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The Pool Envy Podcast is where real, licensed pool professionals speak up. In an industry overflowing with DIY chatter and surface-level advice, we dive deep into code, compliance, and craftsmanship that set licensed contractors apart. Our goal is to educate and elevate the industry — teaching safety, sharing knowledge, and helping those who build and service pools do it the right way.
From the job site to the code book, this is a pool envy podcast where licensed pool professionals speak up. Code, compliance, craftsmanship, hosted by Jason Davies. License across Wisconsin, Florida, and Texas. Your deep end starts now.
Jason:Alright. Zoom out with me to about 40,000 feet. A swimming pool isn't a decorative bowl of water. It's a cement structure you keep alive with chemistry, hydraulics, and time. Heat, rain, sun, salt chlorine, whatever system you run, your pool is basically a controlled environment.
Jason:And the interior finish, that's not paint. That's skin on a cement system, which is why it blows my mind how often plaster gets treated like lipstick. Like it's just cosmetic. Like you can slap it on, blast it with chemicals, and fix it in startup. No, that's not reality.
Jason:Plaster is cement chemistry, timing and discipline. It's one of those trades where you can do nine things pretty okay and you'll still get punished for the one shortcut you didn't think mattered. Now if you want to see this in real time, don't go to a textbook, go to Facebook. Because Facebook pool groups are basically a live broadcast of what happens when the process is respected and what happens when it isn't. You'll see the honeymoon post, new plaster day.
Jason:It looks amazing. We're so excited about our pool. And then right under it, you'll see the hangover post. Is this normal? There's been dust for weeks, streaks, footprints, shadowing.
Jason:How about the stain? The builder's like, oh, it'll just go away. And then the comment section starts to light up violently with the same script every time. Oh, it's totally normal. Brush it for twenty eight days.
Jason:Pour some acid in it. Your chemistry did it. Do a zero alkalinity wash, oh, just give it some more time. And here's the part nobody wants to say out loud, so I'm gonna say it. If you keep seeing the same plaster guys popping up 30 times in a row explaining why dust is normal, why streaks are normal, and why footprints are normal, at some point, you just have to stop and bang your head against a wall and ask this, why are you doing so much damage control?
Jason:Because when plaster is done right, the posts are boring, that's why. It looks good, the startup is controlled, and people move on with their lives and enjoy their pool. Now, let's talk about the fastest way to turn your new plaster day into what the heck happened. You guys ready for this? Putting strong acid on fresh plaster the same day it's installed.
Jason:Big no no. That's not cleaning, that's etching. That's attacking a surface while it's still forming. And then everybody acts surprised when the finished dusts, stains, has weird footprints on it, or it starts living in a brush to brush to brush purgatory. And since we're already being brutally honest, here's a Florida reality check for a lot of you.
Jason:If you're in Florida and the person taking your money for the plaster isn't licensed for pool work, it's not acute technicality. That's a character test. If they'll ignore licensing, they'll sure as heck ignore the process. They'll eyeball the mix, rush the crew, skip bond coat, shortcuts on startup, and then hand you a bag of excuses and call it totally normal. You may never see them again either, not today.
Jason:So in this episode, I'm gonna give you plain homeowner language for what's happening in the first twenty four to forty eight hours, Why certain shortcuts create dusting and blotches, and questions you ask before the water goes in, so you don't buy a five year finish by accident.
Spyder:Let's dive in.
Jason:Pool plaster is cementitious. Cement doesn't dry like paint. Cement hydrates. It chemically reacts with water and forms a binder that gives it strength. So right away, you have two realities homeowners can use.
Jason:Reality number one, water to cement ratio matters and it matters a lot. More water makes material easy to place by trowel, but it also makes the finish more porous and less durable in the long term. And the top layer, the skin, that's what you see. It's what stains, what dusts and what wears. Reality number two, Portland cement does not like strong acids.
Jason:Acid isn't a gentle cleanser for cement paste. It reacts with it. It's literally why etching works. So when someone says we're gonna acid wash it right away as part of our normal startup, you should hear we aggressively attacked a surface that was still forming. The analogy here, would you wet sand fresh car paint while it's still soft because you saw a haze?
Jason:Or would you let it set first and then do a controlled finish step? Plaster is the same idea. Timing matters. Muriatic acid is hydrochloric acid. It's corrosive.
Jason:It can burn skin and eyes and irritate lungs. And when people use it like it's a casual cleanup chemical, it tells you something about the mindset on the job. But set aside safety for a second and think about the finish. Acid doesn't know the difference between surface residue that you want gone and a cement matrix you need intact. If the plaster is still green, still young, acid can open up that surface, widen pores and damage the very layer that's supposed to become dense and durable.
Jason:And that's where homeowners get misled. You'll hear this line, dusting is normal for twenty eight days. Some brushing and early curing behavior can be normal. But if you are having heavy dusting, if the story includes aggressive early acid exposure, you should at least consider whether the surface was over etched or weakened. Cement doesn't cure instantly.
Jason:It continues developing for weeks. If the first thing you do is damage the surface, you're starting behind. Here's what homeowners notice. Footprints, trouble marks, dark streaks, shadows, where tool sat, weird spotting. A lot of people assume that means bad water chemistry.
Jason:Sometimes chemistry plays a role, especially when it's uneven looking. But when the marks are non uniform and show up immediately, it's often process and handling. Fresh plaster is not a sidewalk, it's not a tile, it's not cured concrete, it's still setting. If people are walking on it, setting tools on it, dragging hoses, leaving buckets, those aren't mysteries, those are contact problems. And then the trap happens.
Jason:Once footprints and tool shadows exist, some crews try to erase them by etching the surface with even more acid. And what this does is it darkens the already exposed plaster more and it slightly darkens the damage you're trying to fix, which then results in the original mark plus uneven chemical removal. Very simple explanation here. If you take an abrasive or etching chemical on a soft surface, you're not cleaning it, you're changing it. And the change isn't always even.
Jason:A cleaner, more controlled approach is simple. Install plaster correctly with a lot of consideration towards the mix specification, placement, consolidation, and proper finishing techniques. Let it sit for a day. Timing varies by systems and conditions used. And then do a controlled exposure and then a cleanup step.
Jason:Neutralize and proceed with startup afterwards. The big idea is separate installation from exposure. Don't attack a brand new surface while it's still becoming itself. And here's a word people hear but nobody spells out, carbonation. During hydration, cement chemistry produces calcium hydroxide.
Jason:Over time, carbon dioxide from the air can react with calcium hydroxide to form calcium carbonate. It's a pretty cool simple reaction. CO two plus calcium hydroxide corresponds over to calcium carbonate and water. Homeowner translation, the cement surface is chemically evolving as it matures, especially early and especially right at the surface. And that is why harsh chemistry on day one is a gamble.
Jason:The takeaway is super simple. Let the finish firm up and stabilize before you scrub it with chemistry. There are products that allow for a day two type exposure, and it's one of the techniques that we at Pool Envy specifically use. To keep the podcast neutral though, we're not gonna mention names. But the idea behind it is this, we do a new plaster finish and we wait.
Jason:Instead of using aggressive acids on day one, we wait twenty four hours. We allow the surface a chance to dry and draw the salts and latents up to the surface. And then we use a safer acid on that to clean it all off and scrub it. And then we neutralize that acid so that that acid isn't permeating and hydrating our finish. We do hydrate the finish of course, but then we go back and neutralize it, clean it, and then we're finally ready to start adding water.
Jason:And what this does, it allows for a faster turnover cycle of our plaster surface. It does minimize shrinkage cracking in certain instances, and it provides a much quicker jump in the pool within a couple days as opposed to waiting twenty eight. I like it. It works for us. Remember to follow your plaster installers written instructions and remember whatever the manufacturer says in writing is what goes.
Jason:Now, let's talk about the step that gets skipped most, especially on re plasters. And it's the step that decides whether a new finish bonds and cures evenly, the bond coat. If you're putting plaster over old plaster, you're asking a lot of that bond line and homeowners almost never get told the real issue. The old surface is rarely uniform. Typically, it's super inconsistent in fact.
Jason:Over the years, the old surface gets patched with different materials from whomever. It gets acid washed sometimes multiple times. This destroys the surface right there. Then the surface may become scaled, it may become descaled, it may be overexposed to high levels of sanitizer with CYA in them, which is also an acid. It may get stained and then someone may come along and fix it.
Jason:Somebody else might aggressively pressure wash it. It may get ground down in some spots, untouched in others, and exposed to chemical events that change the surface. So even if it looks like one surface, it can behave like 10 different. Here's the easiest way to picture what that does to a replaster. Imagine the old finish is like a sponge, but not a consistent sponge.
Jason:Some spots are super thirsty like a kitchen sponge. And some areas are tight like a sealed concrete. Some of these areas are patched and something that absorbs differently. And some of the areas are contaminated in a way that you can't see. And when you apply new plaster over that directly, that substrate can pull moisture differently in different areas while the new plaster is trying to hydrate and cure.
Jason:And that uneven moisture can show up as uneven texture, uneven shade, uneven tightness, uneven dusting behavior. And homeowners describe it as spotty, blotchy, sometimes leopard spots. I'll use the phrase dalmatian spots because I like dogs. But I wanna be clear, dalmatian spots is not a technical standard. It's just plain language that I hope I can use to describe stuff to you guys.
Jason:It's not a description or a formal diagnosis. Let's move on from that. What Bond coat actually does, Bond coat is the primer layer concept, but it does have a real physical job. Its job is to create a more uniform substrate so new plaster can bond consistently, allowing plaster to hydrate more evenly and it cures against a more predictable surface with uniformity. That's it.
Jason:That's the magic, uniformity. The easiest analogy is drywall primer. If you ever paint over patch drywall without primer, you'll see patches because the wall absorbs paint differently in different areas. Bond coat reduces the patchwork sponge problem when you're replastering a pool. Now, here's where homeowners need to hear because it prevents false confidence.
Jason:Bond coat isn't magic. A lot of people will sell it that way. It's not magic. But it cannot bond to loose dirty delaminating substrate. That's gotta get chipped out.
Jason:Bond coat can't fix lazy prep work. Bond coat cannot fix structural movement. And bond coat cannot turn a rushed crew into a careful crew. Bond coat works only if the underlying surface is properly prepared and sound. When we say bond coat supports even hydration, we mean this.
Jason:Hydration needs water. If the substrate beneath the plaster pulls water unevenly, the new plaster can hydrate unevenly in different areas and that's how you get inconsistent behavior and inconsistent appearance. Bond coat helps reduce that uneven suction effect by creating a more uniform layer between the old finish and new. It also creates a place for a mechanical bond for the plaster to adhere. So here's some questions that reveal confidence.
Jason:These aren't meant to be rude, they're pretty basic. But ask these of your plaster applicator. Is this a replaster? If yes, are you using a bond coat system? What surface prep is required so the bond coat actually bonds?
Jason:How do you verify the old surface is sound, not hollow or delaminated? How do you handle uneven porosity from old acid washes or patches? If the acid wash is used during prep, what is your neutralization step before the next layer? And if a contractor gets defensive about these questions, it's not your fault. It's your information.
Jason:Use it wisely. Alright. Now this is the part no one explains. And it's probably the part that decides whether plaster stays on the pool and stays looking right. These are three words that sound familiar, but they're not the same thing.
Jason:Consolidation, compaction, and compression. If you can understand these three ideas, you'll understand why some plaster jobs dust like crazy, stain easily, or even flake and pop off later. Consolidation, full contact, no voids. Consolidation means just this, the plaster has to touch what it's supposed to touch everywhere. No hidden pockets, no air bubbles trapped behind it, no hollow spots where the material truly didn't marry to the surface underneath.
Jason:The easiest way to picture a void is similar to a screen protector on a phone. If you lay it down and you see bubbles underneath, that bubble is a void. There's no contact there. The same thing with tile. If you tap a tile and it sounds hollow, that's a void.
Jason:And voids are where things crack, break loose, or sound drummy later on. So consolidation is basically no bubbles under the sticker. It's full contact, it's a continuous layer, not a layer with hidden gaps in it. Now compaction is a little different. Compaction means that the plaster isn't just touching the surface, it's being placed and worked so it becomes dense and unified with fewer open pores.
Jason:Picture two versions of the same sandcastle. One is gently shaped and looks fine, but it crumbles the second you touch it. And the other one is tightly packed and holds its shape. That's compaction. If plaster isn't compacted properly, you can get a surface that's going to dust more, absorb more, stains easier, and wears out more quickly.
Jason:Compression is what happens when the finisher applies the right pressure at the right time to close the surface and make the top layer strong and consistent. But here's the catch. Timing is everything. If you compress too early, you can push water and paste around in ways that create weak zones and weird texture differences. You can also seal the surface while the water is trying to move and evaporate which can cause defects.
Jason:If you compress too late, the plaster is already tightening and you can't properly close the surface. You can leave it more open, more porous, and more prone to dusting, and that's a bad thing. Let me connect those three words, consolidation, compaction, and compression to the thing that quietly ruins more plaster than anything else, water to cement ratio. Here's the trap. A mix that's a little wetter will feel easier to work with.
Jason:It moves easier. It sets easier and it fills in easier. And if a crew is behind or they're short handed, there's a huge temptation to just add a little more water and make everything smoothly go along. And at first glance, that wetter plaster can look like it's doing its job because it flows into the low spots and it makes the surface look great. But here's what the homeowners need to understand especially when you're seeing all these great videos on the internet.
Jason:Water doesn't disappear like magic. In a cement finish, extra water leaves behind extra pore space. And that's why too wet often turns into a soft top layer of plaster, more dusting, more staining, more uneven texture, and a finish that wears out prematurely. So when you hear it was a little stiff, we just added water, that might sound normal. But the differences between we controlled the mix and we eyeballed it, is the difference between a finish that holds up for years and a finish that starts acting weird fast.
Jason:And this is where people get confusion about consolidation. Because yes, a wetter material can help fill in and make it look like it's consolidated. But true consolidation isn't this we made it soupy and it flowed look. True consolidation is placing it correctly so it contacts the substrate everywhere without needing to cheat the mix. A good crew doesn't rely on extra water to solve time pressure problems.
Jason:They rely on the correct substrate prep, correct mix consistency, enough hands on the job to get it done, and the right timing so they can finish without panic. And there's even a sneakier version of the same problem called slick troweling. Again, it's appropriate in certain circumstances, but you have to account for this water to cement ratio. But what I often will see is when the surface starts tightening, crews will just take their sponges and throw water back on it. And when you start pushing that water back into the surface, you're damaging that skin layer right at the surface that you paid for and that you have to deal with.
Jason:Remember this. A plaster job can look amazing on day one and still be weak on day 30 if water control was sloppy. That's why I'm not impressed when somebody says we can do it fast. I'm impressed when someone can explain how to control water, timing, and finish pressure without shortcuts. And if they can, you'll slowly start to understand why prices need to be higher.
Jason:It's very easy to undercut and underbid when you eliminate the hundreds of steps required to do it correctly. I can do a cheap job as well. However, doing it correctly is gonna take more time and a greater investment. And now we roll straight into the next part, mixing and batching. Because that's where most of these water ratio problems begin.
Jason:Alright. So if water control is the quiet killer, mixing is where most water control problems start. Homeowners here, we mix the plaster and assume that means the product is the product. Like it's a cake mix. Add water, stir, and you're done.
Jason:Plaster isn't like that. In real life, the mixer isn't just a container. The mixer is part of the product. Because the way the plaster is mixed, how consistent it is from batch to batch, how the water is introduced, how long it's mixed and how violently it's mixed, it changes what gets put into your pool. And if you get 10 batches that are all a little different, you didn't buy a finish for your pool.
Jason:You bought a patchwork of finishes that just happened to all be the same color. Now, let me say it plainly, the biggest threat to a great plaster job is not the brand of plaster. It's inconsistency. One batch a little wetter, the next is a little stiffer. The one that was mixed for five minutes, the one that was mixed for twelve.
Jason:The one that got re tempered with water because it was tightening up. And another one that sat in a wheelbarrow in the sun while people got caught up on the job. Same job, same day, same material on paper, but you don't end up with the same product on the walls. And that's when homeowners see stuff that feels random later. One corner dusts more than the other.
Jason:One wall looks slightly different in the shade. One area stains a lot easier. One spot feels rougher. One section has a different texture under the brush. A lot of it comes back to mixing discipline.
Jason:Drill mixing and barrels. This is the bucket and drill method. A barrel, a paddle and a guy eyeballing water. Now someone mix a small batch repair this way. Sure.
Jason:Sometimes. But when you're doing an entire pool, this is where the wheels come off because it's impossible to be consistent. Water gets eyeballed and mixing time definitely varies. Remember, you can only hold a drill so long before your arms get tired. Drill speeds vary and one guy mixes it until it looks right, another mixes it until it feels right.
Jason:You don't get one cohesive product, you get a series of products. Some crews use a rotating drum style mixer. A drum can mix material, but the question is not can it mix. The question is whether the crew uses it with discipline or uses it as a place to keep adding water to chase workability. Some operations use blending approaches where water input is measured.
Jason:Batch consistency is predictable and recorded and mix action is more uniform. You do not need to obsess over the machine. The machine isn't the magic, the repeat ability is. You might hear someone say the mixer burns plaster or you can burn the plaster. They don't mean lighting it on fire.
Jason:They usually mean the material got overworked or mishandled, so timing and behavior changed either in the mixing or in the finishing. You don't need to argue about the word. Just remember the concept, overworking and shortcuts show up later. Now let's talk about pumping. Homeowners hear pumped and assume it automatically means better.
Jason:Pumping can be great because it supports continuous delivery and consistent rhythm. Less bucket rehandling, less materials sitting around changing. But pumping doesn't guarantee quality. If the crew chases pump ability, extra water, durability might drop. If batching is inconsistent, the pump output is inconsistent.
Jason:So the correct homeowner viewpoint of this is controlled mixing plus controlled pumping plus a trained crew is what creates consistency. If your job looks like buckets, wheelbarrows, rehandling and waiting around, you increase the chance of inconsistency. Timing becomes messy. Some material sits longer. Some batches get saved with water.
Jason:Some areas get placed later and finished later. The pool becomes a timing patchwork and patchwork timing creates patchwork results. It looks ugly. When plaster is mixed correctly, it behaves like one unified material. It's not watery in one spot and stiff in another.
Jason:It doesn't separate. It doesn't feel like you're fighting it. The easiest analogy, good mashed potatoes are smooth and uniform. Bad mashed potatoes are watery on top, chunky in the middle, and dry on the bottom. Same ingredients, wrong process.
Jason:Plaster is the same. Here's what to ask if you want real answers. How is the water measured and controlled per batch? Who is responsible for batching discipline? If the mix starts tightening, do you ever add water to save it?
Jason:How do you keep the first batch and the last batch consistent? How is material delivered? Is it pumped, buckets, wheelbarrows? And how do you prevent it from sitting? And what's the plan if the weather changes the clock?
Jason:Heat, wind, or the sun? A good crew won't get offended. A good crew has answers because they've learned the hard way what matters. And this is why I keep talking about water control. Most plaster failures aren't mystery chemistry.
Jason:They're inconsistent batching, inconsistent water. They're also inconsistent timing followed by cosmetic fixes like aggressive acid exposure to hide the evidence. If you keep mixing disciplined, placement disciplined and timing disciplined, you don't need heroics. You don't need harsh chemicals to make it look right. You get a finish that behaves like one finish.
Jason:If you paid for color, understand this, color and plaster is not just pigment. It's pigment plus a cement matrix plus porosity plus texture. Even if pigments are stable, aggressive early acid can change the matrix, opening pores and changing how light reflects. And that's how you get permanent shade variation, blotches, spotting, or reoccurring fading whiting behavior. Don't let somebody wash colors into weirdness on day one.
Jason:Say no to acid. And for anyone who wants to argue with that, stop doing acid. One more angle homeowners rarely consider, safety and disposal. Murriatic acid is a corrosive product. If a crew is using it on-site, they should treat it like that.
Jason:Personal protective equipment, safe storage and transport, a spill readiness plan, have enough neutralizer on hand for the quantity of acid on-site, and a plan for wash water handling so it doesn't end up ruining your bushes. Your job as a homeowner isn't to be a hazmat officer. Your job is to ask the simple question. What is your containment and neutralization plan for any acid water wash? Professionals calmly answer.
Jason:People winging it get annoyed and irritated. And just so you know, neutralizing acid is not exotic. Sodium bicarbonate is a common neutralizing agent in these contexts. The bigger point is there should be a plan and it should follow local disposal requirements. Here's the punchline.
Jason:If you wanna finish that lasts, don't buy the cheapest crew and hope chemistry saves you later. Buy a proven process, buy standards, buy people who can explain their steps without getting defensive. If you're mid project and uneasy, well ask for a written startup plan. Ask what exposure method is to be used and when. Ask whether bond code is included and what substrate prep is required and document everything with photos and videos.
Jason:And if you need a second set of eyes, look for someone who can review the plan and steps before the pool is full and the problems are locked in, and then become a problem after. Take care everybody and we will see you next time around.
Spyder:Thanks for listening to the Pool MV podcast where licensed pool professionals speak up. Hosted by Jason Davies. Licensed across Wisconsin, Florida, and Texas. For more insights, subscribe and join us next time.