If you’re considering a gunite pool or if you recently bought a house with one, there’s one question which will eventually come up. Once you’ve gotten though the basic questions like what type of pool cleaner, and how you want the disinfection systemsto work you’ll start wondering about longevity. You may have heard you will need to resurface your pool at some point. How often do you resurface a gunite pool anyway? In this article we will review some of the common reasons you’ll need to resurface the pool. We will also cover what you can do to minimize the frequency of doing the work.
How Often Do You Resurface A Gunite Pool?
Pool resurfacing can get expensive. Especially so if you do more than just the interior plaster finish. Often it’ll ‘make sense’ to also do the tile, coping, and maybe even some deck and plumbing work while you’re at it. But what if your pool was built well from the beginning? Your plaster should last you at least 15 years until it starts to look like it needs redoing.
How To Refresh Plaster Without Resurfacing
There are some in between stages where you can refresh the plaster, and make it look better without resurfacing. This is often referred to as an acid wash. An acid wash can really bring things back to life. However, it also will make the interior finish of the pool rougher. Be prepared for the smooth texture to change to more of a pumice stone texture after the acid wash.
Choose A Quality Interior Finish
If you have an exposed aggregate interior finish like PebbleTec, PebbleSheen, or a Wet Edge Technologies pebble finish, your finish will last longer. The exposed aggregate finishes are the most popular to use on new pools as well as when resurfacing because they are less prone to damage from water chemistry mismanagement. Unfortunately, white and colored plasters are more susceptible to the peaks and valleys of PH, Alkalinity, and Chlorine levels.
Test Your Pool Water Regularly
One of the best things you can do to make your interior finish last the longest is to test your water regularly. Additionally, only add as much chemicals as demanded by the water condition. Also, you may want to consider alternative or supplemental disinfection methods. These alternatives are Ozone systemsand UV systems.
Ozone and UV reduce your reliance on chlorine. Therefore, they also reduce your need to chemically shock the pool. This results in a more balanced system for longer periods of time. Note, we never would recommend adding a salt system. That’s because these are known to reduce the lifespan of your interior finish, among many other potential issues.
Acknowledge Your Pool’s Surroundings
When considering how often do you resurface a gunite pool, there is more to worry about than finish type and disinfection system. You should also consider the staining potential of the current surface. If you have a finish like white plaster, and you have a lot of oak trees around, you are guaranteed to have staining occur eventually. Likewise, if you have a black plaster pool or black pebble pool, and you have a salt system, you will get white and yellow staining in a short amount of time.
How Often Do You Resurface A Gunite Pool Summary
Your tolerance for staining is one of the major factors to consider when determining how often do you resurface a gunite pool. With all these factors in consideration, well maintained pools should last you between 15-30 years between resurfacing. A poorly maintained pool may need to be resurfaced in 10 years or less. However, we’ve seen exceptionally well-maintained pools last 40 years without resurfacing.
