I meant mottling, not modeling (darn auto correct). Thanks.

Wow,
What part of the country are you in, I think I am moving and setting up a plaster company.
We pay under $4.00 per sq for Pebble sheen here.

We are in MD, between Baltimore and D.C. So what you are saying is that my PB is ripping me off on Pebble???? I didn't even get a quote for Sheen b/c I knew it was the most expensive of the Pebble Tec finishes. I just can't justify even $9K for Fina when I know that money could be spent elsewhere (landscaping). Where are you? There are 16 pools in my neighborhood of 30 homes (only 2 are fiberglass) and of the 14 remaining Gunite pools only 1 has an alternative finish and 1 has dark gray plaster. Our neighborhood is only 8 years old so all the pools are relatively new. I don't think it has really caught on here too much here. I would guess it is b/c most people open in May and close in Oct so they don't use their pools all year, it is expensive and we can't really use our backyards all year either.

When we built our pool, we had a budget we wanted to keep. Our builder priced everything we wanted, extra's if you will, separately. White plaster, colored plaster, pebble finishes, fire pit, arbors, etc. So we could decide where we wanted to put our $. due to cost, we elected to not do a pebble finish. It was around $4k additional over white plaster. With everything else we wanted, pebble finish just didn't fit in the budget.
It's not the deepest blue of pools with colored/pebble interior, but it's blue enough for us. The shallow, which is 27' long only goes to 4ft at it's deepest, so of course, is the lightest.

I am not a big fan of dyeing white plaster unless the owner understands that mottling is often going to happen and there is little that can be done to stop it. They also tend to have some fading over time. Neither of these are defects.

On a personal note, I happen to like it as it gives a unique character to a pool.

I am not a big fan of blue plaster. Sometimes, the blue dyes have more fade than grays do.

Most of the blue you see is a reflection of the sky.

Scott

Megan,
I wouldnt say it is your pool builder ripping you off, but somebody in the chain lives in a nice house.
Maybe I should get into the mail order pebble tec business.
I am in AZ, so lots of pool, of which most are pebble.

If you want to open a PT installation company in my neck of the woods, I could help get you started. My cost on PT for a 18X40 pool was almost 10k, just for material and application.

Racket,
Were less then half of that.

10k seems really high for just labor and materialc. A seven man crew at $400 a man is $2800. Acid wash and clean at $600 equals $3,400 labor including the acid wash. That would leave $6,600 for the pebble tec. A pool that size taking 8 batches would mean $825 a batch, something seems off or is it just me?

We are in the middle of resurfacing our pool in central Texas. Our original plaster from the previous home owner has a slight blue tint to it. We chose to go with Sun Stone Pearl (Aqua Blue) for the durability. Our pool is 15X32 rectangle and the cost is about $4500.

we have two estimates for diamond brite and pebble tech fina and they are both around $3500 for a 750 sq ft pool so seems like you are being over-quoted. I am also in MD

I would not recommend dyeing the plaster. The mottling is more prominent in those types. You are adding the dye into the plaster in the mixer, so you don't get the advantage of a pre-mixed, predetermined color. If you don't want to pay for Pebble Tec products, you can do a quartz additive to white or gray plaster. Just put in a 30% quartz and it should give you what you are looking for.