How do you clean your tile?

[DogPaddle]

Our pool is IG gunite, 12 years old. In the area of the fountain, the waterline blue tiles are VERY milky looking despite my best efforts. I tried to convince my hubby that we can use a dilute solution of muratic acid to clean the tiles but he's less than enthusiastic about that. What do you use to keep your tiles looking good?

[Phillbo]

Pumis Stone and a little elbow grease and beer .. If your going to make an acid solution, always remember to add the acid to water and not the other way around.

[DogPaddle]

Pumis Stone and a little elbow grease and beer ...

[waterbear]

a mixture of pool tile soap, acid, and a green scrubbing pad! I got a scrubber at the pool store that goes on the pole and has a chamber to put the tile soap/acid mixture in that gets released to the pad with a little pressure on it....sort of like those dishwashing wands with the sponge one the end that you put the deterent in.

[DogPaddle]

Thanks, Evan! (Hmmmm, I wonder if one of those dishwashing things would work...??? )

[BillyBumbler]

What kind of acid concentration to use? For instance how much muriatic to add to a 5 gallon bucket?

[waterbear]

I use one part of acid to 5-10 parts tile soap (from the pool supply store). Tile soap is designed NOT to foam, don't try to use a different type of detergent. I buy it in the gallon jugs...cheaper and lasts forever!. If you are mixing the acid in with it be sure to use gloves and keep rinsing the cleaner in the pool or the acid will eat it up very fast. I have used a tile cleaning tool that fits on my pool with the chamber for the mixture, those green kitchen scouring pads, and my brother (gunite pool) sometimes uses one of those pumice stones with the tile soap/acid mixture since he sometimes gets pretty bad scale deposits. If you are only cleaning off scum and not scale the tile soap by itself does a pretty good job.

BTW, a neat trick with tile soap if you are trying to skim a lot of pollen or other fine particles off the surface of the water. Put some tile soap in a plastic squeeze bottle with a nozzle (hair dye applicator or one of those refillable ketchup bottles works great, or even an empty and CLEAN liquid dishwashing detergent bottle) and squeeze a stream of tile soap across the water. All the fine particles will move away from the soap and towards the walls. Makes it much easier to skim them out. I put cheesechloth over the skimmer to catch the fine stuff but a pair of panty hose should work just as well.