Agreed! Don't bother. I have a FIL who does the same thing. What a waste!

I used Rustoleum Zinsser oil based cement pool paint and liked it so much better than marcite ($106 5gal at Home Depot free delivery). It was much more tolerant to water chemistry. My last remarcite didn't last 1 year before pitting all over. The paint lasted 3 years looking good. I repainted after 3 years, switched to 3200ppm salt chlorination and had bad chalking. Because I switched to blue I can see that half the blue coat has chalked away in 1 year. When the robot cleaner runs or when I brush the chalk clouds the pool so I can't see the main drain and the filter needs backwashed more often and I can see the cloud leaving in the bachwash glass and the backwash water running out to the woods. When I asked Rustoleum they said none of their pool paint is OK for salt water because salt is corrosive. Their pool paints including epoxy, rubber, acrylic, and Zinsser only work in fresh water pools! Seems strange they can call it pool paint when 50% of new pools have salt chlorination. There is no mention of not using the paint in salt water on the Rustoleum label. "Thank you for contacting Rust-Oleum Product Support. Unfortunately Rustoleum does not recommend using any of our pool paints in a salt water pool, these coating are only for fresh water. If they were recommended to be used in salt water it would have been on the label. As a goodwill gesture if you have the receipts for the pool paint you had issues with we can refund for the purchase price of the cans." So nice, $212 refund for 2 - 5gal cans of paint and now what do I do? Maybe wait til it all chalks off and back to old pitted marcite?

its hard to imagine going to far as to sandblast the interior surface of the pool and then NOT plaster it. You are half way there already. While pretty much all concrete pool professionals would strongly encourage you to plaster, the reality is that many pool owners go this route. It can be cheaper long term, in theory, but in reality it never works out that way. he will almost certainly end up paying the same, or more, for a vastly inferior interior surface over the next 7-15 years. In the area that I am located over 90% of the concrete pools are painted. It is a sad state of affairs but the misinformation in this industry is astounding and it is little wonder to me why many pool owners make poor choices. If he is set on painting tell him to use a high build epoxy paint. After sandblasting this is the only paint that will build enough to give you a decent interior surface. No water based or single application paints if he wants the pool to be nice. High build, two part epoxy paint. Buy it from a pool store, not a hardware store.

Any kind of off white appearance to a pool makes it look unsanitary to me. They should be whitey white white.

Sometimes you have to let your children (and parents) make their own mistakes.

swimmingpoolsteve, Do you think epoxy would work in a salt chlorination pool? Rustoleum said, "Thank you for contacting Rust-Oleum Product Support. Unfortunately Rustoleum does not recommend using any of our pool paints in a salt water pool, these coating are only for fresh water." Rustoleum pool paints include epoxy, rubber, acrylic, and Zinsser.

Not familiar with rustoleum other than I recognize the name from the local hardware store. If you are going to cheap out on your interior surface then at least buy your pool paint from a company that make only pool paint - nothing else. The problem that you are having is not actually with salt water, it is with the paint company not wanting to take responsibility for the paint failing. Paint fails all the time, though usually from improper installation since installing epoxy paint to manufacturers spec is actually pretty tough. I would not use that paint, not because of their refusal to stand behind use in a salt water pool, but because the brand is not reliable enough for me.

In the mean time I quit pouring acid in the water and switched to Calcium shock instead of liquid. I think low pH as required by Hayward, 7.2-7.4, may make the chlorine more effective but is hard on concrete and I think it may hurt the paint also. I'm thinking raising the calcium is better for concrete and may help protect the paint also. pH is now about 7.8-8.0 and the paint seems to be chalking less. I've heard of Rustoleum and Zinsser brands but I've never heard of any pool paint manufacturers brands. I really liked the Rustoleum paint until I switched to salt. For me Marcite was very unreliable. It was full of pits the first year. Marcite has a history of pitting and Florida did a research study because it is such a huge problem. They didn't come up with any good fix for the problem.

Great