Look after the water. Protect the finish.

At handover

Confirm the filling and start-up sequence before the pool is put into use. Responsibility for water testing, treatment and the first period of operation should be clear to the owner and pool operator.

During everyday operation

• Test and record the water condition regularly.
• Use the current material guidance and your treatment equipment instructions.
• Apply chemicals according to their labels and the agreed operating procedure.
• Investigate unexpected staining, roughness or changes in water balance early.
• Check cleaning tools and methods for compatibility with the installed finish.

Water chemistry cannot be reduced to a single product dose or a universal schedule. The source water, equipment, pool use and chosen finish all matter.

Why the pool is filled straight away

Cement gains its strength in water, not in air. A pebble finish that is under water from the start cures in good conditions; the same finish left in an empty shell dries out and bakes, and a pool in the Phuket sun is a hot, dry place. This is why we treat the final wash and the filling as one step rather than two, and why the pool should be ready to be filled and started before that wash begins.

It also sets what we ask of the site. If the pool cannot be filled yet — the plant is not connected, or building work is still going on around it — we would rather wait than wash and leave the shell standing open. An unfinished site is also a dirty one: grinding, cutting and painting all land on a fresh surface that has no water over it to protect it.

Where a project needs a different sequence, we will say so before the work starts rather than afterwards, so the choice and its consequences are yours to make with the information in front of you.

Where the fill water comes from

Ask this before the pool is filled, not after. Much of the water used to fill pools in Thailand comes from a lake, a river or a borehole, and that water is often acidic on arrival. Mains water and delivered potable water usually are not.

It matters most on the first fill. A new pebble finish is acid washed to open the surface, and the pool is filled straight afterwards — the fill water neutralises what the wash leaves behind. Acidic fill water cannot do that. Instead the cement meets aggressive water during the weeks when it is still curing and least able to resist it.

Stabilised chlorine added to water that has not been corrected first makes the same problem worse, and the pool can look normal while it happens: testing chlorine and pH alone will not show it. Damage that appears six months after filling usually started here.

• Have the source water tested before the first fill, not only the pool water afterwards.
• Correct the water before chlorine goes in, not at the same time.
• Tell us in advance if the pool will be filled from a lake, river or borehole — it changes what we ask for at handover.

Stabiliser is the other reason to plan ahead. Test kits for cyanuric acid are not sold in Thailand, so a pool that is dosed with stabilised chlorine accumulates something nobody on site can measure. In a Phuket dry season there is no rainfall overflow to dilute it either. That is why we discuss the sanitising method with the pool operator rather than leaving it to habit.

The current water guidance

The figures themselves — target ranges, sanitiser levels, when salt may be introduced — belong to the material manufacturer and are published and kept current on the PebbleCrete site. We do not restate them here: one set of numbers in one place is safer for you than two sets that can drift apart.

PebbleCrete water treatment guidance ↗

Documents we no longer publish

The previous website offered a Thai start-up card and a customer water report for download. Both have been withdrawn. The start-up card set out a separate start-up regime with its own target figures for the first days; the current guidance has no separate start-up regime, so the card teaches a way of running the pool that no longer matches the material. Use the manufacturer guidance linked above instead.