Blue fiberglass pool staining white

[Sbhski]

looking for help. Cant figure out what this stain is or what to do to fix it. Its all over pool. mfg of course says its calcium staining. i hit it with straight acid and it won't touch it. It's in the shell material

We installed this fiberglass shell three seasons ago. I have all water chem records going back to day one and the pool has always been in LSI balance. The pool is one block from ocean and did sit full of sea water for three months after the hurricane. Any thoughts.

I have a pic but can't seem to attach it.

[PoolDoc]

You can email pictures to me, at the same address you used before -- I've already described to you what pictures are needed, in our emails.

However:

1. Calcium doesn't 'stain', it scales. Calcium on fiberglass would be (a) rough and (b) removed almost immediately with muriatic acid.

2. Fiberglass is 'dyed'; various things can affect the dye.

3. Again, as I noted in my email, 3 months of salt water in your pool would void most chemical warranties. You'll have to check the specific conditions of your individual warranty, but it's very likely you have no warranty remaining.

4. The fact that your warranty is mostly likely gone does not mean the salt water caused the problem, but it does mean you likely will not get the manufacturer to do anything about it. The fact is, the manufacturer may know even *know* whether such high concentrations of salt would damage fiberglass. But you have to remember they have no reason to find out: unless they advertise their pool as seawater compatible, they have no reason to care. There's simply no 'upside' for them to investigate it.

5. You can paint FG pools with epoxy, but surface prep is tedious. However, it's absolutely critical: if you cut corners on the prep work needed for epoxy you will NOT get good results.


What you need to do:

1. Find a copy of your pool's warranty, to see if you have a prayer of a warranty claim.

2. Email *good* hi-res pictures to poolforum@gmail.com

3. Feel whether the color changed areas have a different 'texture' than adjacent areas. Describe in a post how they are different.

4. Test whether you can affect or remove some of the 'white' with a small rag saturated with muriatic acid. If none of the areas are above water, you can do this by putting a wash cloth in a small freezer bag, and adding a cup of muriatic acid. Then close the bag, submerge it, open it next to a 'stain', and press it against the stain. READ THE MURIATIC ACID PAGE FIRST; MA is dangerous; link is in my blue signature block.

Good luck!

[Sbhski]

Ben,

Of course mfg is claiming water chemistry. But again I have three seasons of weekly water test results with proper Langlier saturation index balance. Unless I can prove ist a faulty resin mix I'm on the hook. Already received letter from his attorney requesting 300,000 in damages.

I emailed u a good pic. I'm consulting the best stain brains in the country. Without sending a core sample to a lab I'm up the creek.

The texture feels the same fom dis colored areas to good areas. It almost looks as if the blue resin has a sealer layer and the stain got between the layers. Although that can't be true because its a single process mold.

I hit a dry area with acid and it did not change. It's not scaling on the surface it's in the resin. I understand epoxy coating and the sand prep involved. I've been involved with shells for 25 years. Customer won't accept white epoxy and I don't know of another rblue color.

Again property flooded in late oct hurricane and due to township restrictions we could not drain it for three months. Further making epoxy recoat worse is the ground water is 18". And the well,points we installed are washed out frontthe hurricane. Pool sits 200 tds from the bay and ocean.

[PoolDoc]

I should have been more specific -- for online diagnosis we're looking for sharply focused pictures, more than a megabyte in size, and more than 1600x1200 in resolution. Your picture was about 640x480 and about 160kB. The color differences are visible, but not enough surface detail to even begin to speculate about causes.

Also, it wasn't clear before, but I gather that you are NOT the pool owner, but are rather the pool installer?

In any case:

+ 3 years of good test results are not relevant, if the pool has been in service for 3 years and 3 months . . . and there are 3 months of TERRIBLE test results (ie, salt water). Your good results simply aren't in play, because you have 3 months of BAD results, which is more than enough to damage a pool.

+ I am NOT suggesting that the 3 months are the cause of the problem -- I really have no idea about that. What I am saying is that those 3 months almost certainly let the manufacturer off the hook.

+ If you (as the contractor) are responsible for those 3 months, you have my sympathy. If instead, the pool owner is responsible for those 3 months, I would imagine that that lets both the manufacturer AND you, off the hook.

+ Calcium carbonate scale would be affected by acid, and would be rough. I don't know what you have, but it doesn't sound like calcium scale.

+ Kelley Technical has several blue colors, and (xtra $$'s) custom blend others.

+ I've been involved in servicing a lakeside pool, separated from the lake by a retaining wall. I had to engineer rather elaborate load transfer structures, and then use (60) 50 gallon drums + (9) 330 gallon tote tanks, all filled with lake water, to hold the pool in the ground as we worked. But, that was on a concrete pool, with full gunite + rebar structure. I very much doubt it would work with an FG pool. (Why would you put an FG pool near the ocean? Those pools pop if it rains hard!)

+ If you've worked on ocean front construction, I'd assume you know more about well-pointing and dynamic water level control than I do. It *can* be done, but I have no idea what the cost would be.

+ If you're on the hook for $300K, it sounds like sending a core to a lab would be a reasonable step. With a good lab -- not that I know where to find one -- it wouldn't necessarily need to be a large core.

+ "The best stain brains in the country"? Are there any really knowledgeable "stain brains" in the pool industry? If so, I haven't encountered them. Keep in mind, pool chemical companies DEPEND on pool chemistry mismanagement for their very livelihood. US pool chemical biz is in the $2 billion range. If the majority of pool owners were taught, and attempted to follow, the methods we teach here, that $2 billion would drop by 50% of more. That would bankrupt BOTH Chemtura and Arch -- they are already only marginally profitable businesses.

+ Realistically, the only help you'd have a chance of finding here, is if you could stumble on some pool owner "me-too" experiences, that would allow you to ID possible causes. Toward that end, you'd need to post pool manufacturer info, specific pool model, specific chemical history, AND that high quality photo I asked for. Once you had all that, you'd want to post it here, at TroubleFreePools, and at PoolSpaForum.

BUT . . . this is the WRONG time of the year to do so. Traffic is a small fraction of what it is in May. I'm guessing there may be some similar experiences out there, but your chances of having those pool owners see your post is small in November.


Sorry . . .

[Sbhski]

Thanks Ben, yes I am the installer. Agree with what u say. And he's there are some pretty good "stain brains" out there. Most are chemists and engineers with 30-40 years in the business. Randy dukes, Jamie Gruden and some others are the best of the best in the world when it comes to stain phenomena. You can google there names.