Atlantic City Fri. 1/31/14
Last night we left the bright lights and constant activity of Atlantic City to travel to Warminster, a quiet, nothing to do, little town in Pennsylvania. Arriving in Warminster, we tried to find something fun the four of us could do; part of the experience of the entire trip was to team build, furthering Mark and my increasing participation in decision making, but the only thing we could find was a trip to Dunkin Donuts. Which we made, then returned to the motel to discuss the upcoming season, and the reason why we were in Warminster: an exploratory visit to the ecoFinish headquarters.
EcoFinish is a company that has come up with one of the most exciting new products in the pool industry. By trial and error over the last six years, they have come up with a new pool finish, Aquabright, that is “a thermal plastic coating that is applied pneumatically. I viewed it as something similar to powder coating machine parts, but I don’t know enough about either process to explain the unique differences.
Anyway, we were in town to be shown the installation process and judge for ourselves the quality of the product; asking ourselves if we thought the process and finish were something we wanted to invest in. The finish can be applied as an alternative to plaster/hydrazzo/pebble finishes on gunite; it is a wonderful resurfacing finish for stained and aged fiberglass pools and spas; and it is a viable repair surface for cracked fiberglass steps and slides. We like our hybrid pool design, so we wouldn’t use the finish for our pools, but as a sideline repair service for everything fiberglass, there is a huge need. P.S. We also went to this demonstration looking for what other creative uses we could use this process for.
Our day was divided into four sections: a discussion of the installation process, a hands-on demonstration, a history of the company, and then an outside tour of local pools with the applied finish. It was an interesting day. The actual installation process is not hard, but it is exacting. Patience is needed to insure the tedious steps are completed to ensure the successful adhesion of the heated plastic coating. The fun part of the day was getting to use the gun that sprays the coating. It’s like a flame thrower when you first start it up, but then you tone the flame down so you can slowly wave the gun back and forth, creating layers of heated plastic that hardens quickly into durable surface. After listening to the history of the company, we were able to go out and view existing pool and spa surfaces. We were able to see them underwater and touch them to see if there was any chipping or chalking.
The surfaces looked impressive underwater. I really liked how it blended with the tile line. I think the finish is a cool looking surface, a viable surface worth investing in. It would also be fun to see what else the Aquabrite finish could be used for. On the way home, Al and Mark were talking about spraying their boots to waterproof them.
Stay tuned as we discover more about EcoFinish and the possibilities!
– Karen, Ask the Pool Guy Team
Want to say Thank you to all of you for dropping by. It was great to meet you guys …if you are ever visiting Canada, give us a call. Mike