I have been working on the pool process for so long now, finally have made all of our decisions - except one. What type of lights to use in our 19x40 free form pool. Its 8' deep with a sunshelf and a spa. We chose to go with the Black Marble Pebble Tec. We have heard that the colored LED lights do not do a very good job lighting up a dark finish pool, and we should op for 300 watt white lights. There will be two lights in the pool and one in the spa. We are going to use an LED in the spa regardless. Does anyone have any tips or advice. Pics of dark finish pools at night would be very helpful. We have looked through many of your posts and pics over the pasts months - They have been quite helpful - Thank you all for sharing so much. Eric

I hear you...I was worried sick. We ended up not using Pebble Tec.....long story...you can read about it on my thread titled "im so frustrated i could scream"....anyways....we were going to have midnight blue but after all the headaches and delays from pebble tec installer....we ended up going with the "River Rok"....basically the same....it is more like pebble sheen. We went with a custom color trying to match midnight blue....its close....i think somewhere inbetween midnight blue and tahoe blue. Heres my build link if you are interested: Here is a link that might be useful: david pool build

Our first message must not have be added. We too went out for bid with both PebbleTec and Gemstone. The PebbleTec bid had a lot of variations: cost A for X color, a different cost for another color; one cost for tiling, BUT if we wanted another tile, it was cost B, another tile choice was cost C etc. The price went up significantly. It was $7000-10,000 more than Gemstone for the equivalent look. We do have a huge pool (44x24), but that's an enormous difference. We went and looked at and FELT both Gemstone and PebbleTec surfaces...most of our neighborhood has pebble surface pools now, so that was east to do and nobody minded us stepping into their pools. They both looked and felt identical. Gemstone was much more willing to work with us with colors and tile options. We were just much more impressed with them overall too -- very knowledgeable, very professional.

PRO: I have the privilege of bidding and estimating remolding and repair jobs for a really big company and we see A TON of pools (remodeled over 30,000). This is not a pitch for my services, but my advice would be to put in a pool grade waterline tile and grout it by professionals. Tile is not for looks, it acts as a system to waterproof your pool. As your water level raises or lowers (or stays the same if you have an autofill) at some point your pebble will be exposed to air. In a perfect world about 3 inches will be exposed if you keep up on your water. A cementitious surface for your pool is meant to be hydrated as it cures. Total cure time is debatable, but I've taken classes where some experts think total hydration can take years. I'm sure there are cases (like the one above) where pebble can last 25+ years exposed to the elements, but there are of other factors that might of helped this rare occasion and I'm sure its not just cement strengtheners being added to the mix either. I find cracks in pools and problems with pools that owners didn't even know exist, everyday. I show them, and they all say "Wow! Now I see it, never even noticed that before!" Most often (depending on installed coping) we see small hairline cracks form at the base of the coping, they can run vertically or horizontally. Our solution is always to reset any loose coping (if cantilever or poured in place install a silicone joint) choose a thin tile (if not doing a re-pebble/re-plaster) and get new waterline tile in. Just my take on it from what I've seen. Feel free to find me and private message me if you would like more information. Please do not let pool builders convince you it will be fine, we are the guys out there cleaning up their messes and fixing the problems they never see years later.