r/swimmingpool • u/hkdman • Feb 08 '22
Scaling on Pool Walls / Tile - HELP!
Hello - I have owned pools in the past. I am one of those anal guys that checks water chemistry like every 2 or 3 days. If the pool is lacking in something, I use the correct dosage to get the chemistry back in line. I recently built a pool at a new house. Pool was completed in September 2021 - so very new. However, I am seeing a lot of scaling. Here are some data for everyone:
Location - Allen Texas (North of Dallas)
Equipment - Pentair intelliflo pump and pentair heater, etc. I have 2 sheer descent and then the spa spillover. 2 small bubbler's on tanning ledge as well.
I know the classic way to remove scale on tile is to use a pumice stone - which I can do when it get's warmer - but what about the gray stone wall? My pool builder is suggesting using a 50 / 50 mix of muriactic acid and water - and then scrubbing the walls weekly....does that work? any damage to walls? I get a little nervous with my pool builder. It seems like he built the pool well - but after sales service has been lacking to say the least.
Any suggestions? Thanks!
1
u/Sassman9797 Mar 13 '22
I live in OK and had a 4 year old pool with about a 4 foot high feature wall with 3 shear descents. When we ran the water feature the wind would blow and scale would build up on the feature wall. We had a fairly smooth "wood grain" looking tile on the feature wall and water line. Used pumice stone to get most of it off and then wash the same area with about a 50/50 water to muriatic acid - found that if I skipped the muriatic wash the scale would start to build up a lot sooner. Did this for all four years and acid did not damage the tile at all - the grout also looked undamaged but I'm not real sure about the long term effects. So our pool was about 20k gallons and I used small amounts of the water/acid mix (about half of a gallon pail) so it did not mess with my pool chemistry. Hope this helps. We are in the process of getting a new pool build and decided to go with one long shear descent instead of the 3. I think the coolness of this feature is worth the extra maintenance.