February 2004

hree years ago, Matthew Cyna went to a pool and spa convention and came away with a great new idea for the pools he was designing in New York: a quartz plaster mix.

“I brought it back and showed it to the owner, and he said we could try it,” says Cyna, the superintendent of construction for Beauty Pools in Lancaster, N.Y.

However, quartz plaster mixes weren’t all that new at the time. In fact, the hard plaster mix had been on the market for more than a decade, competing with other aggregates.

But for most of its existence, its use in the pool industry had been contained within a few key Southern states. Only recently has quartz become a popular surfacing finish for pools in the residential and commercial markets. Though typically a more expensive plastering solution, quartz is gaining its recent fan base due to its longevity and durability, as well as the multitude of color choices it offers consumers — a rarity in the plastering phase of the pool design.

As many builders, including Cyna, are finding out, results of a try-out with the quartz may exceed expectations. Cyna says he used the pool of a local industry distributor as his guinea pig and, in the process of adding elaborate waterfeatures and other products, surfaced it with 75 percent blue-color quartz. In the end, the pool became the company’s show pool, and helped increase profit margins by an easy 10 percent a year, Cyna says.

“The job came out tremendously,” he says. “It really started selling the quartz in our area.”

Quartz gains a step
For more than half a century, the finish pool builders used to provide a watertight seal on a pool’s shell was a mix of white marble sand and white cement. It is still the most common form of finish.

Yet white plaster has some limitations. Color can be added to the plaster, but doing so can cause problems. Once exposed to heavy doses of pool chemicals, colored plaster tends to streak or have increased instances of mottling, a natural, but uneven, graying of the white plaster. So until aggregate mixes appeared on the market, the color choices for plaster were limited.

Pebble aggregates conquer part of the problem. The intended effect of the mixture of stone and cement was to mirror nature with the use of earth-tone colors — similar to what might be found in a stream bed, for instance. This type of pool plaster remains popular, but only expanded the plaster palette slightly.

Then came quartz. Pool builders in Florida were the first to take advantage of the material. Due to the area’s year-long swim season, and because the state is heavily populated with pools, builders there tend to experiment with radical ideas before the rest of the country. Wanting to offer their customers more design options, the builders drew the product into their market.

“Initially, the concept behind quartz was to add an ambiance, a total look,” explains a sales representative for one manufacturer of the product.

The addition of quartz granules to the white cement used in plastering brought about a revolution in the color scheme of pool plastering. Though quartz is an extremely tough stone — it’s harder than steel, according to Moh’s Mineral Hardness Scale — colors can be permanently bonded to it, much as color is added to floor tiling.

It meant that, for the first time, a variety of contemporary colors — red, plum or a bright orange, for instance — could be offered as options to customers looking to break with pool design tradition. In addition, it gave builders the ability to customize if the preferred color wasn’t already produced.

For the less adventurous customer, quartz also provided the option of richer, more subtle and controlled colors, such as creamy white or bluish-green. As an added bonus, quartz’s durability meant the color wouldn’t fade or experience the same problems encountered by tinted white plaster.

Colorful concept
Manufacturers say consumers’ increased interest in home design and improvements has driven quartz’s recent popularity. Though most people are still conservative with their pool color choices, a growing percentage are opting for more untraditional coloring.

In doing so, they are choosing colors for their pool plaster that are more thought out and intended to complement the entire outdoor room concept.

“Blue is predominantly the most thought-of color for pools, but people are definitely looking for more individualism and are wanting to add a sense of style,” confirms Karin Larsen, a member of the Color Marketing Group, a not-for-profit association of 1,500 color designers based in Alexandria, Va. Larsen also is a marketing administrator for a manufacturer in the quartz market.

Cyna backs that idea up. He says his customers are more involved in the design and color choices for their pools than ever before.

“They’re trying to match their patio furniture, to match things in their yards,” he says. “These people don’t want a pure-white plaster finish.”

Without a doubt, blues and blue-greens dominate the plaster market, but richer, darker colors are becoming more common. For instance, Cyna says blacks and grays actually are coveted colors for plaster.

“The blues and greens look better and brighter in the daylight,” he says. “But [some consumers] are looking for a different look.

“The blacks and grays have a nice reflection with the sky — and with the sky out here, [the pool becomes] nothing but a big mirror.”

Coloring concerns
Consumers expect to be presented with color options, say builders. If they choose not to get creative, it’s usually for one of two reasons: It’s either too expensive, or they’re concerned about how the color of the finish will affect the pool water.

“I talk to a lot of customers about color, and if they’re having trouble deciding on what to have for a finish — even though they may be trying to match a tile — they’re [ultimately] interested in what color their water is going to appear after the finish is done,” Larsen says.

It’s important that builders understand and explain to consumers that many factors, including the finish, will affect how the pool water looks, she says.

When it comes to the finish’s effect, “the way that I explain it to them is that, basically, they’re going to only end up with a variation of three different colors [for their pool water]: blue, turquoise or green,” Larsen says. “They’re not going to ever end up with red or violet water.”

The reason is because water reflects bluish lights and absorbs reds. “So it’ll never reflect any of those tones out,” she says. But “if you put yellow in your pool, you can end up with green water.”

The darkness of the finish and the depth and shape of the pool will affect the water’s appearance, too. However, Larsen emphasizes that water is a natural element that changes with a lot of things.

“Any type of foliage around the pool that is bright green” will reflect onto the water, she says. The same can be said for “any buildings with certain tones or shadows cast on the pool water. Also, the color of the pool water can appear differently at any given time of the day.”

Extending life
Beyond expanding the design flair for backyard pools, quartz is gaining a reputation for its durability and longevity in the commercial pool market. That’s a marketable aspect because many cities that own public pools are looking for the best use of their funds.

Quartz’s hardness is even more of a benefit to the commercial pool contractor than the residential because color choices often are limited by health departments, says Alan Smith, owner of Alan Smith Pool Plastering Co. in Orange, Calif. However, the strength of the product is a powerful selling point.

“The commercial pools have a lot of wear and tear chemically,” Smith says. “They seem to really etch up and burn plaster jobs, and the traditional, softer aggregates used in regular pools don’t seem to last long. I wouldn’t be surprised if you can get 75 percent longer life out of the plaster job with quartz.”

It has been getting more and more popular, agrees Dana Anderson, vice president of Anderson Poolworks in Sherwood, Ore. Anderson does a lot of commercial pool work as well, especially for remodels in apartment and condominium complexes. Approximately 40 percent of his jobs are done with quartz.

Though most commercial property owners are a tough sell — the initial cost of a quartz finish is much more than a white plaster finish — Anderson says they become convinced when they realize its value to them. Because the quartz finish will last longer and require fewer touch-ups, the pool can stay in good shape at minimal costs in the long run. Andersen uses that quality to help convince current property owners that a quartz finish will make the pool appear more attractive to buyers of the property later on.

“Commercial properties love that they can have something different than across the street,” he says. “It’s all about looking good.”