How the Pool Industry Can Lead in Water Conservation – Terry Arko

The way we treat pool water is changing fast, and for good reason. Drought cycles, shrinking reservoirs, and tighter local rules are pushing the industry to prove it can deliver joy and safety while using far less water. We brought water expert Terry Arko back to chart a practical, field-tested path: smarter filtration, measured backwashing, proactive partial drains, and chemistry that prevents waste before it starts.

We start with the history many of us lived through—hosing decks, routine backwashes, full drains every few years—and track how modern droughts shifted the spotlight onto pools. Terry breaks down why a well-managed pool can actually use less water than the lawn it replaces, and how data helped the industry push back on blanket building bans. From there, we dive into the nuts and bolts: when to backwash based on pressure rise, why cartridges and multi-cyclone pre-filters extend cleaning intervals, and how recovery systems and RO trailers in hard-water regions preserve up to 90% of the water while resetting hardness, chloramines, and phosphates.

We also unpack a huge mindset shift—stop waiting for a crisis drain. Planned, partial water exchanges keep TDS and calcium in check and protect plaster, equipment, and budgets. On the chemistry side, we explore how overusing trichlor drives CYA up, forces higher chlorine demand, and speeds toward avoidable drains. Terry clarifies the softened water myth too: softeners don’t lower TDS, so balanced, softened fills can be safe and smart in hard-water markets. Add in smaller pool volumes where required and you get a blueprint that scales from a single backyard to millions of vessels nationwide.

• drought pressure shifting rules toward pools
• pools versus lawns on total water use
• new backwash standards and why they matter
• cartridge filters and pre-filters to cut waste
• recovery systems, ion exchange and RO trailers
• proactive partial drains to refresh water
• managing CYA, chlorine demand and TDS
• softened water myths versus TDS reality
• smaller pools and build restrictions
• st

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Transcript

Framing The Water Challenge

SPEAKER_01 1:03

And welcome to the Pool Guy Podcast Show. In this episode, I'll be joined again by Terry Arkov Hosta, and we're going to talk about something really interesting and really relevant to the pool industry, and that is water conservation. And this is a conversation that I think is really necessary in the industry. If we are to preserve the industry going forward in the future, we really need to understand a lot of the aspects of water usage. And Terry Arco is, I think, the renowned expert as far as conservation and water in general goes, and you're going to really get a lot of information, great information from hearing Terry talk about conservation and the pool service industry. 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 I think you wanted also to touch on conserving water. I think that's one of your biggest platforms that you've had over the years.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

And um, so let's just switch a little bit to that. And you want to share a little bit about some thoughts on that? Because we've had a decent amount of rain in California, but it actually stopped. So it rained like December, January. I think it rained down the rose parade, even. Yeah. Yeah. But we've been drier than dry since then. And it looks like we're probably going to be below average again this year, unless we get lots of rain in March.

How Pools Compare To Lawns On Water Use

A Global View Of Water Scarcity

Respecting Water In Daily Service

Filters, Backwashing, And New Standards

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Yeah. And you never know. You know, the weather's just so all over the place right now in this world. And I just I don't think you can ever really predict anymore exactly what's what's going to happen. I mean, hell snow in Texas, right? I mean, right. What what's going on? But you know, I I've kind of it's interesting because I'm getting ready. I'm I'm writing an article on this, I think, for the next Ipson that comes out uh on the water conservation. And it's kind of interesting from my standpoint because of my history and I go back such a long ways, and I started cleaning swimming pools in 1979. And you know, I didn't even water was just a commodity. I didn't think about it. You know, we hosed decks off back then. You know, that was one of the first things we did when you got to a pool was you hosed off the deck, you know, and you did it with copious amounts of water from that person's hose. You know, we we we did drainings much more frequently, things like that, backwashing things that, you know, and I never ever thought about what's going on with this water or anything like that. And it that mindset didn't exist in the pool industry at all in the 70s, even though, despite the fact that I think when I got in the industry in 79, California, and I was in California, Southern California, California had just gone through some pretty severe droughts in like 76 through 77. But but the restrictions uh largely back then didn't touch pools yet. Usually, if there was a water restriction going back way back, this I'm talking like 70s and early 80s. The restrictions if they if they would come were like, you know, you can't water your lawn every day, you know, or there was a there there was a watering schedule where, you know, on this day you could water your lawn, on this day you couldn't. And it was some things like, you know, uh, if you can conserve your water by, you know, uh 20% or something, your use, try and cut down your use. That was about as far as it went then. When we got into the 2000s, actually late 90s and into the 2000s, and then we had uh pretty California, I say we, and I'm living in Washington right now, but I'm a native Californian. So when I say we, but California had very extreme droughts from 2012 through 2016. And I think uh every successive winter during that time, there was very little snowfall, very little rain. It was getting pretty serious. And that's where all of a sudden you began to see the restrictions started going to pools and started pointing at pools. And it was obviously the industry got involved a lot in that because one of the things that they were they were basically bringing to light was that builders could not even build pools during that time. They didn't want somebody building and filling a 20,000, 50,000 gallon pool during the extreme drought. That actually got shot down, I believe, during that time because of the industry and how the industry stood up against that. The industry did a lot to show how actually pools conserve more water than somebody having a backyard lawn and having to water that lawn. It takes more water per the space of the pool uh to keep a lawn green than it does to keep a pool going. So that's a conservation measure. And there's a lot on that, you know, anybody wants to look into that more, they can go to the CPSA website and look up just you know, uh drought, you know, drought data on pools, and you can get lots of good information from that standpoint. But, you know, I it it really started to go more towards pools, and I think that's where the awareness in the industry began to come in because we realized that you know we were possibly going to get penalized. We were possibly this was gonna be our bread and butter, you know, and so we had to look at ways to turn that around. I feel like, you know, just in late, and this has to do a lot with my history of I worked for a company that was an environmental water company, and so we dealt with all types of water worldwide, not just swimming pools, but we dealt with drinking water, we dealt with industrial water, we dealt with wastewater. In particular, we went to countries that already have water issues like Africa, India, places in China, and so forth. And we were looking to bring solutions, particularly on the drinking water side. And what I learned through that experience is that I think the most critical thing we're gonna face in this world going ahead, among other things, is going to be our water supply. And that's going to continue to affect the pool industry. And I think even more so as as we move along. Drought or no drought, I think there's going to be more and more focus is going to be given to swimming pools and to how swimming pools use water, which is why I wanted to talk about this issue, because first of all, I think it's important for all of us as pool service techs to begin to realize that we're dealing with water, right? In pools. It's just every day we're we're we're dealing with that. And it can become benign, it can become something to where we just we don't think of it, and maybe we don't have I guess I'll use the word the respect towards it, that we should, because it just becomes such a normal everyday thing, and we see it splashing out, we backwash a pool, and maybe we let it run for a minute longer than we should have, and oh, you know, well, what's the big deal? You know, those kinds of things. And I feel like the industry we're going to have to adapt to more of a conservative uh issue. And I think that goes into how we do things, even down to what type of filtration system and what kind of filtration systems are we going to have. You know, you just think of a sand filter. Sand filters, you've got to backwash them. And when you backwash them, you know what, you're running it two minutes, three minutes, however long it is. How much water is that taking? And how much water is being wasted that you don't need and and and this is another thing I I just was in a discussion actually on one of the boards that I serve on. And the PHTA and the standards, they're they're bringing up more strict standards on backwashing for sand filters. And basically what they're saying is that you know, you you should never like you know, backwash until your pressure and your psi is at eight, eight to ten psi. There's no other reason you would need to backwash the filter, like, hey, I'm gonna just gonna do it now because you know, even if it doesn't need it, because it's it it does waste a lot of water. Sand filters, TE filters, you have to backwash those and clean those that way from time to time. And so I know that I teach in CPO and and I know cartridge filters have come a long way, and you probably know a lot more about you know the cartridge slash GE or the different types of that are out there. But definitely cartridges are gonna reduce, you know, that that's a more conserving way to filter, I would say, because you're not going to backwash as often or readily with cartridge filters and cartridge filters, you're cleaning them, but you're not backwashing. So so these are things we're gonna have to look at. Another thing that I'm very interested in that I've been looking at, that I think I I would even encourage, I think you probably know this guy, um, Harold Tapley. He's a pool builder. I think he's in your area, he's in Temecula area, but he created, innovated, and invented actually a backwash system where the water can get filtered and recharged and actually get get cleaned up and put back into the pool so you don't have as much waste. And he's got this system available, he's been at the shows, he'll be at the western showing this this system. Things like that. I think anything we can do to recover water and reuse water. The other thing is I I get to I'll get to the big elephant uh that has to do especially with drought. And that's the word drainage. And so this is gonna seem kind of counterintuitive, maybe, but I'm gonna say that how do I want to use the term? I want I guess I would say like maintenance, maintenance and proactive gradual draining is actually a a better way to conserve water in a pool. And what I mean by that is you you set out a time, maybe it's you know a couple times a month, monthly, maybe, you know, just certain times where you have a goal to where you're gonna drain a foot or two of the water and you're gonna dilute it out and refresh that water back. And I actually believe that's a better way to keep your pool water quality good overall. It's a better way to conserve water because let's think of it now. And I I can only speak for myself going back to the old days, and I hate to say the old days, but but that's it. Where we just didn't have the mindset. We did no drain and dilutions back then. And back then it was just okay, every five years or every 10 years, we're gonna test your TDS. And if your TDS is extremely high, and if you're getting scale and things like that, then we're gonna have to just drain your entire pool, do an acid wash, and refill it. And I think, you know, from that standpoint, that's a lot of water going out, it's a lot of water being wasted, that's a lot of water going into the system, that's a lot of water coming back that's gonna have to be treated. And that's more wasteful in my mind than gradual maintenance, proactive, smaller drainings to where you can actually sort of I think the word I want to use is refresh the water. And I think that's a that that that's a system that service techs need to get a hold of from that standpoint.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

I was gonna say too, those pools back then in the 70s were gigantic. So you're draining like 30,000 gallons of water.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Sure. Yeah, yeah. But again, that may not be necessary, you know. I mean, if you can keep that diluted, that pool diluted, keep it refreshed, you'll you you could really literally never have to drain the entire pool, unless there was something that had to be done, obviously, or you know, you know, plaster or whatever that's but it could be less. I mean, my goodness, I know pools we did where uh it was every five years, the same pool. You know, we were draining it and acid washing it. And and that just, you know, there's a lot lots of bad to that from the surface standpoint and everything.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

You think that the builders should be building smaller pools? I mean, that's kind of the trend here because it's so expensive, you know.

Cartridge And Recovery Solutions

SPEAKER_00 15:02

And they're right now, it's in in Las Vegas, they are restricted. They they they can't build, at least for residences. I think it's something like the the pools are limited limited now to uh no more than like 15,000 gallons. I think 12 to 15,000 gallons, they can't be more than that in a in a residential pool. So those restrictions are coming too. I I think those are going to be restrictions actually that are gonna start to come as a part of that. But but I think it's just from the mindset of let's think, let's think, you know, how can we conserve water? I know there was a product, another product I saw where it was kind of like a hose or something that had a sprinkler at the end of it. And when you're backwashing, you could water the lawn at the same time. Something like that.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

The one I like is the water co multi-cyclone, the pre-filter.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

There's a building here, Blue Haven Pools, and they're putting them in every one of their builds because those save a ton of water, uh, because it picks up like I don't know, 80% of the dirt before it gets to the filter. So reduces filter cleaning. And they're they're they're kind of ugly and gigantic, but effective.

Proactive Partial Drains Vs Full Drains

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Yes. Yeah, I've I've heard of those and seen those, and I'm very encouraged by that sort of thing. I think the other thing, too, that I've seen that has come to light has been the ion exchange and the ROI type uh like trailer devices, where, you know, so if you're in an area like Phoenix or whatever, you know, high hardness, you got to get that hardness down. You can still conserve water. There's a cost involved there, but I think, you know, especially if you're during a time of restrictions where you cannot drain an entire pool. Uh, it's against the law because of the restrictions. These devices can be very helpful. And, you know, you can lower calcium, you can remove hardness, and you can freshen up the water. You can get phosphates out, you can get chloramines out, you can get all these things out. But, you know, then you can put that filtered uh ion exchanged water back into the pool, and you get very little water loss. There is some water loss, but not as much.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

I think only 10% or 15%. And those trucks are gigantic trailers, and they cost like a hundred thousand dollars uh for the for the actual company that has them. And if you walk through them at the Western show, there's like a gigantic filter and a gigantic pump. It's pretty amazing that they can filter all that out of the pool and save like 80 or 90 percent of the water.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

It's basically what it is, is it's kind of like a big, a big portable water softener, uh, is really what it is. And I know that question comes up too, you know, because about using softened water and that sort of thing. I usually get it more so with hot tubs, uh, guys that are taking care of hot tubs in areas where water's very hard. And that's an issue in hot tubs to begin with, especially calcium, high calcium. And so they're like, you know, well, the source water is so bad and it's just so hard to maintain these hot tubs. And but the but the people have a softener, you know, can I fill from the softener? And the misnomer that always comes from that is, you know, well, I heard soft water is corrosive, and you know, it's gonna ruin the it's gonna ruin the fixtures and everything. And but that's actually that's a misnomer. And I and I'll tell guys this because what you're dealing with in particular with with naturally soft water, like here in Seattle, we have naturally soft water because you know our water is mainly surface water. It's not water that has gone down to the earth and dissolved any rock and absorbed rock or calcium for that matter. It's very soft. But the other thing about naturally soft water is it's also very low in TDS, very low in dissolved solids. And it is the low dissolved solids that cause corrosiveness. Now, when you run water through a softener, first of all, that softener is exchanging one form of hardness for another. Usually calcium and magnesium is being exchanged for sodium. So you're kind of equaling it out with another different softer form of hardness. The other thing is those water softeners do not reduce TDS. They do not lower TDS. So you still have TDS, whatever the TDS measures from that source water, which typically would probably be high if you're in a high hardness area. And so it's the TDS that will cause the corrosiveness. As long as you have TDS in a good range, 1500 parts per million or above, you're not gonna have corrosiveness or do any serious damage. And so I would say utilize water softeners when you can. And you don't really need to worry about that they're gonna cause extreme corrosive damage, like naturally soft water would if you did not treat it.

Smaller Pools And Build Limits

SPEAKER_01 20:20

I guess we can end by touching on the fact that you mentioned briefly about maintaining the pool properly. And I think this is something that we didn't do back, you know, back in the 90s. We just used triclore tablets, filled the floater up with five or six of those things, and then we figure we're gonna drain the pool anyway in five years, not a big deal. So there is something to be said about proper chemistry being a way to preserve conserve water as well.

Pre‑Filters, Cyclones, And RO Trailers

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's just a matter of understanding, you know. I mean, it's it we're all well aware at this point, I think cyanuric acid and the proper use of cyanuric acid and the overuse of cyaneuric acid, and what that can do, and what that can do to the amount of chlorine that we're going to need to add. And so running the pool at higher levels of cyanuric acid means, besides the fact that that's you know a big increase in especially with trichlor, if we're using a lot of trichlor, that can lead to alkalinity issues, that can lead to pH issues, which that's going to require chemistry or something to deal with. But chlorine, the more chlorine we use, the more we're increasing. We can be increasing partners, we can be increasing total dissolved solids, all those things that are gonna make it necessary to drain sooner, drain more frequently, maybe, as well. And then the mismanagement of so what happens when you get algae? Uh, you know, and what are you gonna do with that? And in a lot of cases, that could lead to some draining. Uh that could lead to, oh, we got to chlorine wash the pool now because the algae's gotten so bad on the surface or whatever. You know, so that that that's a whole nother thing. Not to mention just well, you know, that algae is going to consume chlorine and we need more chlorine, and and and that's a whole wheel that spins around as well.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

And I think we should also mention them kind of the macrocosm of this with all the pools around the nation, I don't know, 1.6 million or whatever. I can't, I don't have an exact number.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

About 10 million, a little over 10 million.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

Yeah, sorry. I think I'm talking more of commercial pools, but yeah, there's like 10 million residential pools plus commercial pools. And yeah, if you look at it from that perspective, every single person that can conserve some water at some level really helps out across the whole thing. You know, it's just like the way they do the, you know, people complain about California with their crackdown on emissions here for cars. But I can go, I can go walk outside in California, walk down the street, not have to be coughing. I was in Mexico a couple years ago and. Sonata and you can't even walk outside, you have no emissions control.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

So no, and I can attest as just being a kid who grew up through the 60s and the 70s before those emission controls were there. And and well, and even when I was starting to get into do pools in the late 70s, and those emission controls were not completely all there, and you know, third stage smog alerts and and and smog so bad. I I lived in an area where I was probably one to two miles from the San Gabriel Mountains. And there were days where you could not literally you could not see the San Gabriel Mountains. You didn't even know they existed because the smog was so thick and so bad. And that would affect your eyes, that would affect your your lungs. And we actually had days at school where we couldn't go outside and play because there was a third state smog alert. And that was all that all went away when these emission controls came into effect.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

Yeah, and I think we should, you know, I know that everyone's on a different spectrum, but you benefit from some controls. And I think with the conservation of water, we're gonna all benefit at at some point.

Softened Water Myths And TDS Truths

SPEAKER_00 24:21

You know, I think absolutely, and I think it's it's just it's an important thing because there's so much going on in our world right now. And I mean, when you just you you just think of you know, our groundwater uh from industry, all the industries, you know, food industries, agriculture, bottled water, all these things. And and I've read a lot of books on this, and and they just they they all take from the same the same well in a sense, and it's our groundwater. And so our groundwater is what we need to kind of help us at you know, times, you know, when times are are are a little rough. And if we don't have our groundwater levels where they are, that's a tough thing. And our groundwater levels are getting really low. I I read a thing recently about Lake Mead, and that's one in you know, Hoover Dam and Lake Mead, which is you know, Las Vegas area and all that. And the levels of Lake Mead are so low, they're critical. And this one article I read said that if things remain the way they are, in other words, the water use and the water loss continues within the next 10 years, the level of Lake Mead will be so low that Hoover Dam will actually be useless. Wow. And so things like that, I think we need to think about, and we just need to think about our world overall. And I'm not talking about being some crazy environmentalist. I think it's a matter of stewardship. It's a matter of respect, it's a matter of knowing the industry that we're in, and do we want that industry to continue on uh, you know, without any, you know, harmful uh backlash? And I think it's just, you know, maybe looking at water a little differently, understanding that it's not just a benign commodity, it's a precious resource. And I so I think for all of us as pool pros or whatever, if we can look at what's in that pool as it's a precious resource, you know, look at it as money. Right, you know, and I think if we look at it as money, you know, we're gonna use it a lot more frugally. And I think that's a good term and a good way to look at it.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

Yeah, well, thank you for your time, Terry. And I'll see you at the Western show for sure.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

Yes, look forward to it and look forward to the future and hope to see people out there on the shows.

Smarter Chemistry To Prevent Waste

SPEAKER_01 26:48

Right. Well, you have to stay okay, have a great rest of your week. You two. And if you're looking for other podcasts, of course, you go to my website, Swami4Learning.com on the banner click on the podcast icon. That'll be a drop down menu with over 18 hour podcasts there. And if you're interested in the coaching program, you can learn more at PoolGuyCoaching.com. Thanks for listening to this podcast. Have a great week and God bless.