Dive In: Season 10 Starts Now

Two truths shape modern pool care: the fundamentals haven’t changed, and expectations never stop rising. We dig into why pool service remains resilient through recessions, how green pools trigger vector control action, and why owners treat upkeep like insurance when a basic build can top $130,000. From chemistry that still works to routines that keep gear alive, we connect the dots between steady craft and smart business.

We also unpack the big shifts you’re seeing on the pad. Cartridge filters are outpacing DE thanks to regulation and better media, and automation is moving toward closed ecosystems where matching brands across controllers, VS pumps, and salt systems avoids painful integrations. With supply back to normal and prices stable—if not cheaper—you can quote confidently and prevent surprises. The real pressure point is labor: gig work pulled talent away, so we talk through hiring realities, training paths, and route design that keeps drive times short and margins strong.

Speed now wins the lead. We share practical ways to answer faster without burning out: call routing, message templates, and route apps that send service photos and notes before a client asks. You’ll hear why instant feedback reduces churn, how to market without getting lost in trends like truck wraps, and what to focus on if you want cleaner pools, happier clients, and a healthier bottom line in 2026. If you value no‑fluff advice, tight operations, and clear takeaways, you’ll feel right at home.

• resilience of pool service during downturns
• impact of vector control and green pool risks
• stable chemistry targets and long‑term fundamentals
• cartridge filters overtaking DE on new builds
• proprietary automation ecosystems and brand matching
• post‑COVID pricing stability and supply realities
• workforce shortages and gig economy effects
• faster response expectations for leads and clients
• route apps, photos, and communication systems
• practical operations, tight routing, and marketing focus

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Chapters

• 0:00 Milestones And Season Preview
• 3:38 Why Pool Service Is Recession Resistant
• 7:28 Industry Stability And Tech Leaps
• 12:18 Prices, Supply, And Workforce Shortage
• 16:59 Cartridges Rising And Proprietary Systems

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 1:51

Hey, welcome to the Pool Guy Podcast Show. This is my tenth season or my ninth year of doing podcasts. So next year, 2027, will be the 10th anniversary of the Pool Guy Podcast Show. I'm really excited about this season. And this season I hope to pass or to cross over sometime this season 2 million downloads, which is a true milestone for a podcast show. And today I'm going to talk about the industry going forward in 2026. You're going to enjoy this episode, and I'll touch on some highlights from last year as well in the pool season. Are you a pool service pro looking to take your business to the next level? Join the pool guy coaching program. Get expert advice, business tips, exclusive content, and get direct support. From me, I'm a 35-year veteran in the industry. Whether you're starting out or scaling up, I've got the tools to help you succeed. Learn more at swimmingpoollearning.com. There are a few key things that are really nice about the pool service industry. I'll just focus on two that I think you can agree with, and you'll be able to relate with this: that the pool service industry is a pretty static industry, which means there's not a lot of change from one year to the other. There's not a huge leap from the way we're doing things and a big change the following year. And also, we are very insulated from a recession or anything outside happening in the economy. Now we were affected by the tariffs, of course, and there are effects with a downturn in the economy. I'm not going to say that you are going to feel something, but overall the pool service industry is very insulated because we are a service, and the service requires some kind of knowledge and time to do yourself. For example, if there's a pretty bad recession, which has happened, I've gone through two really big ones in the industry. The biggest back in 2008, then you had some other ones that were fairly sizable. And the thing is, when you think about these things, you people have to cut back, of course, and they have a certain lifestyle that they're used to already. They have certain bills they pay, the mortgage car payments. And so the first thing they're going to cut back on are things that they can do themselves if they had time to do it. So a lot of time a lot of services back in 2008 to 2012 that were really affected by the downturn were, of course, you know, house cleaning services, gardening services. People let their grass just die basically in some cases. But the pool is one thing you can't just walk away from, and you can't just cancel service basically and try, you know, it's not going to maintain itself, and it'll become a swamp. And so one of the things that happened back then was we have something in California, you probably have it in your state too. It's called vector control. So they would fly over neighborhoods back then, and they would look for pools that were green, and then they would send the homeowner a violation notice because the mosquitoes can carry diseases like West Nile virus, you know, and so they would cite these homes, and there was a ton of these pools, and I got a lot of business cleaning up green pools during that time for sure, and you just can't let the pool go. And it takes time and effort to maintain your pool. Plus, it's a big investment nowadays. A lot of people are building pools, and the average pool here, just a cookie cutter pool with no decking, basic equipment, no automation, is about$130,000, which is kind of mind-boggling. You know, white plaster, no upgrades. And to maintain that or just to not maintain it and to try to do it yourself can be difficult because the element of time and knowledge is not there. And so pool service is relatively safe from a downturn in the economy because it's one service that is pretty essential, just like you would call a plumber in if something happened to your toilet or your sink was clogged, you wouldn't necessarily do it yourself. The same thing with pool service is something that you can do yourself, but you need that time and knowledge to be able to pull it off. The other aspect of the industry that I mentioned is that it's pretty static, so there's not a lot of change going on in the industry. Yes, there's new products that come out, new things and new ideas hit the market, but nothing really changes from nothing has really changed dramatically. When I started in 1988 doing pool service to 2026, there's not a huge I mean there's of course jumps and leaps in technology, the variable speed pumps, automated systems, although they did have automated systems back then, by the way, as well. GD had the Aqualink, I think it I can't remember what generation it was, R4 or something like that. It was like a little panel, it was okay, it worked halfway decent, and but there were no VS pumps, and there was not a lot of apps. There was no email back then, I don't think, yet. Um, I don't know if you go back to the AO. If anyone has an AOL email address, you know that they're like the first generation emailers, and there was another one, net zero is another one, like you you had the dial-up modem, mew mew. You know, that kind of if you don't know what I'm just did there, you're you're too young to know what I'm talking about. So, yes, there's been of course leaps in technology, but the basics of pool service, and it's ironic, the ideal chemistry chart that I used back in 1988 is still used today, you know, the pH range of 7.2 to 7.8, chlorine of 0.1 to 0.3, I think. So it's all the same, nothing has really changed dramatically. And so that's a good thing, I think, in the industry that you can get into an industry and you can learn to trade, you can get out of it. Let's say you're doing something else for five years, and then jump back into the trade, and in some respects, it'll feel like you didn't leave the trade, if you kind of know what I mean there. And the stability also, up until of course, COVID, everything was really stable, but now things are getting stable again. You know, we don't have the huge price increases in chemicals that we had in you know 2020 to 2023. It was very volatile back then, and if you remember you couldn't find chlorine, they would post signs out of the supplier, you know, no chlorine. It was really kind of weird. And things have stabilized, of course. We don't have a shortage of chlorine, and the prices, of course, have not gone down. It's one of those things where once the price gets to a point, they're not gonna lower it back down. I mean, if you're living in Southern California like me, I don't remember the last time gas fell below four dollars a gallon, to be honest with you. I could probably search it. Um, it's been a long time. In fact, I'll just search it real quick because I'm kind of curious now. I'm a little shocked by the results when I did the search, but the last time gas was below four dollars, it was back in September 2019. That's pretty mind-boggling if you think about it. So, yeah, the prices aren't going down, and they're thank goodness they've kind of stabilized, and that's a good thing. There is still a shortage of pool pros in the industry, so if you're thinking about jumping into this industry, you'll do really well. You can work for somebody at first to learn the ropes, or you can start your own company. In my area, there's plenty of pools to go around, so that's not a problem. And the shortage of in the workforce, I think, and I mentioned this before, is really due to the services like Uber and DoorDash, where these kind of gig jobs that don't require a lot of skill except kind of reading the GPS, and of course, being customer service oriented and attentive to what you're doing out there, have really taken a lot of the workforce. Amazon's another one that's taken a lot of the workforce from the pool industry delivering packages, and I think this is something that understand that the workforce has kind of permanently shrunk down because of these other services that a lot of people are geared towards doing. It's a lot easier than doing pools, of course, and you're gonna find that this is a something that has taken a lot of employees out of restaurants and other fields as well. So there's definitely a loss of a specific type of person that you're trying to advertise for to hire. If you're hiring a pool service technician or you're trying to expand your pool route, you're gonna find that to be still an issue that we face here. I would say that something that I've noticed over the last few years is that cartridge filters are definitely taking over defilters. It's accelerating here in California because the builders aren't putting them in anymore. There's a lot of regulations, and so a lot of times you're gonna find cartridge filters in the backyard, and at least in the west coast here, there's a lot more cartridge filters, and you're gonna really find this to be the future of cartridges. So, whether you like them or not, I I love cartridge filters myself. This is gonna be something dominating the landscape of pool service going probably into the 2030s and forward. Cartridge filter technology has gotten so much better, they're much a much better filter media, in my opinion, and you'll see more cartridge filters as you go into the next decade. One thing you may notice going into this next decade as well is that manufacturers are becoming a little more insulated with their proprietary products. For example, with automation, you're going to have a harder and harder time making your Hayward VS Pump compatible with a Pentair automated system. And the same thing Hayward has been doing, has been already doing this for the last few years, where it makes it really difficult to connect any other pump to a Hayward automated system except a Hayward VS Pump. And then I think Jandy is also trending in that direction. So you're gonna find that you're kind of locked out of switching you know your VS pump, which you probably don't need to anyway, or if you have an existing pad, you have to bring in the brand that you have the automated system with, which is not a terrible thing, but it is an interesting thing that the manufacturers are doing. And I think there's outside automation that they're trying to kind of keep out of the industry, and they don't want these third-party automated systems to kind of run with their systems, and so they're getting more and more specific in how they're programmed and what systems can work with them, which again is not something that I think is a big deal because I always recommend if you have a Penter automated system, get a Penter salt cell and get a Penter VS pump. There's no reason to kind of have a Frankenstein equipment pad, but just note that with the higher technology in the industry, they're going to be more and more kind of proprietary with their equipment versus back in the day where it was kind of like a Wild West where you can connect, you know, a Pentare and Teleflow to a Jandy Aqua Link. In fact, in their manual, I think it's page 38, it tells you how to do that. So it's one of those things where I think it's the manufacturers have to do that because they're trying to kind of box out the third-party automated systems that are out there. I think something that has been trending since 1988 is that customers really want a faster response time. Back then, you know, you would just basically leave a door hanger for the customer, you know, everything was mailed to them, the bills were mailed, and you would call their landline. It's it was kind of funny, it's it's a different world entirely. And so the response time and response rate was acceptable, like you know, get back to them in a day or two, or next week when you're there, you take care of the problem. But now, with the of course, instant communication across all the devices you have, the customers want a faster response time. This is this really plays into when they're calling for new service, and so I talk about this a lot too. And so, my podcasts, I should probably talk a little bit about what it's geared towards some starting a new season, maybe have some new listeners. I spend a lot of time talking about business operation, making your pool service business profitable, of course, trending products and chemistry. I also cover subjects homeowners are interested in as well. So I have a broad spectrum of subjects. I also keep them short so you can listen to them in bite-sized segments. You can listen to one a day while you're getting ready to go on your route, or in between a long stop, you can listen to the whole podcast basically. Hopefully, you don't have a stop that lasts 15 or 20 minutes, or actually a drive between stops that are 15 to 20 minutes, because that's contrary to what I preach here, as far as uh how your business should operate with a tight route. So basically, those are the subjects I cover, and so I'll get back to the point I was making once I remember what it was, and it was the answering your or actually instant communication is what I'm what was talking about. And you can actually lose a lot of business by not picking up your phone when someone calls you for a lead, because people have zero patience nowadays, and I mean I mean zero, and I kind of fall into that category where if I'm calling for a new vendor, they don't answer the phone, I'll just go on Yelp and call the next person that Yelp recommends. And by the way, you can actually pay for Yelp, Home Advisor, Thumbtack, all these services to expand your business. That's another whole podcast. But I'll just go to the next person, and maybe 10 minutes later, the first person I called calls me back, but by then it's too late because I already had hired someone else that answered their phone. And so this is not the greatest thing about the modern society. And if a customer asks you a question about their pool, if you don't get back to them within like 10 minutes, they'll like send you a question mark in the text. I really don't like when someone sends me a question mark, by the way. It's really irritating and it's kind of rude. Like, hey, did you didn't you see my message? You know, it's been 10 minutes. I don't really like that, it's not polite, but they'll send you that and like you know, like to prompt you to get back to them. So it's something that you have to understand about the modern pool service industry. I definitely recommend using apps like Skimmer to manage these things and to get back to customers, send pictures of the pool cleaned and all these things. It's some super important to have an app like that to manage your route and to definitely keep up with this modern, fast-paced pool service world that we're in now. But just realize that these are things that have changed over the years, and you have to kind of adapt to it. And if you want to be successful, you have to adapt to all these new changes that are happening out there, or you're gonna be left behind. You know, if your area, all the pool pros are wrapping their trucks with their logo, then you may have to cough up$2,000 to get your truck wrapped. It may be something that you have to do to keep yourself in business. Thankfully, in my area of Los Angeles County, hardly anyone wraps their trucks, and no one's wrapping them. And so hopefully the trend doesn't start because then you're gonna it's gonna just be where everyone has a wrapped truck now, and then you don't really get the leads because everyone looks the same. It's it's just one of those things that's a catch 22 perpetuating circle, everyone's advancing, and then no one's really advancing at that point as far as marketing. So these are all things I cover here, and so I hope you tune in for season 10, and you're going to get a good flavor of new things and old things I talk about all the time, of course. And these are always good to be reminded of these these things about business and about chemistry. And I think my podcast does have a following because of the kind of clinical way I take care of things. I really, if I have a guest on here, I'm not spending 20 minutes talking about their favorite color or getting into minutiae that's not important. I just cut to the chase, and I haven't changed my style in 10 seasons, and I don't plan on changing my style this year either. So rest assured that these are gonna be very informational podcasts that convey a specific point. And like right now, I'm off topic, and this doesn't happen very often. So just be aware that these podcasts are going to be something that you're gonna get a lot of information from, and you're gonna find these very applicable to your pool service business, or if you're a homeowner to your backyard pool care. So I want to thank again all the loyal listeners that have been with the podcast that are gonna get it to the two million download threshold, and I hope you find these helpful and continue to tune in. I've been doing this now, entering my ninth year of podcasting. So thank you, thank you, thank you for tuning in and supporting the Pool Guy Podcast Show. Looking for other episodes, you can go to my website, swimmingfullearning.com, on the banner, click on the podcast icon. There'll be over eighteen hundred podcasts for you to download. And if you're interested in the coaching program, you can learn more at PoolGuyCoaching.com. Thanks for listening to this podcast. Have you rest of your week and God bless.