soft grout

[chrisroe]

I went to look at a job last night a swimming pool not too big tiled in resin ish mosaics all the grout is soft and i can get it out with my finger nail

so the job is remove all grout clean all tiles up for water scum then re grout


so apart from it been a ball breaker of a job what should i be using

Mapei Ultracolour grout would be my choice i presume that this is ok but would like clarification also the pool is heated and it get quite turkish bath warm

 

[Diamond Pool Finishers]

i dont understand ( resin ish ) they should ether be glass/ceramic sometimes stone/marble/,anyway i take it we are talking about removing the grout from the scum band(top 200mm ofpool walls ), it will be very boring to cut grout out of so much mosaic m8, but thats the only way to do it i find if you get a universal oscillating /cutting machine from karl dahm www.karldahm.com this will be half your battle over to , now for cleaning face of tiles there is a product that we in the pool game use its called spring clean any pool co. shop will stock it, as for regrouting mapei is good but check that it is suitible for a swimming pools as with anyother grout good luck ps not sure why old grout is soft is it just in one area or all over, this may mean a bigger job m8 :yikes:

 

[chrisroe]

the mosaics i think are glass the grout is soft all over you can see it floating in the pool

it is so soft that i think i can use a narrow screwdriver with very little effort apart from the amount i have to get out
Is this the stuff ?
Accepta 9090: Pool spring clean

thanks for your help

 

[Diamond Pool Finishers]

yes m8 it sounds the same stuff ,it might might be worth your wile pointing out to your client that the grout is crapp ,are they loseing water from the pool ? it might need cutting out and re grouting all over then, or stripping and re tiling , more work 8m !!

 

[hillhead]

surely not healthy that grout coming loose and floating about ? :yikes:

 

[chrisroe]

The grout is sinking it looks like a basic wall grout nowt special hence why its failing

the customer pointed it out as i only went to look at tiling the walls of the their changing rooms total of 75 sq m

he has assured me that all the tiles are still well fixed so i am happy to do it on a day rate about a week i think but its very much finger in the air

 

[dock]

If the grout is very soft this could have been caused by chemical attack.............................the client needs to check the pH balance of the pool water otherwise
too acidic - Acid attack
too alkali - Sulphate attack
Idealy pH should be maintained between 7.2 and 7.6
If this is not possible then an epoxy grout should be used

dock

 

[tilestars]

what area are you in ? is the pool salt water as if it is you may need to down the epoxy grouting route ,standard grout is normally fine in hard water areas but not suitable for soft water

 

[Fekin]

I always presumed epoxy grout was a must for swimming pools full stop 😕

 

[chrisroe]

cheers dock

i was going to give mark my mapei rep a ring and get him to come and do a site visit if i get the go ahead