The Three Things You Will Notice
The comparison charts online will throw a dozen bullet points at you. Most of them will never cross your mind again once the pool is full. These three will.
Time to swim
A fresh plaster pool needs what the industry calls a hot start: weeks of someone brushing and washing the walls constantly while the surface cures, all before you can really use it. ecoFINISH skips that part. We fill it, balance the water, and you are swimming. If your kids have spent all of June trying to figure out what they can do with the empty hole in the backyard, that difference is the whole ballgame.
How it feels underfoot
Drag your hand across old plaster and it feels like the tongue of a cat, and it tends to get rougher every year. ecoFINISH feels more like an orange peel: just enough texture to keep your footing, smooth enough that nobody is sanding a toe on the steps. Parents of little kids usually notice this one within the first swim.
How hard it fights your water
Plaster is porous and a little needy. It keeps nudging your pH up, so you keep pouring acid in to bring it back down, over and over. ecoFINISH is pH-neutral, so it mostly leaves your water alone. We had a customer whose plaster pool would not pass inspection for the longest time because the pH kept spiking every time the inspector showed up. A neutral surface takes that whole headache off the table.
There is also the look. ecoFINISH comes in genuinely rich colors, and they all cost the same, so you are not paying a premium to get the shade you actually want. For the full side by side on chemistry, lifespan, and the cost math, our ecoFINISH versus plaster comparison lays it all out. This post is more about what it feels like to own one.
Is Your Pool a Good Candidate?
ecoFINISH goes on over your existing pool, so before you fall in love with a color, it is worth making sure your pool can take the coating. We would rather tell you now than after a deposit.
- Concrete, gunite, and fiberglass pools are the sweet spot. These take prep and bonding well, which is the whole game with a coating.
- Vinyl liner pools are a no. There is nothing on a liner for a coating to grab onto. If your liner is failing, a liner replacement is the real fix.
- Metal pools are a maybe we usually pass on. The manufacturer says it can be done. In our own experience, we cannot rough up metal enough to trust the bond for the long haul, and we would rather pass than put our name on a coin flip.
- Painted pools are the big one. If your pool has been painted, that paint has to come off first, and that adds cost. Worth knowing: pool paint usually only lasts two or three years before it starts peeling anyway. Paying to paint now and paying again to strip it later is the expensive road. Going straight to a finish that lasts is usually the smart one.
Not sure which bucket your pool falls in? That is a five minute conversation, and we are happy to have it. If the answer turns out to be a liner, our vinyl liner replacement page covers that path instead.
What Happens When You Switch
People picture a truck rolling up and spraying a pool by lunch. The spraying part is quick. The laborious part is getting there.
Depending on the season, we are usually three to six weeks out from starting. First we come see your actual pool, not a photo of it. Then you come into the showroom in Riverside and put your hands on real color samples instead of squinting at a screen. Once you have picked and the contract is signed, we order materials and get you on the calendar. The on-site work runs about a week, and most of that week is prep. The finish itself goes on fast at the very end. Our ecoFINISH pool coatings page walks through the process and the colors in more detail.
That week of prep is a big part of whether your finish lasts or starts peeling in a year, and it deserves its own conversation. We break the whole thing down in our post on the prep week behind a pool finish.
A Real One: The Pool Everyone Thought Was a Goner
The job we point to most had big cracks running through the plaster and a spillover spa where the natural stone was crumbling apart. On paper it looked like a teardown, and the owners were bracing to hear they needed to start from scratch. We repaired the cracks and the stonework, prepped it right, and coated it. It came out beautiful, and it never needed a rebuild to get there. That is the pool we would show anyone convinced their old shell is too far gone. Most of the time, it is not.
Who We Tell to Wait
We rarely talk a good candidate out of ecoFINISH. When someone can swing it, we usually think they should. The one real reason we hit pause is budget, and it is almost always the paint situation. If a pool is heavily painted and the money will not stretch to pull that paint up first, the timing is off, and we will say so rather than start a job on a compromise. If you can afford it and your pool qualifies, you are getting a materially better pool.
