Pool tiling in Manchester, inside buildings that never really close.

Most of the pools we see here are indoors and busy

A lot of Manchester's swimming happens out of sight: hotel and spa pools, gym and health club pools, and pools inside residential developments. They tend to open long hours and there is rarely a good week to shut them.

Further out there are council leisure pools, school pools and private pools in houses in the southern suburbs. The wear differs. Hotel pools lose grout on the steps first, while older leisure pools are more likely to have hollow tiles across whole areas of floor.

The tiling is the easy part

In a city centre block, getting adhesive in and broken tiles out can take more planning than the tiling itself. Loading bays, service lifts, parking and the building manager's rules all decide how the job runs, so we ask about them on the first visit.

Working hours, dust and noise control and protection for shared corridors are agreed in writing before we start. Residents and hotel guests are still there, after all.

• Delivery and waste routes agreed in advance
• Working hours set with the building or hotel management
• Protection for lifts, corridors and poolside finishes

Repair first, retile only if the pool needs it

Dan and Jay start with the pool drained where possible and tap the tiles to map anything that sounds hollow. That gives a first picture, but the real extent of a repair only shows once tiles come up and we can see the adhesive bed and render behind them.

Plenty of Manchester pools need targeted repairs and a regrout rather than a full retile. If the background has failed over a wide area, we will say so and explain why patching would be money badly spent.

Changing rooms and spa areas in the same closure

Health clubs and hotels rarely stop at the pool. Showers, changing rooms and steam rooms see constant wet use, and open grout there lets water into the floor build-up.

If those areas are due attention, it usually makes sense to scope them with the pool so one closure covers the lot.