Local Pool Renovations
Melbourne's Leading Pool Renovators
Tiling - Painting - Resurfacing
Melbourne's Leading Pool Renovators
Tiling - Painting - Resurfacing
Asbestos in swimming pools can be more common than you might think, find out more information about Marble-sheen & Asbestos here.
Yes, a pool can contain asbestos.
Marblesheen is the most widely known swimming pool product to contain asbestos.
However many swimming pools have asbestos products such as cement sheeting from the 60's & 70's that was used to hold the top of the skimmer box into place, in most cases the sheeting was tiled over making it hard to notice until the removal / demolition is done.
Marblesheen is a pool interior coating that is rendered over the pool concrete, marble-sheen consists of crushed white marble and white cement or offwhite cement.
Marblesheen in many cases is also known in the pool industry to contain asbestos, many pool owners are unaware.
It is not common for Marblesheen to get installed in swimming pools anymore & it has a reputation for deteriorating, becoming unstable, and crumbling away from the pool surface. While Marble-sheen surfaces did last a very long time, it wasn't without issues.
Marble-Sheen is rendered over the top of the concrete pool shell.
Abestos can also be found in other places in or around a pool.
Sometimes when installing pebblecrete coping, an asbestos cement sheet was used over the swimming pool skimmer box as support for the installation of the pebble, the cement sheet would stay embedded under it, usually the pool tiler would tile over it making it difficult to spot and unintentionally making it a secret danger.
Marblesheen was usually mixed in a cement mixer by the pool, the installers would open the bags of asbestos fibres and shake the bag into the marblesheen mix, which consists of white crushed marble and cement, once mixed they would carry the marblesheen into the pool with buckets and trowel it onto the surface.
Prior to 1984 asbestos mixed within the marblesheen was very common practice, however asbestos has been found in Marblesheen pools built up to around the mid 90's, so any marblesheen pool should be tested for asbestos.
The most common type of asbestos found in Marblesheen is chrysotile also known as white asbestos, while it is the most common in Marblesheen it is not the only type of fibre that can be detected, in some instances organic fibres including horse hair can be found in cementitious products or worse blue asbestos.
For more information regarding asbestos, you can learn more here Asbestos Information
Marblesheen can be tricky to identify.
It can take many forms and develop many colour patterns over the years. The first step is your pool colour, a white/grey Marblesheen when filled with water typically makes your pool look like a light sky-blue colour, though this alone means nothing unless the pool is emptied.
It is recommended to have an expert look at the swimming pool to make this determination.
If the swimming pool was built in the mid 1990's or earlier, it should be treated as highly likely to contain asbestos and you should get in touch with a swimming pool professional.
Marblesheen zoomed in has small crushed pieces of white/greyish Marble.
Here are some photos to help find / detect or recognize Marblesheen in a swimming pool, it is important to know that Marble-sheen can have these features individually as well as a combination of some or all of them!
You can also get in touch via email:
Images of your swimming pool are recommended to be attached to your emails, you can also include asbestos reports.
