Surprised by scaling? Pics

[Shane1]

My auto fill broke a little over a week ago. The water level went down a little and this is what I discovered. I knew there was a little bit of a line around the pool but this is way more than what I was expecting. My PH is high but normaly with in range. Any advice would be appreciated.
Here are my pool numbers
FC 4
PH 8
TA 80
CH 320
CYA 80ish
Fill numbers
PH 8
TA 70
CH 190

 

[duraleigh]

Hi, Shane,

Well, to remove it you're gonna need some diluted muriatic acid and a pumice stone.

Then, to keep it from reforming in your pool when you get it cleaned, you absolutely MUST maintain your pH in the low 7's and never let it get into the 8's. You can lower pH with the same product.....muriatic acid

 

[jerrypar72]

What dilution rate on the acid, maybe 50/50? Do you recommend spraying it on the tiles?

 

[duraleigh]

Start with 4:1 dilution and make it stronger if the solution has no effect (it'll foam up)

A sprayer may not give you the control you want. You can get an acid brush at HD/Lowe's. Try using that and a glass or plastic bowl for the solution.

 

[bob22]

I never allow glass near the pool; very difficult to find and remove once it gets in the water if clear.

 

[Shane1]

I started to tackle this issue today with acid and a pumice stone. Is there a special type of pumice stone to use? The one I bought from Lowes didnt last very long.

 

[crabboy]

I use a squeezable ketchup bottle from Walmart and a green scrub pad. Careful not to go to strong with MA dilution, the MA can eat at the grout lines.

 

[jblizzle]

Hello from down south.
I started looking at this and thought you had pictures of my pool!!! (although my scaling is not that bad yet)
We just redid our pool last year in the blue granite pebble sheen and possibly the same tiles and the deck looks the same too .... very funny.
And for another coincidence ... my autofill is broken too (actually I have a leak in the pipe under a brick walkway that I have not dealt with yet ... maybe this long weekend)

I will have to keep this process in mind if mine gets too bad. Hope you post some after pictures!!!

 

[Shane1]

I'm using a spray bottle to get the acid on the tile. So far I've used 50 grit sand paper, a really stiff wire brush, green scotch brite and the pumice stone. The pumice stone is by far the most effective but I can see it will require two or three passes to get the tile all the way clean. I'll try a little stronger acid mix for the next battle. I noticed that Leslies has two different types of pumice stones, a green one and a regular grey one. I'll try the green next time as well. I'll post some progress pics tomorrow and some after pics when I'm all done.

 

[Shane1]

Here are some progress pics. I went to Leslies today and bought a product called the "Original pool blok". It's a 5 3/4 x 2 3/4 x 2 3/4 block of pumice. We'll see how long it lasts. I'm also going to bump up the acid mixture quite a bit.
First pass with acid & pumice stone

Side by side comparison

 

[jblizzle]

Those pictures are about what I currently have ... the white creeping up in the grout lines.

At our last house, the tiles were perfectly smooth and I actually used a straight razor blade to scrap off most of it (no acid used), of course that did not work on the grout.

Hopefully you are at least enjoying standing in your pool while you work right!?!?

 

[Shane1]

Keep that PH in check jblaert or else you'll be in the same boat I am. So, I went through that pumice stone really quick with pretty crappy results. A little frustrated I went to the garage and got my cordless drill and a wire cup brush. Now we're talk'n. I am now getting the results I was looking for. Does anybody know if there are any draw backs to using a wire brush on the tile? I'm using light pressure and getting really good results and as a bonus its getting the grout lines clean as well. I'm not going to go any further until I get some feedback as to the drawbacks to this method.
Looking like new

The right side of the sheer descent was done with the wire brush.

 

[jblizzle]

My only thought about the wire brush (and I had the same concern about the stone) would be if you end up scratching the tile ... even very fine ... I think that may be a place where the scale and/or algae could cling to and start more easily? Or maybe also make it harder to get rid of the next time?

On a related note ... is it really just the ph you have to worry about or is it the CSI that you want to keep near 0 (maybe on the negative side)? Meaning that it is really a combination of all the pool parameters.

ETA: How soft of a wire brush is it? brass? steel?

ETA2: I wonder if finding a brush that was not metal might be safer. Like this for example: www.drillbrush.com

 

[Shane1]

Thanks for your input Jbauert.
The brush I'm using is steel. That drill brush might do the trick, I'll see if any local hardaware stores have anything like it. If I keep using the pumice stones I could easily rack up $100.00 bucks worth and still not have totaly clean tile line. I might need to back off as far as how picky im being. Once the water goes back up the tile you really cant even see that it is there.
I think its like you said, it's really all the pool parameters that make this stuff happen. I'm going to start another topic asking about the wire brush to hoepfully get an answer. I'll still post back here with after picks.

 

[blakeusa]

I just finished fixing a friends pool that has scaling worse than your pics. He has natural slate tile. We used a soda blaster (basically a sand blaster with baking soda. There is a special product called Kieserite - (Natural mined mineral salt often compared to Epsom) is shot at low pressure. When the salt hits the surface it pops and this force is what frees the calcium from the pool tile’s surface.

http://www.universalminerals.com/soda-b ... trip.shtml

Pumace, grinding and sanding will damage your tiles and or will not remove all the scale. Scale attracts more scale.

B