Pool tile cleaning in Los Angeles

Calcium carbonate, left behind where the water meets the air. It is the same deposit that furs a kettle, and hard Los Angeles water grows it on every pool in the city. It is not dirt and it is not algae, which is why brushing and chlorine do nothing to it.

A light film, yes: a pumice block sold for pools and a tile cleaner, working wet, a foot at a time. Keep the block wet or it scratches. What you should not reach for is a wire brush or neat acid — the brush marks the glaze and the acid attacks the grout before it touches the calcium, and both make the next band stick harder than the one you removed.

Soft media fired at low pressure at the deposit: it breaks the calcium off and stops at the glaze, which is harder. Done properly it takes nothing off the tile. Done with the wrong media or too much pressure it hazes glass and chips old ceramic, which is why the media is chosen after looking at the tile rather than before.

Across the city it is usually quoted by the linear foot — around $8 to $12 a foot, most companies with a minimum of about $1,000, and the average pool landing near $750. Published ranges run from $400 for a short waterline to well past $1,200 where the band has built for a decade. What moves it is length and thickness, not the postcode, and we quote it after seeing a photo of the tile rather than over the phone.

By a long way, and that is the reason to try it first. Retiling a waterline means chipping the old band off, preparing the substrate and setting new tile with the pool down; cleaning is a day with the water still in it. Retiling is the right answer when the tile is loose, the grout has failed, or the glaze underneath is already etched — and that is a decision made by hand on the tile.

A year or two on a pool held at sensible chemistry, sooner on a salt pool, sooner still on one that runs a spa. Calcium hardness and pH are what decide it, which is the unglamorous case for weekly service: water held in range grows the band slowly enough that cleaning is occasional rather than annual.

Two different schedules, and mixing them up is what lets a band build. The waterline gets brushed every week with the service, which keeps a film from setting. The calcium clean itself is every year or two on most pools here, sooner on salt and heated ones. The test is a fingernail: if it catches on the deposit, brushing has stopped working and it is a job for media. Waiting longer is not a saving — a thicker band takes longer to blast, and past a point it etches the glaze underneath and cleaning no longer gives the tile back.

No. The water is dropped a few inches below the tile band, the band is cleaned, and the pool is topped back up the same day; a light film is done with the pool still full. An empty pool in wet ground is a risk in itself, and there is no reason to take it for a waterline job. Draining only enters the picture when the tile is being replaced or the interior is being resurfaced at the same time.

Different deposit, different job. Deck and coping tile collects sunscreen and body oils, an algae film in the shaded corners, and on travertine and cast concrete the white bloom of efflorescence pushing out from underneath. It comes off with a pH-neutral masonry cleaner, a stiff brush and a low-pressure rinse. What ruins it is neat acid and a 3,000 psi tip: both open the surface up so it stains faster the next time. Ask for it alongside the waterline clean rather than as its own visit — the equipment is already there.