Why Verbal Pool Agreements Eventually Fail

Confusion is expensive. We walk through the simple service agreements and targeted waivers that keep your pool business protected when jobs get messy, from green pool rescues to acid washes that carry real surface risk. Instead of relying on verbal promises, we show how a one-page agreement sets clear expectations, defines what’s included, and outlines billing, weather exemptions, and vacation pauses so surprises don’t turn into cancellations or chargebacks.

Green pools are a mystery until they clear, which is why a dedicated waiver matters. We break down language that covers pre-existing stains, partial stain removal, equipment failures under heavy runtime, and the reality that timelines vary. You’ll hear practical ways to avoid party-weekend disasters, plus a smart tactic: offer a small cleanup discount when the homeowner commits to ongoing service, aligning incentives and preventing post-cleanup algae callbacks.

Acid washes deserve special handling. We explain how to communicate risks like etching, streaking, roughness, and color variation, and why you must avoid hot or windy conditions. You’ll learn when to decline the work on cracked or fragile plaster, how to set honest expectations without guarantees, and how to protect your crew on tough weather days. We also outline when to move beyond waivers and hire a lawyer for HOA or commercial contracts, and how to keep residential paperwork simple, translatable, and effective—right down to optional price increase language tied to market shifts.

If you want fewer disputes and more trust, start with clear writing. Subscribe for more practical growth tips for pool pros, share this with a colleague who needs a template, and leave a review to tell us what clause you’d add next.

• reasons clear agreements reduce disputes
• how to introduce service agreements to existing clients
• green pool waiver terms that manage risk
• handling stains, equipment failure, and timing expectations
• acid wash risks, safe conditions, and no-guarantee language
• when to refuse an acid wash and recomm

Support the Pool Guy Podcast Show Sponsors! 

HASA 
https://bit.ly/HASA

The Bottom Feeder. Save $100 with Code: DVB100
https://store.thebottomfeeder.com/

Try Skimmer FREE for 30 days:
https://getskimmer.com/poolguy 

Get UPA Liability Insurance $64 a month! https://forms.gle/F9YoTWNQ8WnvT4QBA

Pool Guy Coaching: https://bit.ly/40wFE6y

Chapters

• 0:00 Why Agreements Matter
• 1:52 Coaching Program Invitation
• 2:32 Clarity And Protection Basics
• 3:32 Rolling Out Service Agreements
• 4:58 Green Pool Waiver Essentials
• 8:03 Avoiding Blame And Misunderstandings
• 9:54 Vinyl, Chemicals, And Party Risks
• 11:26 Acid Wash Risks And Timing
• 14:00 When Not To Acid Wash
• 16:23 No Guarantees And Managing Expectations
• 18:26 When You Need Real Contracts

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 1:02

Hey, welcome to the Pool Game Podcast Show. In this episode, I'm going to talk to you about why you need some kind of contract or agreement for everything you do out there. And this is one area that a lot of people struggle with and they don't get around to implementing. And I'll give you some really good reasons why you should implement all of this as soon as you can. 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. And these agreements or service agreements or even just basic uh waivers serve two uh really main purposes for your business. One is to clarify everything with your customer and writing. It's always good to have something in front of them that they can see, and that brings clarity to everything you're doing. I'll go into details on that. And the second part, of course, it protects you from someone saying that you did this or didn't do this as you said you were going to do. And that kind of goes hand in hand with the clarity, but that also is very significant when things go wrong and they're questioning you about something that if you had a waiver or an agreement or service agreement that would have been clear, and this the whole conversation would have been unnecessary. The bad feelings, animosity would not have arisen if they had known things at the beginning and you were transparent with them. So I'll start with the basic service agreement. Now I do have a one-page word format that you can if you email me at David at SomingPo Learning, I'll get that over to you. I'm a couple days behind sometimes on responding, so don't get anxious. I will get it to you. It's just that I get busy and I get a ton of emails. But I'll give you that one-page service agreement because I think it's critical. It goes over all the details of what you're doing at the pool and you know, your vacation time, your late payment information. And a lot of times pool pros will implement the service agreement because they already have a lot of clients that don't have them, and they feel that they're gonna get pushback if they have a customer sign one of these or you show one of these to the customer that you've been servicing for a year or two, never had an agreement. And honestly, I think you can approach it by saying to the customer that you've implemented the service agreement, not for anything that they're doing, of course, or any kind of problems you have with them, but you have run into some trouble with some of the new clients. And so you created the service agreement to clarify things of what you do and all the details that they already know about. And if they if you send them a copy, just have them sign it and just say, if you can sign this that way, I can just keep a record of it. I'd like all my customers to sign it, even the ones I've had for a year or two that I didn't have one before with. It's just part of you know staying organized and making sure that everyone has that service agreement. And they may appreciate looking at the agreement and seeing, you know, in writing what you're actually doing at their pool or have been doing, and it overing clarification. So long as you emphasize that it's not them, it's not a problem with them in particular, but a problem maybe with some new clients that you're bringing on, they shouldn't be reluctant to sign it. And it's really not a binding contract either. So the service agreement is just a basic document, and there's nothing binding to it, just it's not a legal document. And same with the waivers you may create. You know, I have a few waivers that I created, and they're not a legal binding document, but however, they do serve a purpose. And let me just pull these up so I can go over the ones that I created that would really help you out there with anyone that may push back or question some things you do, or maybe the outcome of an acid wash or a green pool cleanup. So I have my green pool cleanup waiver opened here, and again, it's not a contract, but it's basically a one-page agreement that you can adjust yourself. You can ask for this also. You can email me, and it basically has the client's name, address, phone number, and date. And this waiver releases your company name and its employees, contractors, and affiliates hereafter referred to as service provider from liability related to cleanup and treatment of green and allergy infestival swimming pools and above listed property. So basically, when you're doing a green pool cleanup, you don't know what the pool surface looks like. It's one of those mysteries, you know, what's on the bottom? Is it stained? Is it, you know, is there problems with maybe even cracks in the plaster? Who knows? Because you can't see the surface. And so if you don't have a waiver and you do a green pool cleanup, and I've had many pool guys in my group, gals in my group, do this where they do a green pool cleanup without any kind of paperwork or waiver, and the customer's like, hey, that stain wasn't there before you started cleaning the green pool, so you're gonna have to fix that. That's a big problem because that stain was there and you can't fix it. And if you had a waiver, you wouldn't have to kind of deal with this kind of headache. Basically, it says um, you know, this is pretty much the first thing that's addressing how long it's gonna take to clean the pool up, because it varies based on a lot of conditions. So that's in there. Uh release of liability, you know, pool equipment failure is one that's under release liability. I've had this happen where I'm doing a green pool cleanup and running the pump 24 hours, and the motor dies because it's old and it should have been replaced, you know, a long time ago. The customer may say, Well, you know, since you were running it 24 hours, the motor burned down, so I'd like you to replace it. So that's one uh you know, discoloration the stain that may not be completely removable. That's the pre-existing stains that I mentioned. And if you have this, they can't really come back and say that there's a stain there that should have been removed that you couldn't do it. And of course, the client is responsible to maintain the balance in the future. Sometimes this happens too, where you do the green pool cleanup and you're not capturing them as a client. And by the way, I would highly recommend not doing any green pool cleanups unless you really need the money for people that you're not going to bring on to service. Because this could happen to you where the customer is after words, you clean it up, and a week later they call back saying, Hey, the pool has algae again, it's green it, you know, it's turning green again. This happens, it does happen out there where the customer is clueless in how to care for the pool. You do the cleanup, you get it looking great, and then they do something to mess it up, they turn the pump off for a few days, whatever. You know, this is something that does happen. So I really don't like doing green pool cleanups unless I'm capturing the client. I'll give them a little discount on the green pool cleanup. I'll tell them, you know, it's normally 800, but I'll do it for you know 700 if you want to come on for service and you you commit to coming on a service for a year. That's perfectly fine. And of course they can cancel anytime. Again, there's no real binding contract, but it's one of those things where they can agree to do something like that. But you want to make sure that you try to capture them so that this doesn't happen where you do the green pool cleanup and then they say there's a problem and then they try to blame it on you later. It's a pretty basic thing, kind of like something that you can adjust. And for your area, you can change things. Like if you do vinyl green pool cleanup, you can say that you're not responsible for you know any kind of problems with the vinyl liner afterwards, and you may not be able to see stains on the vinyl liner. And if your cleanup causes stains, you're also protected, which shouldn't you shouldn't do anything that causes stains on the liner. And it's one of those things where it's just pretty basic for the customer to see that there is some things that you know, the chemical disclosure. I can't tell you how many people call you like a week before a party saying, hey, you know, my pool's green, can you clean it up? I have a big party this Saturday. It's like a Tuesday already. And you know, you can bomb that pool and get it ready, but the chem the customer has to take responsibility for people getting into the pool when the chlorine level is not low enough yet. And sometimes they'll get into the pool when it's murky still. And you shouldn't be liable for that because they should have called you much earlier. And there's also a clause in there about include you know the customers to ensure the safety is not your responsibility. So those are all basic things that you know I definitely would put into a green pool contract, and you can um draw your own up. It's pretty easy to do. You can use my template and go work off of it. I think that's always the best to work off of something that's already existing. And I also have one for an acid wash. I'll pull that one up so you can kind of get an idea of it's it's similar in tone, but it's a little bit different because acid washes, of course, are different than green pool cleanups in a way. And I think basically uh the acid wash will uh inherent risk of damage, so there could be some etching of the surface because it does take off a layer of the plaster, it may make it a little rougher depending on how bad the plaster is and how much you have to do, and also the color variation and streaking. This could be a possibility during an acid wash as well. It does happen, and cracking and weakening of the pool. So it's one of those things where you have to really be careful too of when you do the acid wash. There are a few standard practices that I'll just mention here. You don't want to drain a pool and leave it empty. If the water if the air temperature is above 90 degrees, 95 degrees, I guess you can go, you can push it a little bit, but I would say in 90 degree weather, the sun hitting the pool surface empty could actually cause problems if the plaster is older, could start causing cracks and chips in the plaster. So really only do the acid wash when the air temperature is going to be no more than in the 80s, and then you want to make sure that you don't leave it exposed to the sun for a 24-hour period. So if you go at night during the pool like around 6 p.m. and you get there first thing in the morning, you acid wash the pool and start filling it, you should be fine. If you're like in Arizona where it's 100 degrees overnight and it doesn't really change and the sun hits the pool right in the morning at 7 a.m., that could be a problem. So you want to make sure that you really don't do the acid wash if the conditions are not ideal. I also find that if you're doing an acid wash and there's a windstorm coming, which I've done before and this has happened to me. I started my pool career in the inland empire of California, so it's always windy. But doing an acid wash when the wind is blowing 40 miles an hour is hazardous to yourself because the acid is splashing everywhere. It's a messy acid wash, so don't do it when it's going to be windy the next day. Trust me, it's no fun. And then, of course, if the pool plaster already has chips in it and cracks in it, I would advise you to tell the customer that you cannot acid wash that pool because the cracking and chipping will get much worse. It's better if they re-plaster the pool at that point. So really assess the plaster. You should be able to see it clearly. And if it is chipped and cracked already, it's gonna get worse after the acid wash in most cases. So avoid that. And of course, the waiver has a no guarantee or warranty. Says the company makes no representations, guarantees, or warranties expressed or implied regarding the outcome, improvement, or condition of the pool surface after the acid wash process. Results may vary depending on the age and condition of the pool surface. This is a really critical one because I can't tell you how many people think the acid wash is gonna magically transform their pool back into a brand new pool surface. It doesn't work that way. You can assess it, and the customer likes to ask you when you're walking around the pool for some reassurance. You can give some general reassurance by saying something like, I've done acid washes before with a pool that looks similar to this. I can't guarantee that I'm gonna be able to bring it back to you know new condition, but I will tell you that it should improve and you should see some visible improvement. Vague, and if you say something like, Yeah, I've done these before, and I can turn this pool back, and you're gonna love how it looks. It's gonna be just you know pure white again. So don't worry about it. I got this covered. You're setting yourself up for disaster. I have a a friend that does, you know, a ton of acid washes. He has a company with like 14 trucks, and he has dedicated repair guys and acid wash guys. And he sent me a picture a couple years ago of an acid wash they did, and the results were like really horrible, and you couldn't figure out what happened, and I couldn't figure out what happened, and so we were just kind of brainstorming like what could have gone wrong with this acid wash. So that could happen, and if you don't have this waiver saying that, you know, the pool's gonna look not gonna you can't guarantee it's gonna look great afterwards, then I would suggest you of course email me for the acid wash waiver, it's really critical. So I hope you're getting an idea of what a con a well, I wouldn't say contract, what a waiver and service agreement look like. And you can of course draw up legal contracts with an attorney. You could probably try legal zoom, it's pretty inexpensive for contracts, and if you really want contracts, a lot of people will shy away from that, but contracts are good in situations where you're working with HOA communities or a commercial account, you know, an apartment complex. You definitely would want to take it to the next level in some cases. And for an HOA especially, you would want to have a contract written up by an attorney. They would probably charge you about$250 an hour, and it shouldn't take more than an hour to drop a basic contract or two hours, and you can maybe make a deal with them and they can make several contracts for you for a flat rate. And LegalZoom again is a pretty good place to go for that as well, to have really solid contracts. But in most cases, if you're doing residential pools, a service agreement is perfectly fine. If you're doing green pool cleanups and acid washes, these waivers are pretty good. I mean, if they take you to court, the judge will see that there's if it ever goes that far, you'll see that they did sign this waiver and they were aware of you know that things may not turn out the way they expected. It's not a legal document, and most people once they the waivers is basically there to protect you from pushback from the customer because you could tell them, oh, you know, look at the waiver you signed, this is this in there. And that usually diffuses it right there. And it's one of those things where it's a limited protection for sure, but it's better than not having any kind of waiver. So before you do an acid washer green pool cleanup, I highly recommend creating a waiver of whatever sort you want, getting the waiver from me, because that's gonna just keep you from again dealing with things that you shouldn't have to deal with. As far as a service agreement goes, I really think it's important for you to have that also in writing because the customer may expect you to do something back there that you're not going to do, and they may give you, you know, they may hassle you for that, and they may even cancel the service service because of an assumption they had that could have been cleared up with a service agreement. So I wouldn't say that you shouldn't implement any of these. If you're not doing it right now and you feel like everything is fine, I really think you should implement these things going forward just to protect yourself and to protect your business from those very small percentage of people that you know don't understand things, and there may be a language barrier in some areas also, and this really clarifies it. The cool thing is that you can easily translate everything now online into Spanish or you know, even Mandarin so that you're covered in different languages as well. But a basic service agreement should include what you service, your billing cycle and payment terms, you know, cancellation, 30-day notice, and your part, their part, the chemical policy, what's included, what you charge for, and of course, I mentioned the weather exemptions like rain, vacation, those things are really important as well. And you may even put a price increase. I don't have that in mind, but you can actually put a price increase line in there letting them know that you know at some point during the year you may increase the prices depending on industry factors. I didn't put that in mind, but that's also something that you can implement as well. And the bottom line is have something in writing so that there is something concrete that you can turn to if a problem arises or if a question arises with a client. If you're looking for other podcasts, you can find those on my website, swimming for learning.com. Just click on the podcast icon. There'll be a drop down menu with over 1,500 pod, actually 1800 podcasts. I'm going back in time there. And you can also uh if you're interested in the coaching program, you can learn more at poolguycoaching.com. Thanks for listening to this podcast. Have a rest of your week and God bless.