Chandler Pool Acid Wash 
Chandler Pool Acid Wash drains your pool, strips the stains, calcium, and algae off the plaster with a controlled acid wash, runs a chlorine bath, and refills it, turning a green or crusted pool back to clean white plaster. Most Chandler acid washes run $300–$800; larger luxury pools run more. Send a few photos and you get a flat, up-front price, not a vague hourly guess.
We cover Chandler and the southeast Valley: Gilbert, Sun Lakes, Ahwatukee, and Tempe.
What a pool acid wash actually is
An acid wash is not a weekly cleaning and it’s not a chlorine shock. It’s a periodic restoration. The pool is drained completely, then the bare plaster or pebble surface is washed with a diluted muriatic acid solution that eats through stains, calcium scale, and a thin top layer of old plaster, exposing fresh white surface underneath. Then the acid is neutralized, the waste pumped out responsibly, a chlorine bath run, and the pool refilled and rebalanced.
Done right, it takes a stained, dingy, or algae-green pool and makes it look close to new for a fraction of what a resurface costs. Done wrong (dry plaster, uneven etching, acid dumped in the street) it damages the surface and gets you a call from the city. The difference is in the process, so ask any crew, us included, how they handle each step. Learn more on the pool acid wash service page.
Why Chandler pools need this more than most
Two things drive acid wash and calcium work in the East Valley, and Chandler has both in spades.
Hard water. Chandler tap water is hard, mineral-loaded, and as pool water evaporates in the desert heat, calcium concentrates and cements onto the tile line and plaster. That chalky white crust at the waterline is calcium scale, and no amount of brushing takes it off. It needs bead blasting or acid removal.
Heat and vacancy. A pool left unattended in a Chandler summer can turn green in under a week. Snowbirds who fly home to cooler states, rental turnovers, foreclosures, and estate sales all produce neglected pools that are past the point of balancing with chemicals. A drain-and-clean or green-pool cleanup resets them fast.
Then there’s the housing. Central Chandler has plaster pools built in the 1970s and 80s that are on their last acid wash before a resurface. Ocotillo and Fulton Ranch, built out in the 1990s and 2000s, have larger, higher-end pools with pebble and quartz finishes and a lot of waterline tile to keep clean. It’s a city full of pools at every stage of life, and each stage needs different work.
Services we offer
| Service | What it’s for | Typical price |
|---|---|---|
| Pool Acid Wash | Strip stains, calcium, and algae down to fresh plaster | $300–$800 |
| Green Pool Cleanup | Emergency drain-and-clean for algae-green or neglected pools | $250–$600 |
| Calcium & Scale Removal | Bead blasting and acid treatment for hard-water calcium | $200–$500 |
| Pool Tile Cleaning | Restore the waterline tile band | $200–$500 |
| Pool Drain & Clean | Full drain, pressure wash, and refill without acid | $200–$450 |
| Resurfacing Prep | Chip-out and acid etch before replaster or Pebble | Quoted per job |
See the full breakdown on our pricing page. Restoring a pool doesn’t have to mean resurfacing money: a wash keeps most Chandler jobs in the hundreds while a new finish starts in the thousands, which makes it the affordable fix, provided the plaster still has life left in it.
How the job goes
- You send photos. A shot of the whole pool, a close-up of the worst staining, and the waterline tile is enough for us to quote it flat.
- We drain it the right way. The City of Chandler wants pool water kept on your property or sent to your sanitary sewer cleanout, typically a black 3 or 4 inch capped pipe close to the house, and recommends a flow of no more than 12 gallons per minute. A drain line hard-plumbed to the street is prohibited, and draining to the street at all takes an exception requested from the city when the cleanout cannot be found. We drain that way because it protects you and the storm system.
- We keep the plaster wet and work it in sections during the cooler part of the day, so the surface never dries out and etches unevenly.
- We apply the acid solution, scrub it, and rinse it, then neutralize the runoff with soda ash before pumping it out.
- Chlorine bath, refill, rebalance. We start the refill and bring the chemistry back into range. Refilling a residential pool takes several thousand gallons of city water. That cost is yours, so ask for a rough estimate and there are no surprises on the water bill.
Built for Chandler’s pool-dense neighborhoods
Chandler is one of the most pool-heavy cities in Arizona, and different pockets of it need different work. Ocotillo, the lakefront community anchoring south Chandler with its interconnected lakes and golf courses, and gated Fulton Ranch are full of large, high-end pools, pebble and quartz finishes with a lot of premium waterline tile that collects calcium. Those pools land at the upper end of the published pricing and often need tile and calcium work as much as full washes.
Clemente Ranch, Circle G, and the newer subdivisions off Ocotillo Road and the Loop 202 Santan sit in the middle, solid 1990s and 2000s pools coming due for their first or second acid wash. And central Chandler, along Arizona Avenue, Alma School, and Dobson, has the oldest plaster in the city, where the honest conversation is often about resurfacing rather than another wash. One city, three different jobs, and we take on all of them.
For pool pros too
Other pool professionals call us too: owner-operators who run weekly routes or do resurfacing but don’t want to own the drain-and-acid-wash step. It’s specialized, messy work with real liability (handling acid, disposing of it legally, protecting the plaster), and it’s smarter to hand it to a crew like ours that does only this. If you run a pool business in the East Valley and want a partner for the wash, drain-and-clean, or resurfacing prep step, send the job to us, and we settle up front that your customer stays yours.
Honest advice, not a hard sell
Here’s something most pool companies won’t tell you: acid washing is not free of consequence. Every wash removes a little plaster. A surface can take a limited number of acid washes before it’s too thin, and at that point another wash just wears it out faster. When resurfacing is the smarter money, we say so, and the next step is the chip-out and acid etch to prep it for a new plaster or pebble finish.
The truth earns the next five jobs; one wash your pool didn’t need earns nothing.
Get a flat quote
We cover anywhere in Chandler or the southeast Valley. Text or upload a few photos of your pool and we will come back with a flat price and a date. No phone tag, no “starting at” pricing that balloons on site. Get a fast quote or read the frequently asked questions first.