My Pebble Tec is just fine and I did not scrub it down. The roughness is a personal thing, I don't think it's rough at all. Everyone who has seen my pool has really liked the Pebble Tec and one neighbor has had it installed when he needed to re-plaster. I would make the same decision again to install it.

my pebbletec does not bother my feet at all, my family all thinks it feels really nice, like a foot massage. keep in mind the stones are smooth and almost polished in texture, so it's not like when you walk into the ocean and are stepping on shells and rocks and who knows what. i think it's great. plus the pebbletec looks very different from the pebblesheen. pebbletec has a more rustic look to it, more like a natural creek bed.

why not ask your PB if you could go see a few pools, some with pebblectec and some with pebblesheen, and when you're there, ask the owner "is it rough on your feet?" i guarantee they will tell you to take off your shoes and stand on a step to see (that's what we did!).

i have never heard of scrubbing it down....think of the size of your pool, that would take forever to do it evenly.....would you be underwater while you did it? (because you have to fill a pebble pool immediately after the acid wash).....plus you would probably scrub out some pebbles in the process leaving stone holes and blotches of plaster....and that would affect the look and color of the pool.

pebblesheen is actually professionally buffed down by the installer after the acid wash, so if you want something scrubbed down, go with the pebblesheen and let the pros handle it.

love the pebbletec, couldn't be happier with ours. our color is Majestic Plum, sounds weird but it is not purple, link below:

Here is a link that might be useful: PebbleTec: Majestic Plum

My ptec is great on our feet. Must admit that rounded edge on steps can be rough if stubbing toe or banging knee.

My dd went to neighbor's house to swim and tips of her toes bled, same with his grandsons. Went to other plaster pool and same thing. No one has had any problems with that in a ptec. Weird.

I have Pebble Fina Bella Blue. I love it, however the problem I had was that after a few months my pool developed some gray/black spotting on it. Turned out to be a rare defect in my finish. However, my pool builder, plaster guy and Pebble Tec customer service were great. They re-plastered my pool about two weeks ago and have re-done all of my start up and chemicals at their cost. They will be back in 4 weeks to re-do my salt chlorinator start up. They did my start up a little different for the first 10 days keeping the acid really high to prevent scaling while it did the initial curing, and I love it even more now than I did in April. The finish is wonderful on our feet. We decided not to go with Pebble tec or Pebble Sheen because my daughter has sensitive feet and we were worried that the bigger pebble would be rough on her skin. The fina hasn't given us any problems with our feet.

I read that they buff the smaller pebbles in the PebbleTec's-Pebble sheen and other similar products like the WetEdge's-Satin Matrix. Has anyone had the larger pebble type products like original PebbleTec or Pearl Matrix even "slightly buffed" to sort of even out any really rough or perhaps broken pebbles that might pop-up to the surface? I read something about how they don't buff the large stones because it would take too many diamond pads to effectively do it throughout (I am guessing there is a lower profile overall to the smaller pebbles). Can this be done somehow on the larger pebble brands if you find really rough spots after the water has filled the pools?

A separate question: If anyone has seen the same color in both the small and large pebble sizes . . . does each have the same reflective, sparkling look and also color or does the pebble size affect these factors?

I've had my Pebble Tec for 2 years with no abrasions on my feet. Now, I don't play water volleyball or anything like that. I did play volleyball at our clubhouse pool which has the small flecks of pebbles in plaster. My feet got very roughed up there. If you play sports, then wear aqua shoes.

Anyway, my color is Tropical Breeze, the water is still beautiful and my shell pieces still sparkle. I prefer the look of the larger pebbles. It seems more tropical to me.

Yes!!! Big time issues with my New PebbleFina finish.
It looked great each time they finished the "acid wash" then immediately after they did something they call a "Hot Start" and reset the ph to counter the acid, a sediment forms looks like powdered sugar, settles to the bottom and in hours adhears to the dark blue bottom and looks awful.
Each of the elements point their fingers...the prime, the plater installer, and PebbleTech. They have done the "acid wash" twice, each time same result. We have had countless chemical analysis's all showing the water is fine. Maybe the plaster and/or technique to counter the acid is flawed.

Anyone have this problem? Makes a great pool look cheap

After having the pebblesheen installed and waiting for the acid wash we notice cracks in the bottom the pebble tech tech says when the water is put in the cracks will go away when as it cures is this wright or is he pulling my leg

I have had my pool with pebble sheen for year and a half. There have been white shadings appearing which the rep says is normal color variations.....yet they weren't there before. Then cracks started appearing....crevices you can even feel with your fingers....then many many white dots which I thought were the abalone shells...but I know there were certainly not that many merely months ago. Now there is a large white spot at the bottom of deep end. I thought it was debris, but. watched vacuum go over it 3 times....dove down and sure enough it's a big chip. Rep is coming tomorrow with my pool builder. I need to be firm that this needs to be fixed / redone. I'm usually a push over....woman living alone....but do not want to get taken advantage of on this one. Anybody with any file up comments appreciated. I will report after more info available. I really love my pool though!

I have a similar problem to that described by "marylandmike" on Nov 14 2010.

I would like to know what the response was.

This post was edited by Russ7240 on Thu, Jan 29, 15 at 12:19

I have a dark finish pebble fina. It's been a nightmare. We installed our new pool 3 years ago and have had it acid washed 4 times. Always looks great after the acid wash but quickly starts getting blotchy and just like Marylandmike everyone id's pointing fingers at everyone the plaster company, installers, pool guy. It's awful.

Run from PebbleTech. We opened our new pool this weekend- PebbleTech fina - 10 out of 12 kids came out of the pool with bleeding feet / toes and heels - literally bleeding - blood all over our stone deck and kitchen floor ...might be great for your adult calouses but made for a lot of teary kids at my son's 7th birthday party.

Has anyone solved this issue>?

I have a pebble tec pool that is ten years old, I had it acid washed five years ago and it looked great. This last year I got lazy and let the finish get stained. I decided to acid wash it myself and the guy that did it last time suggested I wash with one to one and let it sit for ten minutes. It looks good but im getting a lot of pebbles when I vacuum. Did I ruin my pool finish?

I posted in 2010 about my pebble fina Bella blue. 9 years later, a few white and light brown spots in the pool and a lot of irritated children's feet. I feel it was a waste of money. Had I known this would be such a sensitive finish, I would have chosen a blue plaster.

I agree with comment about bloody feet with Pebble Tec … kinda takes the fun out of swimming! Our Pebble Tec pool is not the nice re-do we were after. Do not get Pebble Tec finish under any circumstances!!!!

If you could message me at lauriebfla@verizon.net. If you’ve had issues like this. We have a high end pool done with darkest PT finish finish. Doing chemicals daily and taking water sample to two different locations twice a week. Weve documented this for two full years so we have something meticulously to stand upon when they claim we aren’t taking care of the pool. The pool has spotted whitewashing regardless of acid washing and balanced chemicals. We have a 150k pool that’s only 3 years old and the calcium buildup in pool creating the white wash of pebble tech in over 75 percent of pool etched our glass tile leading to replacement after one year. After tremendous research , We finally realized that a chemical was added to the cement to speed up hardening process of pebble tech installation which has been causing the chemical reaction therby creating scale secondary to high calcium content on daily basis. (Via chemical reaction). We use An extraordinary amount of acid per week and regardless of maintenance , scale immediately returns a few days later. I have to believe the frequency of the acid wash isn’t doing the pool or tile any favors. We’ve kept a two year journal to go back and forth with the invalid claims they may come up with to try and put it back on lack of maintenance or external elements such as temperature of water, rain, shade or lack of care. We do not have a pool man. We do it daily and at same time. It is not out of line to expect a 150 thousand dollar pool to look like a 150k pool less than three years later and I Challange anyone to step up and claim they do a better job than we do when it comes to proper and meticulous maintenance. We won’t allow pebbletech to turn away from this problem. It’s a large amount of money to have this style and type of finish . I expect a company to stand by their product or we will take the next step toward ensuring the problem is fixed.

@Laurie Have you gotten any resolution to this issue? I am in the same boat as you, a four year old pool that is very splotchy and not at all the deep navy blue that I ordered with the Pebble Fina. The pool company and PT are both blaming my "lack of using a professional pool guy" on the water not being neutral or acidic enough. I have ZERO trees near my pool and the city water is 7.1 pH. This is a product problem, not a homeowner maintenance problem

I hear your pain but our pool wasn’t quite that much. Here is what we have had for at least the last year and our pool was built june of 2015.