Pool Acid Wash in Lake Havasu City, AZ

Six steps. The first is a decision about whether the pool needs washing at all. The last is a start-up that treats the refilled pool like new plaster for a week.

An acid wash is the strongest tool, and it costs plaster. Each wash dissolves a thin layer of the surface to lift the stain. A pool only gets a few in its life. That makes the first step a look at what is on the surface. Mineral scale and metal stains need acid. Algae staining, the gray-green shadow left after a green pool, usually comes off with a chlorine wash. That uses liquid chlorine on the drained surface and leaves the plaster alone. Dirt, leaves and a season of sediment just need a drain and clean. We tell you which one your pool needs, and we steer away from acid when a gentler wash will do.

The pool drains through a submersible pump to your sewer clean-out, and the city’s Wastewater Division gets a call at least 72 hours ahead, which is what Lake Havasu City’s pool draining rules ask for. Your own yard or an adjacent wash is also allowed if the water stays put, and the street only between 8 pm and 6 am. We default to the sewer because it is the one route that does not depend on the neighbor’s slope.

A 15,000-gallon pool takes most of a day to drain. We check the pump every hour, because a hose that pops out of the clean-out floods a yard fast. The equipment stays off from the moment the water drops below the skimmer. The pump lid comes off so it cannot start dry.

Pools with a hydrostatic relief valve in the floor get the valve pulled once the pool is empty. That lets ground water rise into the pool instead of lifting the shell. Havasu ground water sits deep in most neighborhoods. A pool near the lake or the channel gets extra care here, and we will not leave one of those empty longer than the wash itself takes.

The surface stays wet the whole time. We work from the deep end up in sections. Wet the plaster, apply diluted acid, brush it across the stain, rinse within a minute or two. Acid left to sit etches the surface unevenly and leaves a pattern you can see from the deck for years. Pebble surfaces get a lighter mix and more brushing. The goal there is to clean the pebble, not to dissolve the cement around it. Stubborn metal stains get spot treatment. The hose runs the whole time and the pump stays manned. We never wash in the heat of a summer afternoon.

Acid runoff collects in the deep end as the wash goes. Before any of it leaves the pool, we neutralize it with soda ash until a test strip reads near neutral. Then it goes to the sewer clean-out along with the drain water. Raw acid down a sewer line damages pipe, and the city requires drained pool water to sit between pH 5.5 and 9. The pool then gets a full rinse. We clear sediment from the main drain and give the light niche and steps a final brush.

A refill is a fresh start for the water, and Havasu fill water is hard. The pool fills from two hoses, which takes a day or more for a full-size pool. We test the fill water before the first hose goes in and start balancing as the pool rises. Total alkalinity first, pH second, calcium hardness last, because each one moves the next. Fresh plaster is sensitive to low calcium and low pH, so the balance target leans slightly basic for the first weeks. A sequestering agent goes in before the first dose of chlorine. That keeps fill-water metals from staining the surface we just cleaned.

A freshly washed pool behaves like new plaster. We brush it daily for the first week and run the filter around the clock. The water gets a test every couple of days until the pH stops drifting. Chlorine goes in only after the sequestrant has done its work and the balance holds. Then the pool goes back to its normal schedule. If you are on our weekly pool service, the first-week visits are part of the job. If not, we leave a written schedule for brushing and testing, and a note on what the pH should settle at by the end of the week.

Four signs. A mineral haze that dulls the plaster and does not brush off. Stains with a color, meaning metals: rust orange, copper blue-green, or the gray-black of manganese. A pool that stayed green long enough to leave a shadow after the algae cleared. And the kind of calcium scale that has grown past the tile line down onto the plaster. Any of those is a candidate. A pool that is simply dirty, cloudy or green is not, and we clear those without draining.

The color of a stain tells us where it came from. Copper algaecides and a corroding heat exchanger leave blue-green on plaster, and with high stabilizer in the water the same copper turns purple. Iron from fill water or a rusting fitting leaves orange. Manganese leaves gray to black. Knowing the source matters, because an acid wash that lifts a copper stain without fixing the heater that shed it will be stained again in a year. We find the source before the pool drains.

Age matters as much as stains. Plaster in a hard-water town lasts about ten to fifteen years, and every acid wash spends some of that life. A pool with thin plaster, visible aggregate showing through, or rough patches is close to a resurface. Acid washing it only speeds that up. We will say so rather than wash it. A pool with sound plaster and a few stains is the right candidate. Most Havasu pools need an acid wash about once every five to seven years.

Heat is the problem. An empty plaster pool in July heat dries from the top down. Plaster that dries fast cracks, checks and pulls away from the gunite behind it. The acid itself also reacts faster on a hot surface, which makes an even wash harder. So acid washes in Havasu happen from October through April when the schedule allows. In summer they start before dawn, and the pool is refilling by mid-morning. The pool never sits empty overnight in summer.

Water is the second reason. Havasu fill water carries calcium that lands on plaster as scale within months if the balance slips. Draining and refilling resets the total dissolved solids that build up over years of evaporation and topping off. That is a benefit in itself. Water that has gained 1,500 ppm of dissolved solids over its fill water starts to fight every chemical you add, and in Havasu a pool reaches that in a few summers. But it also means the first weeks after a refill decide whether the fresh surface stays clean. That is why the balance work during the refill is part of the acid wash, not an extra.

The equipment needs protecting too. A pump that runs dry for ten minutes loses its seal. Fire a salt cell in a half-full pool and it scales over. A heater that lights with no flow cracks its header. So the breaker for the pad goes off before the first gallon leaves, the salt cell and heater get switched out of the automation schedule, and nothing comes back on until the water is above the skimmer mouth and the pump is primed by hand.

The same insured JM Pool Service tech who cleans and repairs pools on the weekly route. One person who has drained enough Havasu pools to know which neighborhoods have shallow ground water and which clean-outs are too small for the pump hose. And which plaster is too thin to wash. If brushing and a stain treatment will do, you hear that. If the pool needs a wash, you get a quote that names the type, the day and the refill plan. Other specialty work is on our pool services page.

Our pool acid wash covers Lake Havasu City and about fifteen miles around it. That means the Island District, Downtown, Southside, Southgate, Acoma and Kiowa-Amberwood. It also means Vista Del Sol, Village Parc, the Medical District, the Refuge, North Pointe and out toward the Foothills. If you searched “acid wash pool near me” from anywhere in Havasu, this is the route. The full list is on our pool service area page.

Acid washing is one part of our specialty pool services. Pool tile cleaning handles the calcium line at the waterline. Our green to clean service recovers a swamp without draining it.