Pool acid washing for plaster that will not come clean

The usual case is a pool that went green, got chemically cleared, and still looks gray and blotchy afterward. The water is fine but the plaster kept the memory of it. Same thing with a dark waterline ring, or leaf stains that sat on the floor all summer. If that is what you are looking at, and the plaster still feels smooth under your hand, washing it will work.

What a wash does not do is rebuild the surface. It takes the stain out of the plaster. It does not put plaster back.

Usually two to three days from draining to swimming. It goes in this order:

• Day one: the pool is drained and the debris comes out, then the plaster is washed in sections, neutralized and rinsed.
• Refill: the pool fills back up, which takes as long as your hose or your well takes.
• Balance: the fresh water gets its chemistry set before anyone swims, because new water on freshly washed plaster needs to start out right.

Figure a day of actual work plus refill time.

Run a hand across the plaster. If it is smooth and the problem is the color, a wash will help. If it feels rough or chalky, or it is flaking and showing gray patches underneath, the plaster itself is worn out, and no wash is going to fake that. Washing thin plaster only takes off what little is left.

Richie will tell you plainly if your plaster is too far gone for a wash to be worth paying for. We do not do resurfacing, so there is nothing to sell you instead; you just get the honest answer before anything is drained. The longer version is in acid wash or resurface your pool.

A lot of properties in Loxahatchee and The Acreage fill from a well, and well water carries iron and other metals. Those metals settle into plaster as tan, brown or gray staining that looks like dirt but will not brush off.

Two things are worth knowing before you book a wash for it. Some metal staining lifts with the pool still full, using ascorbic acid and a sequestrant, so a wash is not always the first step; removing well water stains from a pool shows how to tell. And a freshly washed pool refilled straight from the same well starts staining again almost immediately. If you are on a well, we talk about treating the refill water before the pool is drained, not after.

Sometimes the water is clear again but the pool still looks gray and blotchy, because the algae stained the plaster while it was there. That is exactly what a wash is for. If the water is still green, the wash has to wait: start with a green pool cleanup, get the water clear, then look at what the plaster is left with.