Refinish your pool

Our pool was nasty when we purchased our home. So I woke up one day with the idea I would empty and refinish the pool!

Step 1 Empty the pool

Two sump pumps were used to drain the pool of all its water.. well, almost all of it. It stopped once it got to the crud at the bottom.. Here comes the fun part.

Comments

[Danny_Payne]

wow, your house must be nice _{i love the size of your pool} here in england, i have a 12 foot metal framed pool, its about waist deep, its nice on a hot day, not that we get hot days ;-)

[emergencydpt.com]

Nice pool. Maybe you could give us a few more details... What is a "Soap Bath"? What is a "Muratic bath"? Did you use a pressure washer? Where did you get the instructions for cleaning the pool? Did you scrub with brushes or just hose it out? What kind of lining does your pool have? Thanks, -Spencer

[doitmyselfchic]

we didn’t own a pressure washer at the time. (would have been nice though) so we used a hose. We washed the pool out with a degreaser soap that you purchase for pressure washers at the hardware store. Mixed it and scrubbed the walls and bottom of pool with a tough scrub brush. The muriatic wash was muriatic acid mixed equal parts with water. (muriatic acid is found in the painting area near paint thinners and such, at the hardware store) We put it in a 2 gallon jug that has the attached sprayer (the kind of sprayer you'd use to spray yard weeds) and sprayed the pool with the acid. We left the acid on overnight and sprayed the pool clean the next day. Then we waited 24 hours to make sure it was DRY. The pool is gunite. and we purchased a commercial paint for gunite pools. Residential is just as good I am sure, but we got a deal on the commercial. I think the brand was Rumac.. but its been awhile. : ) It didnt require any mixing. Not like you would mix to refinish a tub.

[emergencydpt.com]

Also what kind of paint did you use? Is it an epoxy that you had to mix a hardener with? How long after you painted could you fill the pool? Thanks again.

[2true]

Nice work, Doityourselfchic! I especially like the smashing baby in the last shot - looks like another one of your do-it-yourself projects... :D

[doitmyselfchic]

Thank you. We .. well I.. am building a new deck around the pool this summer. Pictures and how to's to come :D

[Ibanezfoo]

Good job! I passed on buying a couple houses simply because the pools looked like yours before you refinished it. Had I realized something like this could actually be accomplished DIY-style I probably would have bought one of them! Doh!

[dapinoyba]

It looks like you guys had fun doing this...your pool is huge, I can't imagine how long it took to clean out the crap out of the pool! Anyways, since you have kids, I suggest building a fence around the pool, as a safety precaution. Accidents do happen

[doitmyselfchic]

The funnest part of cleaning the pool was when my twin sister lost her stepping and splashed down to the alge pool below :) The pool area is actually inside two fences. That was our first concern when purchasing the house.. and the following weekend, my husband and father in law put up the second fence. Now we have a new concern.. its our 1 year old trying to slip in far enough to get his feet wet.. Im considering getting a leash for him so he can't get that close :D

[radiorental]

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[Junkyard John]

There are those "’" things in step two, like in the bug section "unrecognized symbols"

[trebuchet03]

Nice work... I know exactly how time consuming it can be :P When I had to drain my pool... I did not have Jack around to help refill :( But, if you use the valve mechanism from a toilet (floating ball shut off type of thing), and some fittings, you can leave the hose on overnight and let it fill without worrying about overfilling and wasting water... My pool is estimated to be 24,000 gallons - it took about 4 and a half days to fill o.0 Call your water company and let them know - I got a discount on sewage fees....

[doitmyselfchic]

This green picture of the pool was the Before picture.. the summer before I refinished it :)