Rebar Stains

I have two rebar stains right next to each other near the top of the pool.
The pool is around 20 yrs old.

I was told this would have to be repaired by either cutting into that section and doing the repair or re-plastering the whole pool. Which would be the best route to take? I'm just worried if I just repair these then others may appear.

I did a search for this problem but it seemed like it was just to get rid of the stain.

I assume you mean, rebar stains where it bled through the gunite and plaster? And not stains where pieces of rebar were left on the the pool? If so, I think there's a fair chance of future bleed through. But there's no guarantee.

You're not using a salt system are you? If you are, I'd stop. There's no guarantee that lowering the corrosivity of your pool water by getting rid of the salt will help -- again it depends on whether ALL the rebar is close to the surface, or just those two sections -- but it won't hurt.

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No it is not a salt system just regular chlorine. It has bled through the gunite and plaster. The pool is over 20 yrs old so I don't know if I am going to see more of this. Does it need to be repaired right now or just wait and see what happens?

Lots of old pools have stains.

Whether they are a "problem" depends on you. Stains don't interfere with swimmers or pool water.

But will it get worse? Probably. Can you fix it by re-plastering? Maybe. Ask your plastering contractor. Local skills vary a lot, and it would be useless for me to speculate on methods that aren't available to you locally.

Could you fix it yourself? Dunno. I could fix it, myself, even though I've never been a pool contractor or a plastering contractor. But I do have 20+ years of varied construction and repair experience.

What I would do (probably! I haven't seen it) is

• Drain the pool
• Keep the pool surface wet with a sprinkler, connected to a pump in the deep area
• Chip out the gunite to expose the rebar.
• Refill with a high-strength patching cement (like this)
• Finish with plaster (white cement / marble dust)
• Refill.

But, that can't be done in super-hot OR super-cold weather without risking damage to your pool

I had a pool guy out that told me he would do the repair the same way you explained it.

The stains don't bother me but I wasn't sure if this was something that had to be repaired right away or I could let it go for awhile and see if other stains develop.

If you aren't experiencing accelerated salt corrosion, my guess is that there's no particular urgency to it. And, you definitely don't want to expose your drained and dry to Las Vegas sun and heat. That would be likely to cause damage to old plaster.

Good luck!