Hoping someone can give me some ideas about how to handle my ROCK problem.
We built the pool just over four years ago. Having seen lots of beautiful pools here in Las Vegas with natural rocks at the edge, I had the builder put in an all-rock waterfall and also rocks around the far side perimeter of the pool. The builder installed the rocks so that they go down into the water ("notched on beam"). The result was absolutely beautiful ... at first. Still is, if you don't look too closely. If you look closely, though, there's a lot of trouble with them. I'm seeing more and more apparent efflorescence or calcium buildup (?) on them (it's a saltwater pool, but by taste this isn't salt). Worse, the rocks are deteriorating badly. Every time I get in the pool, I find there are flakes ready to come off. I peel them off with my fingernail but the next time I'm in the pool, there are more. Sometimes little bits fall off into the water. There are veins in the rocks that are apparently little more than mud with tiny stones in them. I can rub this stuff loose with my finger.
Also, the calcium level in my pool (tested by the Taylor test kit) has gone from 325 to 625 in a year. In the previous year, it went from 150 (after filling mostly with soft water) to 350 and that was actually less than a year's time. I think this is due to deterioration of the rocks, since the automatic feed to the pool comes directly from a verified-working water softener.
Since most of the deterioration is at or near the water line, I suspect the rocks are absorbing the water, leaching calcium into the water, and that's probably also why they are deteriorating. In previous years when they were sealed, the guys took down the water level and sealed the rocks below the surface. However, the sealer they put on there and elsewhere has turned whitish. The rock was supposed to be granite, and some parts of it do look like granite, but other parts don't. My contract says only "rock" and anyway I'm now well beyond the warranty. I'm pretty angry at the pool salesman, whom I feel should have disclosed this as a potential problem. And it was no skin off his nose, the cost wouldn't have been any different if they'd been installed above the water line.
I'm looking for any suggestions what to do. I thought about draining the pool, sandblasting them to get every bit of loose stuff off and then re-sealing them yet again, but I get the feeling that's not going to be a permanent fix. The rocks are so big, so numerous and so hard to access that removing them would be extremely difficult. Is there any way to coat the rocks below the water line with something that will permanently prevent the water from getting into them? For example, could the part below the water line be covered with pebble-tec like the rest of the pool? I don't care about appearance any more, I just want a solution. The only other possible solution I can think of would be to drain the pool, build concrete forms entirely over the rocks (or at least the bottom part of the rocks, fill the forms with concrete, and then tile over the concrete -- anything to keep the water out of the rocks.
We built the pool just over four years ago. Having seen lots of beautiful pools here in Las Vegas with natural rocks at the edge, I had the builder put in an all-rock waterfall and also rocks around the far side perimeter of the pool. The builder installed the rocks so that they go down into the water ("notched on beam"). The result was absolutely beautiful ... at first. Still is, if you don't look too closely. If you look closely, though, there's a lot of trouble with them. I'm seeing more and more apparent efflorescence or calcium buildup (?) on them (it's a saltwater pool, but by taste this isn't salt). Worse, the rocks are deteriorating badly. Every time I get in the pool, I find there are flakes ready to come off. I peel them off with my fingernail but the next time I'm in the pool, there are more. Sometimes little bits fall off into the water. There are veins in the rocks that are apparently little more than mud with tiny stones in them. I can rub this stuff loose with my finger.
Also, the calcium level in my pool (tested by the Taylor test kit) has gone from 325 to 625 in a year. In the previous year, it went from 150 (after filling mostly with soft water) to 350 and that was actually less than a year's time. I think this is due to deterioration of the rocks, since the automatic feed to the pool comes directly from a verified-working water softener.
Since most of the deterioration is at or near the water line, I suspect the rocks are absorbing the water, leaching calcium into the water, and that's probably also why they are deteriorating. In previous years when they were sealed, the guys took down the water level and sealed the rocks below the surface. However, the sealer they put on there and elsewhere has turned whitish. The rock was supposed to be granite, and some parts of it do look like granite, but other parts don't. My contract says only "rock" and anyway I'm now well beyond the warranty. I'm pretty angry at the pool salesman, whom I feel should have disclosed this as a potential problem. And it was no skin off his nose, the cost wouldn't have been any different if they'd been installed above the water line.
I'm looking for any suggestions what to do. I thought about draining the pool, sandblasting them to get every bit of loose stuff off and then re-sealing them yet again, but I get the feeling that's not going to be a permanent fix. The rocks are so big, so numerous and so hard to access that removing them would be extremely difficult. Is there any way to coat the rocks below the water line with something that will permanently prevent the water from getting into them? For example, could the part below the water line be covered with pebble-tec like the rest of the pool? I don't care about appearance any more, I just want a solution. The only other possible solution I can think of would be to drain the pool, build concrete forms entirely over the rocks (or at least the bottom part of the rocks, fill the forms with concrete, and then tile over the concrete -- anything to keep the water out of the rocks.
