Mohamed Mahrous
4 min read
Two finishes cover most pools here, and they behave very differently over time.
Plaster and rendered finishes
A cementitious layer applied over the shell, sometimes with a coloured or aggregate finish. It is the quicker of the two to lay and the easier to repair in a patch.
- For: a soft, seamless look with no grout lines; simpler to touch up; usually the shorter job.
- Against: it is porous, so it stains more readily and is more sensitive to water chemistry left unbalanced; it is the finish that eventually needs redoing rather than repairing.
Tiling
Porcelain, ceramic or glass mosaic bedded and grouted over the waterproofing.
- For: it is the harder-wearing surface, it holds colour, and a damaged area can be replaced tile by tile. Glass mosaic in particular is what gives water that deep, lit look.
- Against: more labour, so a longer job; and the grout becomes the maintenance item — grout that is failing is where water gets behind the finish.
What actually decides it
Less the material and more these three things:
- What is underneath. Neither finish rescues a shell that was not waterproofed properly. Both will fail early over a bad substrate, and it will look like a finish problem.
- How the pool is used. A pool that is swum in daily and kept chemically balanced treats either finish well. One left to swing between neglected and shock-dosed is hardest on plaster.
- What you want to see. Grout lines are a look. Some people want them; some want the water to read as one surface. That is taste, and it is a legitimate reason to choose.
If you are renovating rather than building
The condition of the shell decides the options, not the other way round. It is worth having the existing structure looked at before you settle on a finish — the answer sometimes changes once the old surface comes off.