I’m in Tempe right now waiting for a pool to drain down low enough for me to start blasting the tiles. So thought I’d blog about how I go about getting pool tile clean.
I macgyverd a pool pump to run on 110. I use this to drain the pool down a good foot or two so not to get splashed from the blasting process.
As you can see from the picture below I just attach a vacuum head to a pole and lowered it to the bottom of the pool. This setup also allows me to quickly vacuum up when I’m done blasting.
The pressure side hose goes to the clean-out.
A powerful compressor is needed in order to work continuously, otherwise I’d be here all day. I use a 9hp 17 cfm compressor.
The air from the compressor needs to be dried using a desiccant dryer. Same stuff you find in the little white packages that come in vitamin bottles and what not, keeps stuff dry. This is my dryer setup, I also have a dryer attached to the hopper. Get moisture in your bead and you’re gunna have a bad day.
The indicator here tells me if the desiccant is sill dry. When desiccant get’s too moist it needs to be baked for a few hours.
This is my media hopper which is equipped with a deadman nozzle so if I drop this thing while I’m blasting it shuts off and saves your pool.
The red valve on the side allows me to adjust air flow while the red valve on the bottom allows me to adjust bead flow.
Always gotta wear protection! Seriously though. Glass beads are horrible. They get everywhere, including, but not limited to: eye, ears, pockets, pretty much everywhere I go I end up leaving a trail of beads. Oh, somehow they even manage to get under the screen of my cell phone.
Finished! There. Doesn’t that look much better? This tile came out looking great!
Ok so this pool is being drained completely to chlorine wash and acid wash. I’ll post on that process tomorrow.
Acid wash pictures…
