How much should I order?
Work in square feet and let the sheet count fall out of it. Tile here is sold by the square foot, and a sheet that looks like a tidy square foot usually is not: the coverage figures on this shelf run from 0.98 up to 1.088, and one sheet covers 1.65. Counting sheets instead of measuring area is how an order arrives short. Measure the band you are tiling, add for the cuts at the corners and the skimmer, and order the area with something left over, because a later run is the thing least likely to match.
Can I match the tile already on my pool?
Sometimes, and it is worth being honest about the odds. If the pool is recent and the series is still made, ordering the same series and colour is the way to do it, and the series name is usually on the back of a loose piece or on the builder's paperwork. Two things work against you. Series get discontinued, and fired ceramic varies from run to run, so a new box beside ten year old tile can read slightly different even when the name is identical. Order a small amount first and hold it against the wet tile before committing to a whole band.
What makes a tile a pool tile?
How much water the body absorbs, and it is on the specification. Pool tile here takes on less than half a percent of its weight, which is what impervious means in practice. Ordinary wall tile drinks far more, and water inside a tile that then freezes is what pops the face off, which is why these are also described as frost proof. The second half is the glaze, which has to sit in chlorinated and acidic water year round without going cloudy. A handsome tile from a hardware shop fails on both counts.
Which size goes at the waterline?
Six inch is the traditional band and still the most common, because fewer grout lines means less to scrub where the scale forms. Smaller mosaics, 1, 2 and 3 in., are mesh mounted in sheets and go on faster round curves and steps, and they suit a raised wall or a spa spillway where the shape is not flat. It is a look and a labour decision rather than a performance one. What matters more is that whatever you choose is rated for a pool.
What is bullnose for?
Finishing the edge so it is not a raw tile edge. A bullnose has one rounded and glazed side, so where a waterline band stops against plaster the top row reads as a finished edge instead of a cut. Single bullnose means one finished side, which is the usual case on a band. Border tile does the same job decoratively, running a pattern along the top of a plain field. Both are ordered in linear feet of run rather than area, then converted, which is the one place counting pieces beats measuring.
Smooth or non-skid depth markers?
Non-skid where a foot lands, smooth where it does not. A depth marker set into the deck edge at the coping is walked on wet, so a textured face is the point of it. A marker set on the pool wall below the waterline, or on a vertical face, is read rather than stood on and a smooth glazed tile is easier to keep clean. Both are frost proof here, in 4 in. and 5 in. What the marker has to say, how far apart they go and where they are required at all comes from the code where you live rather than from the tile, so check that before you order the numbers.
