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Just an update on my pool.
Have been looking into resurfacing options that come with some form of real warranty, had a mob out to quote who use a plastic coating applied with a blowtorch (pool has to be ground back to fibreglass first).
Cost would be 8500 for my small pool
The guys said they were doing heaps of work on riverina and barrier reef group pools and said they used bad chem for about 5 yrs for their pool building.
On a plus note he said my pool was still safe to swim in and structrurally sound and any resurfacing at this stage would only be for cosmetic reasons. He also said it may never get any worse than it is now and unless the look disturbs, I may not need it until end of pool life.
Some positive I guess.
Hey mate, which company came out to give you a quote?
had my plaster pool resurfaced with aquabright product
the robot is still picking up granules after 2 years
which suggests to me the surface is not very strong
in usa has rave reviews, so it may come down to installer
not very impressed
obviously with fibreglass your refinishing options are limited
Hey mate, which company came out to give you a quote?
It was
https://www.wafibreglassrestoration.com.auThey are colocated with a fibreglass pool seller in Greenwood.
They use aquabright, so previous post is interesting reading.
Stay Clear! Do your research ! all is not what it seems with that recommendation....
Anyone can tell you that your pool is safe, especially when their main company is selling the same gelcoat as BRP!!!!
If going that way try a company that has no skeletons in their closet! Jadan pool
https://www.jadanpoolrenovations.com.au/
Hi Flumps
Could you elaborate on your comment particulalry regards the safety aspect?
Please just see my other comments.
If you are sick you go to a doctor.
If you want to find out what is making you sick, you pay for further testing. Which is not cheap.
You find out what your pool is made from, who supplied the materials. You do your research.
Unfortunately the swimming pool industry is not regulated. (It does have standards but these are voluntary)
So anyone can start up a swimming pool company. Even me or you. But with any industry that has no regulations, this brings "cowboys" the ones that just don't care. They will say anything that you want to hear, as there is no comeback on them.
They know that a swimming pool business is not a repeat business, as lets be honest how many swimming pools do we buy in ourlifetime.
Even SPASA in their contracts make sure that the warranties are only for that one buyer, they cannot be "passed on" ie if you buy a house with a pool. The pool does not have a warranty (even if the pool is 2 months old!) as that warranty was supplied to the original owner.
PLEASE remember SPASA is for their members not you.
So why should swimming pool companies go out of their way to provide "safe pools" when there are no regulations making them do so? Morals , ethics I hear you say. I hope that it still exists with some pool companies , but certainly the ones mentioned - NO.
All I can say is try and look for a swimming pool company that provides free pool service 12 or 24 or even 36 months with any new pool purchase. You wont, as they know it is so hard (if not impossible) to keep a pool balanced to their manuals and they would need to monitor it everyday. Then if the pool does fail they cannot guarantee that the surface gel-coat is safe.
If you do find a company that does offer this continued pool service. PLEASE promote them as they will be one of the genuine ones that care about customer service and their pools.
Looks like I'm another victim of Barrier Reef WA. I got my pool 2 years ago and now my pool is all white. Apparently the managing director is going to come look at my pool but still waiting. When I called them they didn't seem to know about this issue but its starting to sounds like they know exactly what the issue is.
Hi Rhino,
Did you get someone out? I had someone come out to look at my pool. He said it looks like the gel coat has slightly oxidized. He said its caused from too high PH or chlorine. I get my water tested regularly and the highest it's been is 7.9. I have a system that is supposed to maintain chlorine levels too. Result of the visit was, I was given a piece of sand paper and shown that the white coat comes off with rubbing. Long term solution is to drain the pool and sand back the oxidised gel coat. A cost of about $4-$5 k.
Weighing up my options at the moment.
Hi, Yeah after about 6 months they finally sent out the guy who installed the pool, he just said he thinks it's chlorine damage. He said it could be buffed out and would get me the details on how to have this repaired. I never heard back and when i tried to contact them for details on how to fix it the started stuffing me around again. Finally they called me back and the first thing they said was we need every pool test i have done, only then will they talk to me. I've given up with them just looking to get it fixed now.
We had a Leisure Pool installed in 2016 and in July last year noticed these marks on the pool. We have been in contact with Leisure Pools and they said it is calcium sheeting. We have used 3 lots of chemicals and even had the chemical company rep out. These marks are not moving. It has been over a year now they have not gotten worse or improved, just stayed the same. We have had good water chemical testing. Do these look like your marks? Tracey
We had a Leisure Pool installed in 2016 and in July last year noticed these marks on the pool. We have been in contact with Leisure Pools and they said it is calcium sheeting. We have used 3 lots of chemicals and even had the chemical company rep out. These marks are not moving. It has been over a year now they have not gotten worse or improved, just stayed the same. We have had good water chemical testing. Do these look like your marks? Tracey
Hi Tracey . It looks like textbook what will be classed as over chlorination .
You wouldn’t want to see it without water as it will be completely white .
As for a cure , at this stage there isn’t a totally successful one .
The most common causes are
1- not testing water and adjusting chlorinator during winter
2 - using a solar blanket
3 using a heater through filtration system without a chlorinator cut off box .
Any combination of the above will increase the chances of this happening significantly .
We have had our Pool in for 3 years now and noticed the same problems we have a water mark all the way round the pool plus when it’s low we have fading/chalkywhite all over the pool below water level.
My commiserations to all suffering in the same situation. We have a Barrier Reef pool, and it is exhibiting all of the symptoms described above. We have manually sanded the worst of the marks from the bottom of the pool with 2000 grit wet/dry paper (as suggested by BRP), but can see now that the entire shell has slight bleaching (I know it will appear much worse when it is dry). My question is, if I remove the bleaching by sanding it, will it simply return again with the newly exposed material being affected in exactly the same way? Is the only permanent fix to recoat the pool with a more robust lining?Mike
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Sorry to hear you are experiencing the same issues as us too. The fact the problem is in other states too, not just limited to WA certainly means that it is a widespread problem that must be addressed. It is now a further 2yrs since the managing director of Riverina Pools came out and blamed it on high chlorine and our pool is worsening yet all our levels are great and we've used our pool blanket twice in this time as we are too scared too! The fact it's worsening though says it's a problem with the gelcoat. When you look down the sides of our pool you can see the patchiness and that something is coming off.
What to do about it and how to pursue is the issue now. I'm really not sure how we go about this. The warrantys we're all promised in our investment are useless if the company's won't listen or admit a problem.
How do we do it?
This is very interesting so many people with around same age pools are having problems. Our pool is now 3yrs old and it's getting worse and our chlorine levels have been fine and we haven't used our pool blanket in over 12 months as we are too scared to in case this is contributing to the problem. If you look carefully at our pool sides under the water, it certain light, can see like a mixture of colour almost shiny surface but is patchy where like the coating has worn off. When our water level drops too low, we now have a white ring around the pool. I daresay if we drained water ours would also look like previous photos.
Riverina came out, said it was too much chlorine, blamed us and told us to sand paper which we haven't. How can it be chlorine though when our levels are fine and it's getting worse?
What can we do about this as a group?
Hi KazBoo,
I am experiencing the same issue with a Barrier Reef pool here in QLD. Like I mentioned in my comment below, I am now addressing this with SPASA. I have also advised them to look at this thread, the same issue is being raised over & over again.
like i said to them, I am not a chemical engineer but having to keep within the very limited PH & Chlorine specifications is nuts, especially when they tell us how much extensive testing has been done on the pool shells from UV through to gel coat strengths.
They BRP tell me the pool coat has started to oxidize. 2.5 years later, I have a pool that has deteriorated and looking much older.
CLASS ACTION all these pools are made in the same factory (BRP, Freedom etc) same issues...
Regards,
Dalts
Hi KazBoo, Apologies for the lengthy delay (changed laptop and couldn’t find this thread) In short SPASA is not on our side and told me all the facts about regular pool maintenance. ACCC probably needs to see this thread & the number of complaints. I'm thinking now of going through an insurance claim to remove the pool but also looking into or to tiling the pool, which may make it more far more durable and easy on the eye...I think by next summer my pool will be completely chalk white so no matter which way I go it will look better than whats there presently. My pool dreams - shattered not to mention the resale of my property will suffer as a result too. Maybe i should send the manufacturer (who makes the shells out from a JImboomba factory) the invoice. Dalts
not to mention the resale of my property will suffer as a result too.
don't forget not every buyer wants a pool, so you're double screwed
yeah great - thx for that
any idea on solutions ?
I do, but you wont like it mate.
My commiserations to all suffering in the same situation. We have a Barrier Reef pool, and it is exhibiting all of the symptoms described above. We have manually sanded the worst of the marks from the bottom of the pool with 2000 grit wet/dry paper (as suggested by BRP), but can see now that the entire shell has slight bleaching (I know it will appear much worse when it is dry). My question is, if I remove the bleaching by sanding it, will it simply return again with the newly exposed material being affected in exactly the same way? Is the only permanent fix to recoat the pool with a more robust lining?Mike
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I’m late to this thread, but I have suffered all the same issues and frustrations with our 3 year old Barrier Reef pool.
I did consider a re-coat (estimate $10K) after the restorer chap told me that sanding off the gel coat surface and stain would only temporarily fix the problem, but in the end decided to give sanding a go (before resorting to a full recoat)
That was Dec 2020. I dropped the pool level down and first used a battery orbital buffer and fibre glass polish - but that didn’t work. I then used a battery orbital sander and 1500 grit wet and dry - and that did work. I only took off about the top 15cm from the pool level (so that the white stain would never show above the waterline - even when the level dropped to the bottom of the skimmer box (I particularly hated seeing the white line all around the surface of the pool). I then finished off with a fibreglass buffer and polish. It was hard work, but the pool looked so much better after.
Good news is that is now nearly August and the staining hasn’t come back. I am now almost obsessively fastidious about checking the free chlorine level and keeping it below 3ppm (we have a virkon equilibrium system), this is our first pool and I never thought it would require so much attention.
I tried the warranty angle too, but no joy.
I have the same problem ... could you please give detail steps on how you buffed the pool -- what products did you use and if you used a variable rotary machine ...... How much did you remove - a few passes ?? .... could you see the color on your sand paper? Just really looking for some advice ... did you do the floor too or just the walls?
I used an 18v Ryobi orbital sander and and 18v Ryobi orbital buffer. The fibreglass buffer and polish I got from super cheap auto (it’s for boats) and the fine grit wet and dry papers (with a Velcro back) to fit the Ryobi I got on line from Smith & Arrow.
As mentioned, I’ve so far only done about 15-20cm all around the pool (and spa) around (just below) the waterline level.
I dropped the water level to the level of the bottom of the skimmer box, got in the pool (waited until early Dec when it was warm!) and went round the pool with the orbital sander (using 1200 and 1500 grit orbital sanding disks) sanding the area just above that waterline. You’ll be sanding it wet, so you don’t see that much on the paper - but you certainly see what’s coming off in the water - it’s like a white cloud.
I’m sure the Ryobi sander isn’t meant to get anywhere as near as wet as it did (despite my best efforts) and I did kill one of my batteries eventually, but my 2 spares both survived, as has the sander.
It does take a few passes before you get rid of the white and are back to blue (or whatever colour) again.
I used quite a few sanding disks (they come in big packs). Once I’d got the wall back to blue from the top down to the level of the bottom of the skimmer box, I went round with a buffer and used fibreglass buffer as described above. I didn’t use the polish, it didn’t seem to need it and I don’t know how long that would last in pool water. Might be worth a try?
I then topped up the pool, ran the (quite cloudy) water through the pump and filter for a few days until it cleared, rechecked the chemicals and all was good.
The white bleaching has not come back after 8 months (even in the spa where it was particularly bad).
The pool just looks much better because you can’t see the horrible white tide mark that used to appear as the levels fluctuate, especially in the Summer with evaporation.
I’m sure the pool makers would tell you not to do this, but they refused to help me and I thought I’d try this as a last resort before having the pool shell resurfaced.
When you look into the pool you can still see the white, below where I’ve sanded. But it’s much less noticeable and if it stays like this I’m reasonably happy and can live with it.
Thank you very much - to be honest I am devastated - our pool was a dark blue - it looks terrible now - not sure what to do - the cost of new gel coat is cost prohibited - 3m makes a gel coat restore with wax - I was thinking of trying that product with a variable speed buffer and a wool pad at around 800 rpm but afraid of burning the finish - I did try some hand wet sanding last fall but little success - I think a power machine is needed - could send a picture to me - thanks again - I appreciate your honesty