War, Oil Prices, and Your Pool Route

When fuel prices climb and headlines turn gloomy, every pallet of chemicals, o-rings, and test kits you buy gets more expensive—and that cost lands squarely on your route. We peel back the layers of how inflation really moves through suppliers, distributors, and delivery trucks to your invoice, then lay out a calm, practical plan to protect your margins without torching hard-won client trust.

We start by mapping the signals: oil spikes push freight costs up, distributors pass those increases on, and chemical prices rarely fall once they rise. Pulling from the hard lessons of 2008 and the unique distortions of COVID-era stimulus, we explain why waiting for prices to drop is a risky bet. Instead, we outline a measured approach: calculate your true per-stop costs, choose a single, modest rate increase that covers summer volatility, and communicate it in plain English with clear dates and a steady hand.

From there, we talk through what changes on the ground. Elective installs and remodels slow first, tightening the future service pipeline and making new customer acquisition tougher. Some clients try DIY, meet sticker shock at the pool store, and realize the time and skill it takes to keep water clear through heat and bather load. Your edge is reliability. We share efficiency plays—tighter routing, fewer emergency runs, digital billing, smart stocking of fast-moving essentials—so you cut waste, not service quality. You’ll also hear when to cull unprofitable accounts, how to negotiate with suppliers, and the simple metrics to watch weekly so you act early rather than react late.

If you’ve been wondering whether to raise rates, how much, and how to say it without losing good customers, this guide gives you a script and a strategy. Subscribe, share with a fellow pool pro, and leave a review telling us: are you implementing one increase now or waiting to see where fuel lands next month?

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Transcript

Why Slowdowns Hit Pool Service

Inflation And Fuel Drive Price Spikes

Passing Costs Through Strategically

Lessons From 2008 And COVID

Why Service Survives When Budgets Tighten

Customer Churn And Slower Route Growth

Remodels, Builds, And Future Pipeline Risk

Preparing Your Business And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Hey, welcome to the Pool Gunny Podcast Show. In this episode, I'm going to talk to you about what happens when you're in a slow economy and you have a pool service business. And it looks like the current global situation currently that we're facing is going to of course cause some problems with the US economy going forward. 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 it really could be anything that affects the economy, causing a slowdown. It could be a war like we're currently facing here. It could be, you know, the housing market. All these things affect the economy. There's been a number of recessions over the years. Probably the worst recession was during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the government infused the economy with a ton of money. Everyone got these stimulus checks in the mail. And that really helped out during that period of time. In 2008, there was another pretty major recession with all the bad mortgages, caused the housing market to pretty much collapse in on itself. The federal government also bailed everyone out by buying the mortgage-backed securities. Actually, they act they turned a really good profit on this when the housing market went up. They're able to resell those mortgages and, of course, get them off the books at a profit. And there's all different things that will affect your service besides the economy being slow. But a slow economy does affect your pool service in a few different ways, and it's not going to be anything, I don't think, dramatic. It's always pretty much the same effects during a downturn in the economy. Customers are going to put off some maybe some remodeling work or some install of new equipment until things settle down. Their job may be affected, of course, or depending on their industry. But I think on the flip side, the thing that really affects the pool service industry is inflation. We really saw this happen during the COVID-19 pandemic when, of course, the government was giving everyone stimulus money, which caused people to go out and buy a lot of stuff that they didn't need and spend that money, which caused, of course, inflation and disinflation. There was stuff in short supply, so the prices went up, and this caused inflation all across the board. But the thing that's going to affect us the most, I think, during this crisis is the price of oil and the fact that everything relies on deliveries and fuel is one element in that delivery process. You can't really expect prices to stay unchanged in the pool industry as far as chemical costs go, because your supplier or the person that supplies the chemicals and the equipment and all the parts that your supplier sells is going to have to charge a higher price for that eventually to offset the higher fuel costs. One thing you have to understand in any economy is that the consumer is the one that pays for anything or everything during an inflationary period of time. And since you are the customer of the wholesaler buying the chemicals, then your customers are the ones you're selling everything to or maintaining their pool. Really, what's going to happen is that you're going to pay a higher cost for your chemicals, and you have to pass up costs on to the customers on your route. There really is no way around it, and it's one of those things where it's kind of a snowballing effect. Since you're paying more, since your supplier, I should back up, since the distributor is buying products at a higher price because the suppliers are charging more because they're paying more for fuel, which means you're going to going to pay more distributor for your chemicals and your equipment and supplies, and your customers are going to have to have a rate increase to cover that because you can't absorb the extra cost. Just like your distributor can't absorb the extra cost they pay from their suppliers, and just like the suppliers can't absorb the cost of the higher fuel, it's a trickle-down effect to where someone has to pay for it, and this is why prices go up everywhere. When we're in an inflationary period of time, there's nothing really that you can do to prevent this. There's no protection you can do. Maybe you can go buy all your chemicals right now and stock up for the summer. Because I think if this goes on for you know an extended period of time and the price of oil stays elevated, the price of fuel goes up everywhere, you're going to see a pretty dramatic increase in prices this summer. Now, if things kind of calm down and you know write themselves quickly, then you don't have to worry about it too much. It'll be a blip and prices will go up, but then they'll come back down once the fuel prices come down again. Who knows what's you can't predict, who knows what's going to happen or you know how extended this is going to be, but you're going to have to do things to protect yourself. Now, if you were planning on not raising prices this season, maybe you raised your customers' prices last season and you're going to skip this year. I would say that you may have to reevaluate that, and you really can't skip raising the prices at this point because it's there's a lot of uncertainty out there in the market, and I would say that people expect it at this point because everything else is going to go up, of course. And I would suggest maybe a small increase to cover any kind of increases that may happen this summer. You don't want to do two increases in one year, so you have to kind of think of this strategically and logically. But if you wanted to go up ten or fifteen dollars per customer, when you know you have to do it. Like right now, I would say you don't know clearly you have to do it, but I would say that if it's off the table, put it back on the table, and then at the beginning of you know summer, you may want to increase the prices depending on how extended the increased cost of fuel is at this point. And it's one of those things where maybe the government's gonna step in and help out and you know ease the price of fuel. Maybe they won't, and maybe this won't have much of an effect. Because I find that once the cost of gas goes up, especially in California, it takes a very, very long time for it to go back down. It like goes up instantly, like you know, 10-20 cents in one day, and then over the course of two weeks it starts dropping a couple cents every day. And I've been doing this long enough to have gone through many recessions and downturns in the economy, and what you have to do invariably is understand that you can't absorb the higher cost in your business and survive. No one really does that. If you have a business and you're absorbing all these extra costs, you're going to go out of business because that extra cost is going to eat into the profit. And this is hard for people to understand when you talk to someone about you know prices going up, especially in the food service industry, restaurants and fast food restaurants, the cost of labor has gone up with the increase of minimum wage in my area in California, the food cost goes up. If the fuel goes up for an extended period of time, you know, flour goes up in price, all everything, meat goes up in price, and they have to raise the price of their of course their burger and fry special and pass it on to you. And there is a tipping point, by the way, where people are like, Well, I'm not gonna go out to eat, you know, today because it's just too expensive to go to Tom's burger number 10 or whatever, and I'm gonna just you know make myself a sandwich. And that of course affects the business because now they've lost the customer that day, and if that is going across, you know, 50 customers that they don't get that day, they lose money, and eventually, you know, they're gonna have to do other things, cut employees, and you can see how this is a snowball effect now of things going everything costing more, them having to raise their prices, and they lose customers and they have to lay off employees and maybe close a location. I mean, it could go to that point that happened, definitely happened in 2008, where a lot of businesses went out of business. But for pool service, the nice thing about it, and I know I just scared everyone right there. The nice thing about pool service is that you are a service industry, so the service sector does have an advantage over retail and food, and that is people need your services, and they can't necessarily cancel pool service and do the pool themselves. I mentioned the higher price of chemicals, so the customer that wants to try to do it themselves is gonna go to the store and they're gonna be in for a sticker shock for the price of chemicals to maintain their pool. Also, there is time necessary, there's an element of time that they have to have to take care of the pool, and there's also a skill level, especially in the summertime, that they need to maintain their own pool. A lot of people don't have time, they don't have the skill, if they don't want to go to the pool store, and so they'll just keep paying for the pool service and not really think too much about canceling or changing services because to change service as well to someone less expensive takes time and effort as well. And what I'm saying is that the pool service industry is pretty insulated from any kind of economic recession that happens out there. We have kind of this built-in protection by being a service-driven industry. That's not to say you won't be affected and you won't be affected down the line by kind of the ripple effects. Let me explain. You may lose a percentage of your customers that they're affected to the point where they can't afford service and they're gonna have to get alternatives like doing it themselves. That's very common, that does happen. I would say that during the worst ever recession I can think of in 2008, 9, and 10, there was a drop of about 10 to 20 percent in service business over the course of those two or three years, people canceling. It wasn't immediately, it wasn't everyone that same time at the same time. So it was kind of a gradual drop-off of customers. And it was hard to find new customers, of course, because people weren't looking for new service, and so that is one of the main effects you're gonna have is that getting new customers, growing your pool route, it's going to be a harder process during a recessionary time. Holding on to your existing customers won't be a big issue, but if you're trying to build up your route or build out your route during a recession, it's much harder. It's just like anything, you know, the car salesman during a recession is gonna have a hard time selling cars, they discount everything because no one's looking to spend money, everyone's kind of circling the wagons at that point, and it's the same in the service industry to some extent, where the customers, you may lose some customers that can't necessarily afford service anymore because their job has been affected by the recession. That's very common, is something to be expected, but the majority of customers won't be affected by the downturn because most of the people that have pool service is a luxury thing, of course, to have the service and they can afford it, and their jobs usually aren't affected, but there be there may be a segment that are affected directly. What's gonna happen is that you're going to maybe not have the same timetable that you had previously for equipment upgrades and installs, or if you do re pool remodeling or a builder, a lot of times you're gonna not get a lot of leads at this point. People stop their thinking about putting a pool in or remodeling the pool and putting it on hold. That doesn't necessarily affect the pool service industry immediately, but down the road it's gonna definitely affect the industry because if people stop building pools, remodeling their pools, that means that the number of service accounts will decline for a period of time. And again, this happened very dramatically in 2008-2009, where a lot of builders just went out of business because they were overextended. There was one in my area here, I'm not gonna name the company, but he had about 20 projects going at the same time to where he just ran out of money, people weren't paying the next payment. He was doing everything on leverage himself, and he couldn't pay his subcontractors, and everyone just stopped working. And there was about 20 bills that were just in different stages, he stopped. And it was not just him, it was other pool companies that also were overextended and they went out of business at that point. I'm not saying that will happen now. That was one of the worst times for builders I can think of, but there's gonna be, of course, any kind of recession means people kind of tighten their purse strings, and they may not get the pool built this year, it may wait till next year, or they may not remodel the pool this year and wait for a year or two, which means that those accounts that would have entered the revenue stream for a pool service have not entered the entered the market, so to speak, when they're supposed to enter the market, and there's gonna be a delay maybe, or it may never even get built or done, which will affect us in the future. So this is not something that affects us immediately, but if you have less remodels and builds that year or this year, you're going to have less potential service accounts in the future, and this will definitely affect us because then you have less accounts and you have more service providers, and it's going to cause a lot more competition. Now, that's the worst case scenario. That's if building slows down dramatically and people pull back dramatically, but who knows what's going to happen. You can't really predict that. I'm just giving you the worst case scenario. You're definitely going to have less customers wanting to have installs and spending a lot of money on things, and that's a given in the recession. That's what causes a recession, and that kind of is what exasperates the situation. People don't spend money when people need to spend money to get the economy stimulated, and that's why the government sent all that money back in COVID to get you to spend money and get the economy going again. That's not going to happen, I don't think, this time. And so what happens is that people, big ticket items aren't purchased, you know, things that they need to get done are get get done, but things that don't need to be done don't get done during this time. So just be aware of those factors. Be aware that you're going to have increased costs of supplies because of the increased fuel cost during this period, and it's going to cause you to have to raise your rates on your customer. More than likely, you're going to have to increase the prices at some point. I think we should let this month play out and see what happens. But if it looks like your suppliers are raising prices, you have no choice because, as you know, once the supplier raises prices, they rarely, if ever, go back down the other way. When's the last time in California in your memory that the gas price was under$4? And it's one of those things where once the gas prices go up to a certain point, they rarely go back down to a low point again. So prices always go up and rarely come down, and you have to account for that in your business. I wouldn't lose sleep over it, worry too much about it, but you have to really prepare for a slowdown in the economy if it goes on for an extended period of time, and you have to be proactive in your business so that you can protect your profit margin. If you're looking for other podcasts, you can find them by going to my website, swimmingprolearning.com. The banner, you can click on the podcast icon, and there'll be a drop the menu of over 1800 podcasts for you there. And if you're interested in the coaching program, you can learn more at PoolGuyCoaching.com. Thanks for listening to this podcast. Have the rest of your week and God bless.