I remember the arneson pool cleaner.

the pool sweep. I was just gonna throw that out there.

Yep.

when, when

remember it.

that

I'm like, what does that do

Yeah.

I was like, what? What is, okay? 

I couldn't understand the pool sweep that floated on the top with the tentacles going down. Like I never understood the concept of that. Like what is it really doing? Is it really cleaning the pool or is it really just bringing everything to the bottom for the pool cleaner, like the pool person? 

the, the idea which the Polaris cleaners still utilize the same, not the, the pressure side cleaners utilize the same sort of, uh, concept is  stirring the stuff up  that then your skimmers and main drains are drawing it out.  that's, that's really it.  it's no different than, you know,  says that pools that are used more are cleaner. 

I can see that though.

everyone splashing around, swimming around is stirring stuff up so you don't have the, the dead spots, right. Where stuff sits and no chemicals get into and all that because people are in there churning it around, kinda like mixing a cake,

Mm-Hmm.

know, batter with a mixer. If you leave the mixer on one side, you're never gonna get that batter all mixed.

Right. You gotta

Yeah.

all around the whole bowl and everything else. Well, that's the people in the pool or that's what the arneson pool sweep did in the pool and the Polaris cleaners, that's, I mean, yes, they've got a bag in the Venturi of the jets that traps debris, but it's got that trailing hose with the scrubber on it that is taking and, and stirring up what the bag didn't catch.  that

Well, I guess

drawn out.

with like all of that.  Having these advances to help us with our pools just makes it so we can have more pools because we're not having to spend as much time at them.  And because of the knowledge you need of these products, it makes it so you can charge more because, well,  not everybody understands the product, all the products or how they work or how to make them work properly or how to balance it out.

And, you know, it took, took me a very long time to figure out how to,  you know,  maintain pH with salt cell  because of the pH always going up. And, you know, it took lots of trial and error when I started and when I started I hated salt. I, I was like, this is a waste of money, you know, only rich people can have this.

And now I'm like one of the biggest supporters and because I understand it, but again, I get to charge more because I understand it. 

Well, and, and so now we're, we're expanding into sort of next level stuff and, and we use salt still. But,

Yeah.

in 2024, we're gonna, we're gonna get deep into the, uh,  of a OP. 

Yep.

um, you know, the, the aspect of ozone and ultraviolet light and, and a OP and,  and  back away from salt

Mm-Hmm.

go back to the conventional  up the a OP go back to conventional tablet of chlorine.

But because the a OP is there, we're gonna be using it at a much, much, much lower rate to where our expectations are. We're not gonna have such  and cy uric acid issues. Right. 

Yep.

gonna have acidic water and, and sky high  CYA because we're not

The  eventually,

TriCore.

eventually the tab feeder, like floater is going to be like the artisan pool cleaner. It won't be used anymore. 

Yeah,

It'll be the ancient,  you know,  . Item, it'll be the item at the pool shows that have like the, the Museum of Pool Equipment.

Great.

will be one of the items sitting there 

Well, have you seen, there's a, a, I'm gonna call it a salt chlorine system that is on the market, has been for a, a number of years now where there's no salt in the pool water. 

no, I haven't seen that.

it's, what it basically does is creates  chlorine,  um,  a same kind of a salt cell thing  and utilizes that chlorine to clean, to sanitize the water, but there's no salt that is in the pool water. So almost like the, the salt system is creating chlorine in a jug, and then

Mm-Hmm,

pumped into the pool to, to do the sanitizing. So the

So it has a giant, so it has like a giant tank there like you would for  chlorine or acid.

it's not, it's not a giant, like the whole unit is, uh, it's about the size of a water softener.

Okay.

So, I mean, there is a tank. Yes, but it's not, it's not

in that. And so in that tank there is the salt that you would need to generate the chlorine.

the only place the salt

Okay.

that

I like that. I like that idea.

Yeah. It's pretty cool. 'cause it takes all of the, the, the negative aspects of salt, of when your pool isn't balanced, how the salt can be damaging out of the equation.

Yep.

So there's one of those new products that we already blew it for next week.

We're getting ahead of ourselves. 

I think that, uh, well, one, we don't know the name of it, so now we have to find the name and tell, tell them what it is,

There we go.

how they can get it.  , you know? Oh, you have to call John on the black market, you know,

Yeah. Yeah.  No, it's, uh, it's, and to be honest with you, the company that, that, uh,  developed it, we put one in a, a very, very rudimentary beta test on a pool  number of years ago. I mean, it, it could be,  I'm gonna argue it could be as much as 10 years ago now.  It could be as much as 10 years ago. And the thing compared to what it, what it is today, the thing that we put on this pool really looked like someone built it in their garage.  You know,  like it, it was pretty, uh, it did, its, it did what it was supposed to, but it, it didn't have any real  prettiness to it for marketing, you know,

Right.

where the units now. Um, and if I remember right, I think the person that actually created it ended up  selling  the, the design to a company or something.

Okay.

I might be wrong with that, but yeah, you're right. We'll, well, I'll dig into it Warren, and I'll maybe next week, that'll be one of the, one of the new products that we can talk a little bit about. It's

Yeah. 

interesting, all of the new things that, that are  out there already. And this isn't new, like I said, 10 years ago, but how many people have heard of it?

Right.

Yeah. Well, and when it comes to products, 10 years is not very long.  You know, that's,

No. Especially in

the type

that is slow to. 

adapt. 

new technology truly, you know,

And for me, I'm, I'm the type of person that, um,  I'm not a first generation buyer.  First generation's always gonna have, have problems because  it's new.  Uh,

It

so I'm more of a third or fourth generation purchaser. 

Yeah, we, same thing. I mean, I've, I have tested products on my own pool for years before we then start bringing 'em in and implementing them into sales and, and our construction and, and all the rest of it. Uh, even salt to your point of salt. So my pool was built in 2006  and I used a  d Chlor feeder  that was connected to a, uh, a metering system back then. It was made by Polaris or, yeah, Polaris. It, the water, Matt is what it was called.  unit. And using Dior is awesome because it's basically pH neutral, much more closer to

Yeah,

so you don't have those issues.  It, it worked really, really well. Well, the Polaris rep kept telling me, when you gotta put salt on your pool, and I'm, I don't want anything to do with salt. I don't like salt. I, and I had no experience with salt. Right. 

and I think that's the biggest thing for everyone when they're like, oh, I don't, I don't do this product, or I don't do this product line or this type of thing, is because they have really no knowledge of it. 

Yeah. So the one at one day, my pool was probably,  been four years old or something. She came in my office and dropped a salt system on my desk, said, put this on your damn pool.  If you hate it, turn it off, throw it away, do whatever, but put it on your damn pool. So eventually I did, and as of right now, I would never have a pool that wasn't a salt pool. 

Yeah.

know, it just, it changed my life entirely. But with that, I did run that unit for.  At least two seasons before I

Okay.

know what, we're gonna start doing this.  then, uh, I did the same thing with Pentair's in inte Chem.  in inte chem, uh, is their chemical automation, uh, system, pH

Right.

And I put one on my pool and ran it for a couple of seasons so that I could be fully aware of what it does, if it, if it did, what it, what I expected all that. And then we ended up, you know, putting it into every pool that we build, uh, for many years gets an in telecom, it gets a salt system and you know, all this other kind of stuff. But, uh,  at any rate, chlorine Genie,  genie is that. So we don't need to bring that one up next, you, next week we can have a different one.  Chlorine, Jeanie, check it out.  we're not, we're not promoting it, we're just saying it's a product out there that not many know of. And, uh,  know, it's, it's interesting stuff. So. 

I think when it comes to products, and this may be my point of anything that we ever talk about is the warranty.  Because I'm a big warranty person  and  I wanna make sure that any product I put in,  I'm not gonna have to be like pulling teeth and having to  be the FBI agent to get ahold of somebody to warranty the product I put in,

yeah. Right, right. We,

know?

to  across the board is the most critical thing. And, uh, you've had a good experience so far with that, that control system you were talking about, and that's great.  you know,

Well, even like when I was talking to him originally about that op that.  Um, pool attendant.  One of my questions was, what's the warranty? And for that thing, it was, uh, one year parts in labor, three years labor or parts, I'm sorry.  Which, okay, that's fine.  Uh,  and you know, I asked him, what do you notice is the failures of, of the equipment?

They're like, well, we don't, we don't have any. And I'm like, well,  there is no product  around in any industry that doesn't have  a defect. At some point  it happens. It's just the facts of life.  Unfortunately, they just hadn't, it hadn't been out long enough to have any, which it's been out for a couple years. 

Um, I.  Which is kind of nice to hear that it doesn't happen too often,  but you know, like I said, every product has it. It's not just, oh,  Hayward's better because they never have warranties, obviously. No, that's not true.  Uh, Jandy the same thing. Like they all know they have, they have these issues. It, it happens, things fail and it's okay, but it's a matter of how the company that produces the product takes care of the, the defects.

Right,

I had a friend who put a filter in that was not one of the big three.  She wanted it cracked within a month and she ended up having to replace it on her dollar at first because she couldn't get a hold of the, of warranty to save her life. And that wasn't like a warranty station. That was like getting a hold of the rep and  the whole nine yards.

Yeah.  Yeah.  Well that's, yeah, that's critical with anything is is the support,  the support, the warranty, um.  And, and, and as far as new products, does it really  do what it's supposed to?

Mm-Hmm.

The Chlorine Genie? I don't know. You know, chlorine Genie send me one. I'll put it on my pool. I'll let you know how it goes, but otherwise,

Well,

I, I can't, I can only tell you what it's supposed to do.

And, and 

and I was having this conversation with one of my builders because they had switched from one manufacturer to another because of warranty, how the warranties were being handled.  And  a great point I had told him is the equipment that we install, we need to know it's gonna be taken care of quickly,  and the products aren't gonna have like major  amounts of failures because it makes you look bad to the customer. 

In reality, you would think it would make the product line.  But it doesn't, it makes the builder or the servicer look bad because they sold you a product that's being, that's defective and you're now waiting weeks to get it fixed.

right. People ask me all the time, um.  You know, from, from, uh,  people who invest in our industry, stuff like that. Do people walk in your store and say,  here to buy a Hayward heater, or I'm here to buy a Jandy pump, or I'm here to buy a, you know, a, a Pentair cleaner.  And  I tell 'em that  more 95 or more percent of the time?

No, 

Yeah.

they come in the store and say, I need a heater.  we sell them what we feel is the best product that we have for their need. And, and that's what they buy. So, yeah, you're exactly right. So when they buy that heater,  you know, most people don't even know it's a Pentair heater, honestly. They know it's a heater that all seasons put in for them, and they know that all seasons is gonna stand behind it.

And if they have a problem, they're gonna contact all seasons and all seasons is gonna get it taken care of.  And, uh, you know, as far as the warranty aspect of the manufacturer,  They, they, they never have to deal with the manufacturer. It's a little bit, it actually, it's a lot different than the majority of the country

Do you know that's a major sales point when you're selling equipment. When you tell the customer, call me, not the one 800 number.

Right, right.  Yeah. The Midwest is a little bit different animal than, than, uh, uh, where you're at in a Sunbelt. And that the way warranties are done, because the majority of,  uh, warranties are handled by whoever put it in 

So  bigger companies  in my area, they get to, they can usually do their own warranties, but they choose not to. They just.  Like the commercial company that I do work for, you know, they'll call me for the warranty or another warranty station. They can warranty their own stuff, but they're just too busy. They can't handle it.

Yeah.

Um, me, I'm lucky as a small company that I'm able to do my own warranties for the Hayward, um,  and Jandy stuff. That way  it's just easier for everyone. I do not do Pentair warranty, not because I don't want to, just didn't work out 'cause they have so many in my area. 

Yeah. 

But I still tell my customers, call me and I will deal with it.

You know, I have a builder that we had an issue with a pump and in, and I let them know what was going on. But  . I pretty much am like the middleman on that.  And the reason I feel like I'm the middleman and kind of investing a lot of time is because I contacted the warranty station, had them come out, and it's just been a nightmare.

And then they tell me, you know, Hey, we have to contact so-and-so we'll get back to you. They didn't get back to me, you know, for a few days, so I followed up and  it just was this thing, but I ended up having to use like, they're like, oh, we have to call so-and-so, okay, okay, call now. Or they didn't know who to call and they're like, oh, we'll call him tomorrow.

It's like, Nope, I'm calling right now. I'll call you back. Like,

Yeah.

you gotta,  you can't wait. Especially on like major pools where they just spent, you know, 500 grand on a pool or more. You can't be, you know, waiting that long  to take, have things taken care of.

Right, 

because then the builder looks bad and then the builder doesn't get the referrals from that customer telling their friends to build pools. 

And it just, it takes away from everybody's pocket.

Yep.

there's, then if they're not building as many pools, then they're not having as many warranties, so then you're losing money 'cause you're not getting the warranties which get you into the backyard.  So 

Well,  we'll find some more new products for next week to,

y

things

yes.

let people know that we've seen that are out there. That might be interesting. Huh? 

And if there are any products that you guys have heard of that you would like more information, I would love for you to let us know. So please email us at talking pools@gmail.com  or you can direct message us on  what.  Facebook, Instagram tech. You can even do it on TikTok,  uh,  . So like us, share us. Yeah, like us.

Share us, download our episodes so we know that you're listening and we will talk to you next time. 

See you later everybody.