Six, thanks for asking this question as I have been wondering as well. We've been speaking to contractors about a replaster to renovate our 35+ year-old-pool in the house we just bought, and all want to sandblast and presumably only chip down at tile line and fittings, no complete chip out. No one has really been direct in answering the question "If we do this now and agree to add a second layer of plaster for $15k without a complete chip out, when this plaster needs to be redone in 7-10-15 years, is a third layer of plaster going to require a complete chip out at somewhere much north of $15k, like $25k?" It seems like there must be some advantage to having the complete chip out up front - especially if it was the fault of the PB. If it's a $10K mistake and they put a second coat on now, have they just passed a $10K problem onto you for the future re-plaster? Wonder if anyone facing third-layer re-plaster experience could chime in with their thoughts. Some might feel it's a pay-now or pay-later type thing, you pay it all in the end, (like $15K for a straight re-plaster, $25K for re-plaster with chip out, doesn't matter which you do first, it's all $40k at the end) I like to know what I'm up against. Like right now we both have good jobs so could easier save up for the $25k but in 10 years, who knows?

It looks pretty bad looking at the pool fill picture. However, having said that when our neighbors got their quartz aggregate pool plastered with blue quartz, it was green for the first 4 days and you couldn't see any blue. When our pool company signed our contract we told them we wanted 20-30% grey and they said no problem. Then when it came time to pick out the tile and certify our plaster choice they told us that Grey with cause a lot of molting of the color as a result of the white plaster cream coming to the top and suggested it was not a good idea and then gave us a piece of legalise document to sign that basically said we were aware that it was going to look bad but we still wanted to go forward with it. We didn't sign it and later on fired the pool company and went with a pebble finish which is what we would have done originally if we were told this at the contract sign. I think you are getting the "acid startup" confused with "acid wash". The only way to do a "true" acid wash is to empty the pool, put on rubber boots, gloves and hip huggers, pour muriatic acid down the side and then with a brush, brush the side of the pool with the acid. The acid will bubble and steam comes up and you can see all kinds of things getting dissolved. Starting a pool up with a very acidic pH is pretty standard. However, with pebble finishs where the pebbles are not affected much by the acid, an acid wash helps clean off the plaster glaze off the rocks. With plaster, even the color quartz, they typically just fill it up and you brush all the loose plaster glaze over the aggregate into your filter. I guess there is some times an option with darker high quantity quartz aggregate to expose the quartz aggregate with a post-plaster acid wash as an option. It doesn't sound or look like thats what they did though right? I believe that with a strong acid startup and lots of brushing, much of that white plaster "cream" will brush off and you will see the grey color beneath it and it will look much better than the first picture. However, my understanding of the grey colored plaster is that you still will see color variations and it will never be perfect as it just part of the problem with going with colored plaster and quartz aggregate finishes. I'm sure that there is a skill of not working the plaster too much to cause the white cream to come up over the grey but some variations will always be apparent even if the plaster'r was an expert.

Yes, take the polaris out. Go to a good pool store and ask for help. They can get you a sequestering agent (The purple stuff, for salt pools, I think) You may need some stabilizer, too. Don't turn on salt generator yet, as you should have no salt in the pool yet. You should wait a couple weeks before you add the salt...in the meantine, you can put a couple chlorine pucks in the skimmer to get chlorine up. Keep plenty of acid on hand, it will want to climb for months. After about 2-3 weeks with low ph and lots of brushing, things should level out. Then you can add salt and stop the chlorine pucks. As for the filter, it's kind of a crappy job to clean, but it isn't terribly difficult. May want to ask pool store too, you didn't mention filter type. DE should just need backwashing. good luck

mako284, It's kind of hard to do nothing if your PB doesn't give you instructions about how to take care of the pool. He should balance the chemicals and give you specific instructions for the care of the pool. Your obligation until that time would be to brush the pool as much as possible. With that said, DB is a durable surface and you may see streaks and some inconsistency in the color and/or texture. The vacuum marks may be topical and not identations. Freshly plastered pools should be vacuumed with a btush vacuum to avoid this if necessary. It is common and IMO preferable to not drain the pool. Good color and texture can be achieved by lowering the ph and allowing the acidic water condition to scour the surface. This is known as an acid start-up or no-drain acid wash. Soil conditions and/or ground water level should determine whether to drain the pool. It seems strange to me that they would drain the pool to fix it without looking at it. Sounds like they may know it's a bad job and needs to be re-plastered. You should try to talk to the plaster company that performed the work. They will provide recommendations about how to start-up their products. At least the good ones will. If the PB doesn't show up on Tuesday you should call a pool plaster company for an opinion on the quality of the work and they can tell you if it is repairable. Good luck.