Pool Service Safety Tips That Matter

The fastest way to get hurt on a pool route is to treat “routine” like it means “safe.” We’re talking about the real hazards that show up behind the gate, the ones that don’t always look dangerous until the moment they are: the quiet dog watching you work, the safety net that has to be re-tensioned just right, the open gate you swear you’ll close “in a second.” I share the practical rules I use to reduce risk for myself and for any employee I’m training, because a single injury can take you off the schedule and a single mistake can turn into expensive property damage. 

We dig into chemical safety from a pool technician’s point of view, including why muriatic acid leaks are so destructive, how drips happen off a service cart, and the habits that prevent stains on decks and driveways. Then we get blunt about the non-negotiables: never mix pool chemicals, don’t store incompatible products together, and don’t ignore how dangerous trichlor fumes can be when you open a chlorinator or when tablets get wet in a bucket. If you’ve ever caught a harsh “chlorine” smell and felt your lungs react, you already know this is not hypothetical. 

We also hit electrical safety at the equipment pad, especially old Intermatic timers with missing safety shields that can leave live wires exposed. Wet hands, standing water, and a quick flip of a switch can become a shock in a heartbeat, so we talk about what to look for and what not to touch. I also flag the bigger business picture: liability, training, and why insurance is worth serious consideration. 

If this helps you think differently about pool service safety, subscribe, share it with a tech you’re onboarding, and leave a review so more pool pros can find it. What safety rule has saved you the most trouble on your route?

We walk through real-world pool service safety risks that can hurt techs, damage property, and create liability for your business. We share practical rules for pets, pool barriers, chemicals, and electrical gear so you can train employees and protect yourself on every stop.  

• treating backyard dogs as a serious jobsite hazard  
• avoiding accounts where pets cannot be reliably secured  
• understanding why pool safety nets add time and liability  
• building the habit of closing and latching every gate  
• preventing muriatic acid spills with better transport and tight lids  
• securing all chemicals in the truck and on the cart  
• wearing nitrile gloves to reduce chemical burns  
• never mixing pool chemicals and separating incompatible products  
• respecting trichlor fumes from chlorinators and wet tablet buckets  
• watching for missing safety shields on Intermatic timers to avoid shocks  
• considering liability insurance to reduce risk exposure  

Are you a pool service pro looking to take your business to the next level? Join the pool guy coaching program. Learn more at swimmingpoollearning.com. If you're interested in my coaching program, you can learn more at poolguycoaching.com.  

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Transcript

Welcome And Why Safety Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Hey, welcome to the Pooh Gray Podcast Show. I thought I would follow up an episode I did, employee onboarding, by talking a little bit about safety out there, because it is a field where there are dangers out there, some hidden and some obvious dangers, and I want to cover some of these for you here so that you can kind of avoid these things with yourself out there in the field, if you're a homeowner with your pool, or if you have an employee that you're onboarding. 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. I'll start by saying this as well that there's going to be a little blurb later in the podcast about liability insurance, and I suggest you actually think seriously about getting this for yourself and for your employee, because not only can there be an accident out there involving the employee and yourself, but there can be some liability created by something that happens out in the field. And getting protected is really affordable, as you're going to hear later, and that little blurb that I have in this podcast. Maybe it's just me and I have some PTSD from being attacked by dogs, but I would say that the most dangerous thing about doing pool service are some of the backyard pets that the homeowners have. Now, of course, it's one of those things where you have to be you have to have the right judgment when you get the account. But if you're an employee, you didn't pick the account. And there's nothing stopping a homeowner later from getting a vicious dog, and you're not aware of that that they picked up this this animal. I had this homeowner that got this pit bull. Now, to me, I I'm not a big fan of pit bulls, and I've been kind of attacked by him on several occasions. Luckily, they never got a hold of me. But in this situation, he bought this pit bull, and it was always, I thought, sketchy whenever I went

Dogs And Backyard Pet Dangers

SPEAKER_00 2:15

back there. It never came up to me, it never barked, it just like stared at me the whole time I was working there. I wasn't really worried about it. It didn't wasn't anything that I was too concerned about because the dog never was aggressive, it just kept this distance and kept watching me. But it came later that the homeowner had to take it to the vet for something, and he tried putting it in the cage to get it. And this is a big guy. I mean, this guy is like six foot four, two hundred and fifty pounds. He's he's buffed too. He has a gym in his garage. And so he's trying to put this pit bull into this cage, and the dog actually attacked him in the kitchen, and his arm uh he showed me his arm was like all bit up from the dog, and and he ended up putting a dog asleep because he's like, Man, I I'm not gonna have a dog that attacks me when I'm trying to take it to the vet. And then I had another customer that had a doberman pincher, and the neighbor had a nickname for it because it was in a small little area, and it did have there was a lot of waste everywhere, and the homeowner never cleaned it up, and the neighbor called him Sir Poops a lot. That was kind of the name of the dog, and he wasn't vicious at all. I would go back there, and even the neighbor was surprised when he heard the story. He is not a vicious dog as far as we can tell, and I never had a problem with him. But when they moved, they moved like a few, you know, to another area, and he heard the story, he teased one who told me the story, that when she was out walking the dog in a new neighborhood, a lady went to pet it, and the dog grabbed her face and like latched onto her face, and they had to put the dog to sleep. It's unfortunate, and like we never had an inkling the dog was violent. So I would say that you may not even know this, and it may be something that they get a dog and you're not aware of it. But dogs that are vicious are probably one of the biggest things that that are a danger out there, in my opinion. I've been bit a few times, and my group members have posted photos of their dog bites that are pretty bad. They can be very debilitating, a lot of liability, of course, on the homeowner's part. But I would say that just make your employees aware, and you should be aware yourself, that if that homeowner has a vicious dog, they have to put it away whenever you service the pool or anything like that. There's a problem there. And you want to avoid any potential properties where the dog has to be put away or locked up when you service the pool. And to me, dog bites are going to really affect your business, especially if the employee gets bit and then they go on worker's comp and they take time off, which does happen by the way, and then they sue the customer, then the customer is gonna get upset with you because the employee sued them. It gets really messy. So, in order to avoid all of this entirely, just don't service accounts where there's a vicious dog, and I mean let someone else have it, I guess. But I just would not service an account like that. Another account they may not think is a problem, but it really is a problem, are the accounts where they have the safety nets across the pool. I call them sp Spider-Man nets, but they're like a mesh net that's over the pool itself that's hooked on, that hooks on, and you pull a lever and you pull it tight. Now, this is different than mesh safety gates around the pool. Those aren't really a problem. They latch, you know, if if someone climbs over that fence, there's nothing you can do about it. But these Spider-Man safety nets that are in the pool, and I think they're installed by different companies. Catch a kid is one of them. These are a problem. And I even had someone come up to me in the street. He's like, hey, I have a pool here, and no one wants to service this pool because I have this net across it, and everyone's saying it's too

Pool Safety Nets And Liability

SPEAKER_00 5:47

much liability, they don't want to mess with it. The problem with these safety nets is there's a couple problems with these. Number one problem I have with them is that they're a pain to take off and put back on. And the secondary problem is they create liability for you because a lot of times the customers don't put them back on correctly, and then you're the one holding the bag because you know who's to say who put the safety net back on correctly. A lot different than the automatic safety covers that you can close and open and close. You can take a picture of those every time you close it as evidence that you close it. That's sometimes not necessary, but I'm talking about these specific safety nets that are on the pool where it's something where you create liability if you don't put it on correctly. And to teach an employee to take it off and put it back on, it's a difficulty for sure. And you'll see these advertised with kids like sitting on top these safety nets, which there are really safe. You can like walk across them, I'm sure. But I just would feel like these are potentially a liability for your business, especially if you have an employee, and it's one of those things where again they have to be put on a certain way. There's a lever and a pulley, and you have to really attach it correctly. Otherwise, you're really liable if someone were to drown in there and you need to put the safety net back on correctly. And it's in its own category, I think, as a safety feature. You're gonna run into this ever so often out there, and it's one of those things where a lot of pool service pros just don't even service that account because they know of the added liability, extra time it takes to put these on and take them off. And really the mesh fence or the automatic safety covers are a much better alternative than these particular nets that you put across the pool that anchor into the you have to drill holes into the cement and anchor them in as well. But of course, you have to be conscious of mesh safety gates, wrought iron safety gates, latching fences and gates so that no one gets into the pool that's on your watch. So when you get to the service account, show the employee, or you should be cognizant yourself of always closing and latching those gates. I always close them even when I go out to my truck to get something. If I need to go get something out of my truck, I make sure I close the mesh gate and that's secured completely before I go I go back to my truck. It's a pain sometimes, especially when there's like two gates of walk through, but really they're there for safety, and they're not safe if you leave them open. So you want to make sure you close any safety gates that are associated with that particular service account. Then we talk a little bit about chemicals and chemical spills. Here's a big liability with employees

Gate And Fence Habits

SPEAKER_00 8:20

and with yourself is when you spill muatic acid anywhere on the customer's property, their driveway, their deck, it's really hard to blend that stain in because the acid basically takes off a surface layer of that of the decking itself, the cement or the flagstone or whatever kind of decking they have. It actually burns it. And so the best way, of course, to prevent this and avoid this is to be really safe with meritic acid when you bring it back there. Make sure that the lids are on tight, make sure that they're not dripping out of the service cart. This is probably the biggest area where there's a spill, is when you're tilting your service cart back or your riptide cart, and the acid bottle's there, but the lid's

Muriatic Acid And Chemical Spills

SPEAKER_00 9:02

not on tight, and it's like dripping as you're as you're moving the cart down the pool deck, that causes a big problem because then you have acid all over the place, and it's really hard to clean it. And it's something to really consider like just having full 100% safety with the acid, whatever you can do to make sure it's not leaking when you bring it back there. That's the key. The prevent it from leaking in the first place. There are a few instances where you can kind of clean it up, but a lot of times you have to power wash the entire area. Sometimes you have to give it a light acid wash in the entire area. It's a big mess and something that you really don't want to do. And a lot of times it's very preventable. Now, the chlorine leaking is not nearly as bad as the acid leaking, but chlorine can leak as well, and it could be really messy. So any chemical has to be secure and make sure, as part of the safety protocol on your pool route, that all the lids are secure, that you don't have a leaker in your truck squat, you know, sploshing back and forth, it gets really messy as well. And you just want to make sure that everything is really accounted for on the on your vehicle, and that chemical safety is number one when it comes to that. Also, I would recommend that your service, your employees and yourself wear some nitrile gloves, and these are going to protect your hands from being burned as well. Anything you handle that's with a chemical, really, you need to have protection on your hands so that you don't have this kind of problem with chemical leaks and with you know the customers complaining and having liability issues with all the damage that's created by a very small leak from an acid container. Really, it seems minuscule and something that's not going to have a major effect in your business, but two little drops of acid on someone's brand new deck does have a major impact on your business. Another golden rule is not to mix chemicals together. This doesn't sound like anything that is new to the industry. You've heard this before, and a lot of people talk about it, but this is something that I think is a good reminder for the Pool Service Pro. There's been, you know, a lot of reports recently and in the past about people having fatalities when they mix chemicals. It happens. There was one, I think, a year and a half ago or so where he was mixing some chemicals in the skimmer and it blew up in his face, and he unfortunately passed away. These things happen. So a rule is never to mix chemicals together, and definitely not to mix chemicals together in a small bucket. That's gonna cause a lot of problems, and you're going to have a lot of issues with the chemical reactions out there. You just don't want to

Never Mix Or Store Chemicals Wrong

SPEAKER_00 11:48

mix anything in a small bucket, nor mix anything in the skimmer. And mixing chemicals is just something you don't do out there. You're you're not a mad scientist, and the results of mixing two chemicals together can be catastrophic and actually fatal out there. So really be cautious when you're instructing your employees about chemical mixing. Even on your truck, you don't want to be carrying the trichlor tablets right next to the acid, and you don't want to have you know like cal hypo buckets next to the trichlor tablets either. Because if those mix together, it causes a chemical reaction and even an explosion in a lot of cases. That same thing about chemicals, and of course, the mixing of chemicals, just the smell of certain chemicals is also very dangerous. So teach your employees, and if you're a homeowner and you have an offline or online trichlor chlorinator attached to your pool, this is one of those big areas where the chemical smell can be quite overpowering and very dangerous to you as a person. You know, if you sniff this particular odor, it can be overpowering and it can cause lung damage. So be careful that when you open up the chlorinators, if the trichlor tablets are not fully dissolved in there, there's a quite a lot of buildup of chlorine and acid gas, like a mustard gas almost, that is overpowering and can cause

Trichlor Odors And Breathing Risks

SPEAKER_00 13:14

actually somewhat permanent lung damage in some cases and could put you out of work for a while. This happened to one of my group members where he was out of work for about a month because he couldn't take deep breaths after this happened. And he was, of course, not an employee, he was actually his own business owner. But if an employee were to get hurt like that, you're paying, of course, you have to get another employee to cover them, and they're getting paid, and they may even have a lawsuit against the customer. So just educate everyone about the strong smell of trichlor in the chlorinators, even in the buckets. If the bucket gets water in it with the trichlor tablets in there, that smell can be overpowering and it could really knock you out. And as it is a dangerous situation when you have any kind of trichlor product getting wet in a bucket or small enclosed area, that vapor can be very dangerous and overpowering, and just be extremely cautious around trichlor, the chloridators, and the buckets of trichlor tablets themselves. I can probably spend the whole podcast talking about electricity and getting shocked, but I'll just talk about one particular area where you have to be very cautious, and that is the intermatic timers. Now, a lot of pools have these intermatic timers, they get old over time, and there's a safety plate that's on front of the screws there in front where the wires are. And I can't tell you how many of these are missing for whatever reason, they're just not on the timer. They got old and they deteriorated over time, or they just got taken off because they were doing some kind of repair to them and they were put back on. But those actual safety, plastic safety shields are really important because if you touch those wires with your wet hands, and depending on the voltage, 240 or 120 volts, you get quite a jolt. And if you're

Electrical Hazards At The Pad

SPEAKER_00 15:02

standing in water, it's even a stronger jolt. How do I know this? Well, I've probably done this a few times where I've got jolted, and it could become a dangerous situation, especially if there's some safety failures on the pad. I've heard of someone getting electrocuted pretty badly when this happened, when the there was no GFCI and the electricity just kept going through him, and it's one of those things where it can't be very dangerous, but probably what you're gonna feel most is that tingling and that shock by touching those wires because you are touching live wires that are exposed there, and you just want to make sure that you take all the precautions you can against getting shocked out there, and it's just one of those things where it does happen, and it's you have to just take precautions around electricity. You know, if you see anything that looks like it's gonna be an electrical hazard, don't turn it on or touch it. But that's that's the main area where I see a lot of people getting shocked, is when they're turning the neuromatic timer on and off, and their fingers touch one of those live wires. And believe me, you do feel it, and it does hurt. And of course, there's a lot more safety issues with electricity out there, and there's a lot more safety issues altogether with the pool route. I haven't even touched filter safety, and I'll probably do a separate podcast on that, touching pool filter safety and some things you can avoid out there, or or some real cautions about the pool filters on your route. If you're looking for other podcasts, you can find those by going to Swimming Pool Learning on the banner. There's a podcast icon, and there's a drop-down menu with over 1900 podcasts there. And if you're interested in my coaching program, you can learn more at poolguycoaching.com. Thanks for listening to this podcast. Have a good rest of your week and God bless.