GregG

I have an old pool that was built around 1959. When we bought this house 8 years ago the pool was 1/2 empty and these tiles were already missing. This is what the tiles look like, does any one know were we can get a few replacements? You can see the hole where the missing tiles should be just to the left of the corner above the top step and below the coaming. Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated!!!

Fast forward 7 years after initially doing the work. All of the patches over some dozen or so rust treatments have held up quite well, no evidence of any of them! My epoxy paint has finally lost most of it's luster and needs recoating. I also found one more new rust spot that is starting to show coming through but not a biggie. I'm also going to fill a couple of hollow spots that I discovered. You can only see them at night with the pool light on or if we neglect the cleaner for a week such as when we go on vacation. The spots look like foot prints and are only in a few areas. As soon as the drought gets over I'll be emptying and doing these repairs and recoating the entire pool with a fresh layer of epoxy paint!

It has been 4 years since I started this thread. The problems have long ago been taken care of but the whole process was exhausting to say the least. (It probably didn't help that all of the physical work was done in the summer heat!) I think that one of the biggest peaves that I have about it is NO ONE around my locale had any helpful advice except to pay a contractor to do the job. I had quotes from pool contractors that ranged between $8000-$15000 for this job! Hell I'd empty the water and fill it with dirt before I was going to pay that kind of money. After talking to as many people as I could find I hit upon the idea of going to a pool contractors supply warehouse, there are two in my area. The 1st warehouse said they would only sell to a licensed contractor. Being that I am a licensed contractor and showed them a copy of my license they still refused to sell to me because I wasn't a pool contractor. The second warehouse told me the same thing but when I explained to them that I only wanted to do my own work on my own pool they agreed to sell me the materials. The only problem here was, I didn't have any idea what materials to use! I explained to the salesman what I was doing and he walked me back into the area where they stored everything. We got to talking a bit and he showed me a few things that others had bought, but he could not recommend anything. As I walked out to the sales room I'm thinking to myself, I've seen a lot of these products at Home Depot, hmmmm. So the next step is to go to Home Depot and look at the bags of materials and get the manufactures phone numbers. After several phone calls one guy says he did the same thing I'm doing on his painted pool and he used a tile thinset that was safe to use under water. He then repainted the pool and it worked great! Once I had that info I set to work draining the pool. It turns out there was more rusty rebar and small cracks that I had at 1st thought that there was but at least I could do something to move along. In the process we decided to ad a tile mosaic of a Marlin to the shallow end. It measures about 4' X 5' and actually covers some of the repairs so it does double duty. I also repaired the steps where the plaster had chipped off the edges and comepletely reformed the edges. All of the repair work was done with thinset. After a months drying time we acid washed everything and then epoxy painted the bottom after careful masking around all the tile. 3 of us rolled the epoxy in one evening. Let that sit a few days and then added water. The pool has never looked this good as long as we have been here. I was wondering how long all of the repairs would last and so far there has been no sign of failure so far. We're keeping our fingers crossed on that one. I called one of the original contractors to ask why his prices were so high and explained how much it cost me. He asked if he could see the work that we did and I agreed to let him inspect our work. When he looked it over he asked me if I wanted to do any side jobs for him! I suppose that was a compliment. Total cost of repairs including the new tile mosaic and the epoxy paint was $1400!

Great Guess, Yes it is the Pool Vac Ultra! Thanks for the idea on the manual. I suppose it's usually best to read the instructions 1st. By the way, I think that I have enough suction. I have a 2HP pump and it's running through 1.5" lines. I will pick up that flow gauge though, just to make sure. I've even tried laying a small rubber bathmat over the drain grate to further block that off. That always helps when we're manually vacuuming the pool. However, the manual work is getting really old very rapidly.

I had the same problem when I replaced my light. Someone had stolen the light and cut off the pool side wire while the house sat vacant before we picked it up. There was no wire tie in the light end. The service guy couldn't get it to budge either. I tried all sorts of lubes and letting it set overnight but no luck. I pulled until the wire actually broke off! I ended up tearing up cement bit by bit and cutting back the pipe. It took three cuts and three more broken wire ends before the wire decided to unglue itself from the conduit. Needless to say I overlubed it when I pulled in the new wire. Hopefully I never need to do this again.

I've had problems with my auto pool cleaner ever since I bought this house last year. At first in barely moved, if at all. This was even though the little feet looked like they were walking. I replaced the side wings (one was broken) and got a new hose but it still does a lousy job. It does a few slow circles in the shallow end when it starts out. The durned thing then always ends up heading downhill and within 15 minutes is in the deep end. How do I get it to clean the entire pool?

After doing a thorough search of this forum I couldn't find an answer to one question that I have. Can the existing plaster that is in a pool be patched in small areas? What has happened over the years is that in a few places the rebar in my gunnite pool was too close to the surface that meets the water. It must have taken some time for rust to form and work it's way through the existing gunnite and plaster and stain the surface that we can see. This leaves a less than pleasing orange stain that we haven't been able to remove. Through the grapevine it has been mentioned to me that this can be remedied by chipping away a small hole in the plaster and gunnite to cut out a small piece of the offending rebar. Sounds kind of drastic, doen't it? Anyway, if this were to be done, what can one patch the hole up with and where do I get it? Can one product do everything or does this need to be done with a plaster patch over a gunnite patch?

Wow, the sound around here is deafening. For a discussion BB that exists for pool/spas, this sure is surprising. Has no one any experiance doing this?

I'm a new member here and this will be my first post. Hope that I'm not asking too many questions. I just purchased a home with an inground gunnite 17X36 pool. The house had been sitting empty for almost a year and the pool looked terrible. There was greenish black water, plant growth, and the county had planted fish in it to prevent mosquitos from hatching. The first thing I did was pump out all the water and pressure wash the entire surface. I am amazed at how clean it all came except for a couple of nagging orange stains that turned out to be rust. There are also a few spots that need a bit of plaster fill-in, particularly around the steps edges. The paint needs some touchup as well and a complete paintjob is in the works so it looks like I'll be doing everything myself. Oh did I mention that I'd like to add a mosaic tile marlin to the bottom Upon searching the internet it seems like the only way to fix the rust problem is to chisle away the plaster and gunite to expose the rusting rebar. Sure enough after some chiseling I found rusty rebar. My questions here is, what easily and preferably inexpensive products can I use to: A: Treat the rust on the rebar so it won't rust again. B: Seal the rebar and fill the new hole on the pool bottom. C: Patch the plaster Next step is attaching the pool mosaic tile to the floor of the pool. First order of business was to chip away the layer of plaster in an area large enough so that the mosaic tile can sit flush with the rest of the pool bottom surface. I've used regular thinset to apply tile before but this was only on a shower. Is there a special thinset or adhesive for underwater pool tile? Is this something that can be bought at my local Home Depot? How long does this have to sit before grouting and is there a special grout? Does this have to be sealed afterwards? What do I use for filling in the plaster around the new tile? Now we get to questions on the painting. I had the old paint analyzed and it turns out that it is epoxy. The old paint was pressure washed, acid washed (50/50 muratic acid and water), TSP'd, and thoroughly rinsed before anything else was done. After drying the chipped and peeling places were sanded down with a large grinder and feathered back until the paint had adhesion. Is there a treatment that needs to be done to the bare plaster before priming and painting? Do I have to sand the primer or treat it before painting? Thanks in advance for any and all help! Greg