They disagreed but I held my ground as it is all over the TFP site if you read details. Hence, the interior finisher and builder said let's customize the interior finish and give you dark blue water and agreed to take out those rocks. (what they did not tell me is there are some of those colors mixed in the other rock bags, so it is not controllable! I said I do not agree with how you are proposing and if are wrong and it is also less than an A+ job you will have to do a free redo. Moving right along, it was a C job, even my builder agreed and it was black in the shade and emerald in the sun and my pool is about 50/50 shade/sun length wise many many hrs of the day. And the pigment was gauranteed not to fade (again I told them that is not what TFP says and added that to the free redo if it fades. Hence, he agreed that he remembered the dining table agreement and did the redo AND no less, said let's use Pebbletech. Pebble tech owner told the builder there is no dark blue with mini people available on the market..npt or pebbletech. The pebbletech guy said I know what you need as all pigments fade so do not get pigments. And it is also what is needed with the combo of sun and shade to not give various colors with a pool only 8' wide! He knew his business. Now with all that said..I believe the free redo was 30k holding the interior finisher responsible for his promises that he could not show (A+ work, no fading, and medium/dark blue water). At one point my builder mentioned a higher number while they were actually redoing it but I think that was out of frustration that he did not listen to me initially when I said show me many many pools and I can go without you and travel anywhere within an hr and want to see lap pools since that is my build. He knows he failed on all those accounts plus the interior finish promises that were not based on science/fact and he knew that he was dealing with a smart professional. So all that said..see if you can find any glitiches in their promises/install etc. Who told me it was a C job was the acid washing team and that just confirmed what I felt on that day and started the ball rolling and this was even before water was added! It just snowballed from there. I am glad it is all behind me now. If ever in San Diego, come by, hang out and swim! I am open to chatting as much as you would like anytime. Hope this all this detail helps you in some cost effective way.
Ellen, THANK YOU! At least I don't think I have gone crazy. Since this was a resurface (not a build) we thought it would be easy peasy. Not. I did do alot of research on the Web for the Midnight Blue, but as I now go back and look those pictures were all in full sun. My pool does look decent in full sun, although very dark blue, but at 5pm, it is mostly in shade and it goes black. I was not a happy girl last night when the pool finished filling.
At least I now know what I know. I did go back and read your original thread when you started the build and you are amazing. At least you were very clear with your builder what you would and would not accept. Good for you.
At least our pool is perfect as in the application. There is not one missed or funny spot anywhere. For that I am grateful. As soon as the 30 day cure and chemical time finishes, we are adding a bright white LED light at least to the pool, so maybe I will just turn it on at 5pm and be happy. Thank you so much for your time and I will definitely look you up when I next get to San Diego.
At least I now know what I know. I did go back and read your original thread when you started the build and you are amazing. At least you were very clear with your builder what you would and would not accept. Good for you.
At least our pool is perfect as in the application. There is not one missed or funny spot anywhere. For that I am grateful. As soon as the 30 day cure and chemical time finishes, we are adding a bright white LED light at least to the pool, so maybe I will just turn it on at 5pm and be happy. Thank you so much for your time and I will definitely look you up when I next get to San Diego.
I am glad you got blue vs emerald. I never saw blue EXCEPT at night with the pool lights on (we have micro lights and have 6 along the 48' length - one about every 8'). That was the only time I saw blue. Now when I swim at night we do not need to even turn on the lights as we have motion sensors along the back of the house and I prefer not swimming with the lights on as they are hard on my old age eyes. With the lighter color I at least have ice blue all day and night. It never chnages much even with the shading at various points. I still do prefer deep blue but it just would not work with a lap pool and the location. I am glad you got a good install as that makes or breaks the beauty. I am actually blessed it was a crazy solution that created and I got to redo the finish and change the glass stair markers from curved to straight and took out the floor tiles as they were unnecessary given the 3 floor heat returns. We also heat our pool everyday with either solar thermal when the roof is warm of the electric heat pump which runs off our solar panels. It is never under 91 degrees and I swim daily. Been a late start to day so it will be an evening swim, despite thinking 10 am swim but ended up on a 3 mile walk instead. My retirement is walk, pilates home reformer and swim! I love taking care of me at this stage. I earned my pool after 43 yrs of hard work! I am glad you redid the finish and now are not as distressed as when you first reached out. It does sound like leaving the light on will help you enjoy the evening view. To keep the heat in the pool we often have the cover on and San Diego like No Cal has not been very warm this year at all. Reach out anytime.
