Finally finished painting the pool after lots of prep work after years of neglect in my rental. With Covid restrictions gone, I was finally able to move forward clear debris, prep surface (lots of hours) and paint. I used Dura Seal epoxy with an 8-year life. 

I had debris and sludge built up from the tenants and some campers who trespassed and dumped in the pool, very nasty.  

After cleaning the sludge, I had to pump the water out several times with my trash pump after the atmospheric rains this season. 

I then washed the entire pool down with muriatic acid. After finding different waste hazard places to dump the acid. I washed the pool with TSP. 

Due to the years of tenant abuse, there was still scaling. I tried sanding with an orbital sander and that barely “scratched the surface “. Then tried sandblasting and that was going to take way too much material and cost. 

I finally found a BAUER 9 Amp Surface Conditioning Tool surface preparation tool from Bauer and sanded the entire pool removing that hard white scale!  I took several hours through a couple of weeks after work and weekends to complete this. 

I then wanted to etch with something other than acid again prior to painting and tried several chemicals like CitrisStrip but that left a residue I had to clean up with acetone and the surface prep sander again. I finally acetone etched the whole pool and did another round of sanding with the surface prep tool.  

I had to wait a while after taping the pool off for painting. I did light washing with the hose pipe and not pressure wash to get surface dirt after doing some patching of cracks and areas when someone dropped a heavy object in the empty pool. I then waited an extra day and painted! 

Finally, I will get a chance to get water in the pool and test out the pump. I hope they did not damage the pump or that equipment! It was working fine when they moved in! 

No more amateur time, the pool will have a professional pool service maintain it and that will be written in the lease!  

Pictures from start to finish as of today. 

Pumping out water process. That leaves debris to be scooped up. Some of this is what some campers from the neighborhood left.

A little guy dropped into the pool. I had to set a long 2×4 for him to eventually crawl out.