Stop Guessing, Start Charging—and Learn When to Say No

Steve Sherwood and Wayne Ivusich discuss one of the hardest lessons for pool service professionals: you cannot solve every problem, satisfy every prospect, or repeatedly rescue neglected pools for free.

Steve explains why customers must keep an eye on their pools between weekly visits and report cloudy water or visible algae immediately. Waiting until the scheduled service day—especially before a party—can turn a manageable problem into four or five additional visits, a pile of chemicals, and a service company eating the cost.

The conversation also covers phosphate removal, establishing chemical prices, asking the right questions before quoting work, and knowing when to walk away from a customer who wants a guaranteed result without fixing the equipment causing the problem.

During the Insurance Interlude, Pat Reno explains why standard general liability insurance typically does not cover cyberattacks, data breaches, stolen payments, customer impersonation, or ransomware. For pool companies accepting digital payments or storing customer information, cyber liability coverage may deserve a place in the insurance portfolio.

Steve and Wayne wrap up with equipment design, service-recordkeeping apps, and the challenges of controlling an 800-gallon commercial spa where a few bathers can send sanitizer demand, ORP, and pH in completely different directions.

Topics discussed include:

• Why weekly customers must monitor their pools between visits
• Catching algae early before it becomes an expensive shit show
• Charging for additional visits and treatment chemicals
• Why every service company needs a chemical price list
• Phosphate-removal products and avoiding unnecessary cleanup
• The danger of quoting a green-pool recovery without testing the water
• Asking for complete equipment photos before diagnosing remotely
• Used filters, questionable installations, and inherited equipment problems
• Why sometimes the correct professional answer is “no”
• Cyber liability versus general liability insurance
• Payment diversion, customer impersonation, and ransomware
• Protecting stored customer and payment information
• Why real-world field input matters during product development
• Digital service records, before-and-after photos, and proof of service
• Managing sanitizer demand and automation in a small commercial spa
• How water temperature can affect reactions and test results

The takeaway: stop guessing for free. Ask better questions, document everything, charge for the work being performed, and walk away when someone expects you to guarantee results without allowing you to correct the actual problem.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Hi everybody and welcome to Talking Pools with Stephen Wayne. This is Happy Thursday to everybody out there. Hope you all had a good, safe, and healthy and productive week. Steven has a couple ideas and couple topics he wants to pass along to everybody. So Steven, why don't you go ahead and take it away?

SPEAKER_05 1:09

Hey everybody. So thanks, Wayne. We're in the thick of the summer, right? And obviously we last show we were talking about how hot it was and just how humid it's been. And you know, it feels like we're busier than ever before, you know? And there's just it's it's not that we have more clients, it's just that we have more work. So an example is like I had a client, and this is you know, listeners out there, number one thing when you pick up a new client is you have to tell them that I am I am here once a week, and you are here seven days a week. So anytime you let the dog out, anytime you go out on your balcony, anytime you go in the backyard, just give a little look-see to the pool. And what you want to see is a clear pool.

SPEAKER_06 2:05

Right.

SPEAKER_05 2:06

And I don't want to know about the 10 leaves at the bottom. Like, we we're we're gonna come and clean that or the vacuum's gonna get it, whatever. But if that pool is cloudy, or if there's algae, I would like to know about it immediately. And there are plenty of times. Two of my clients last week texted me and they were like, hey, you know, service day is tomorrow, but I wanted to show you the algae. And I'm like, perfect, thank you so much for letting me know. But it it's all it's patchy, you know, it's it's it's something that's gonna be, we're not even gonna have to do an extra visit or anything like that.

SPEAKER_06 2:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 2:42

So but sometimes someone will have high phosphates or something like that, and the chlorine has been gone for five days now. And you know, we come on our regular service day, nobody said anything at this point, and now, and I'll give you an example. We the service day was Friday for this one client. My guy went a day early on Thursday, followed up on Friday, then he came back on Monday because the guy said, Hey, I'm having a party this upcoming Saturday, and I didn't just want to come on Friday again. So we checked it on Monday, and it was still really bad. And we at this point, we had already added it's like a 10,000 gallon pool. So we added, you know, three gallons of liquid chlorine twice with you know copper algicide. And and like you can argue copper algebra or regular algebra, whatever you want, but like when it's really bad algae and I'm trying to get rid of it, we're gonna use a bit of copper algicide. We're gonna use it very sparingly, but it it works really well. So I was in the area yesterday on Thursday, because now it's today is Friday, and the party is tomorrow on Saturday. So we went this past Monday, I went on Thursday, which was yesterday, and it still had some algae that like me. I brushed it and it was still brushing off like yellow. And I tested the chlorine and we had brought it up to 30 the other day, and it was at two. So the phosphates were really high, and we brought them down. Like we like to I actually like to use these frog makes a really good product now.

SPEAKER_06 4:18

I've seen that, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 4:19

It's these phosphate remover bags, right? And I didn't realize one time, like I was like, oh, they don't make a mess, like they don't make white at all, you know. So my service guy, he was like, hey, he was like, uh, you know, and this is at a different pool, different story, but he was like, hey, he was like, I already put cyanuric acid in a bag in the, you know, in a skimmer sock inside the skimmer. He's like, can I put the phosphate bags in there too? And I was like, that's a great question. I was like, but my gut tells me no. You know, I was like, I'm not gonna mix stuff if I don't know what it is, right? So I was like, he was like, what should I do with it? I was like, just throw it in the pool, you know. That was the wrong answer. Because one of them went over into the spa and the my the client sent me a picture. He's like, it looks like a snowstorm went off in the in the spa. So what's actually happening with these frog bags is you put them in the skimmer and it's just immediately getting caught in the filter, which is perfect because now, you know, when you come back the next day or the next week or whatever, you backwash it out and there's you know, there's no mess. And there's nothing that I hate more than having to come back four or five times in a row, you know, to do a metal removing or a phosphate removing or whatever. And don't get me wrong, there's a lot of good products out there that remove phosphates, but most of them you're pouring it in and like uh you have to vacuum it out to waste later on. So anyway, if you guys have never tried the the f the frog vacuum the frog phosphate removing bags, you know, it's like one of them will remove 400 in a 10,000 gallon pool.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

400 parts per million or parts per billion?

SPEAKER_05 5:57

So I'll parts per billion.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Yeah, that's how phosphate's measured in parts per billion rather than parts per million, and the running at least is for as far as I know that it's recommended that anything over 125 parts per billion could be a problem and needs to be removed because all water has a little bit of phosphate in it, just a little bit, which is you know, okay, not a problem. But once it gets above that 125 PPD, then it could cause problems.

SPEAKER_05 6:25

I've seen it come out of the tap at like uh 7,500.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_05 6:30

Because they put that like orthophosphate stuff in the in like the the drinking water, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:36

You see that a lot in agricultural areas.

SPEAKER_05 6:40

So uh now it's Thursday, and my guy's actually texting me right now, so I just saw a picture of the pool, and it looks a lot better because there's no phosphates in it. But because it had high phosphates and no one said, Hey, the pool's looking rough, we showed up to a shit show and now we had to give four visits, you know, which is why it's so important of like uh what are you giving away? What are you charging for? And I'll I'll discount him a bit on it, but like uh we came back four times in a row, you know, and this is our weekly client, and that is something that like is expected of us, and that you know, I expect of my guys that like if you show up and it's a shit show, like you're gonna have to come back. That's why I would I most of my clients will let me know and I'll send the kid there on a Thursday or a Wednesday instead of a Friday or a Saturday, and now if they have to come back on their regular service day, it's an easy not an easy cleanup, but like it's manageable, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where if we just show up and it's it's terrible, now you gotta now you gotta come back on the weekend, you gotta come back a few different times. So it winds up being uh a thing. So basically anything that happens at my clients at my weekly client's place, like we're on it for you. Like we will come and we will fix it, we will get it, we will help you. Um I don't know if I told you before, I think I've talked about it on on the insurance interlude for sure, but I have a client right now and they have concrete in their lines from the guy who who redid the the pool. And then the guy like this the guy like disappeared. And I've had my leak guy, I've had us, we've tried to blow the line, and it's just been unsuccessful. We're at the point where like we're gonna have this guy come back and try and take care of it for free for them, or we're gonna have to run a new skimmer line. Like those are those are the options. But this is something where if you called me and you were like, hey, there's concrete in my skimmer, can you come help me? I would be like, we're sorry, we're too busy for that. Like, we're not interested in that.

SPEAKER_06 8:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:43

So brings me to my next story of you know, we're running around in circles here. And again, this is why you have to ask good questions. I had someone call me, you know, before the weekend last week, and they were like, hey, my pool is green. Uh uh, you know, I'd like you to come and help me. And I was like, okay, I'm like, what's going on? You know, and she was like, Well, this pool guy came and I think that I screwed up and like he sold me a used filter. And I was like, okay, what kind of filter is it? She's like, I'm not sure. I'm like, okay, I'm like, you probably need a new filter if you bought this a used filter from this guy. Like, you should be buying new filters from people that know what they're doing. I was like, send me some pictures of the equipment pad, you know, send me a picture of like where it is. And I was like, I can give you a quote for a top mount sand filter. And I was like, if you're gonna be taking care of the pool yourself, this is the one that you absolutely want. Like, you don't want to have to take cartridges out or DE screens out and clean them, you know, that's a pain in the ass, right? So let's get you a sand filter. She's like, okay, cool. So I give her the quote. She's like, uh, that's a bit expensive. I'm like, you know, this is the best I can do. And she's like, okay. So then she asks me, like, how much is it for you to come and do get rid of the algae for me? And I was like, Well, I'm like, if you're doing the filter, I'll give you a set price. And I'll give you, it's a 10,000 gallon pool, I'll give you up to six gallons of liquid chlorine. And you know, that's when like I'll give you two treatments of blah blah blah for this price. Once we get to that second treatment, if it's still not good and it needs more, like we're gonna have to like re-quote you on what it is.

SPEAKER_06 10:21

Right.

SPEAKER_05 10:22

She's like, okay, cool. She's like, uh, you know, when can you come? So we get it set up, I have it on the schedule, and the day before she calls me and she's like, hey, she's like, uh, you know, I'm this guy said he's coming back and taking the old filter. So she's like, I wanna talk, you know, talk to him, but she's like, I I still want you to come and do the algae treatment. And I was like, No. I was like, we're I was like, we're too busy to just come and do the algae treatment. I was like, uh, I told you that at the beginning that it would, I was like, okay, if you want us to come, like now I'm gonna give you a service call price and you're paying for all of the chemicals.

SPEAKER_06 11:01

Right.

SPEAKER_05 11:02

Like per gallon.

SPEAKER_06 11:03

Right.

SPEAKER_05 11:03

And she was like, okay, how much is it? So I send her, we have a and guys, if you don't have a chemical price list, like you have to have a chemical price list. Like, how are you gonna tell people how much stuff is if you don't if you don't know how much it is? Like you need to know what you're paying, you need to know what you're selling it for, and you need to have a sheet that you can send to people that says this is how much, you know, if you have to buy it extra, this is how much it's gonna be. So she was like, Well, that would be like uh because you know, chlorine here, I mean retail, it's like uh ten dollars a gallon or something like that. That's it's really expensive here in California. So she was like doing some numbers and then like writes me back and was like, uh, oh well this is gonna be like 1200 bucks or whatever. And I was like, it's not gonna, I was like, I didn't say it was gonna be 1200 bucks. I was like, what I said is at my the story that I just told you before, I if you have high phosphates, I just went to my weekly client five times and put in three gallons of chlorine four times. So that's 12 gallons of liquid chlorine. Like that's that's what I'm telling you. You know, like I'm telling you that like uh it might not be able to get done in in one or two visits. And not showing up and not knowing the readings and not knowing if you have phosphates, not ever stepping on your property. I I'm just fucking guessing.

SPEAKER_03 15:10

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SPEAKER_00 16:53

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SPEAKER_05 17:20

Hey everyone, and welcome to the insurance interlude with your host, Steve Sherwood. And as always, our co-host, Pat Reno, Pat. So I want to talk a little bit about cyber AI, right? Like it's it just feels like this flood of stuff that just is just coming down a mountain. And it's topic. It really, really, you know, the gap is huge between the guy that goes and does the pool and the person who does the work on the computer. You know, and it seems really simple in a sense that, okay, you go clean pools and you do this, you do that, but what would happen if like we got hacked? Or what would happen if my website got compromised or something down that road? So do I, under my general liability policy path, have some sort of protection from bad actors? You know?

SPEAKER_04 18:14

Yeah, so so normally a standard general liability policy is not gonna have any coverage for like cyber attacks, you know, data breaches, things like that. And you you make a good point. I mean, it's not very common. And you would think, like, what any small contractor or service company, whatever the case might be, it's like, yeah, I'm not, I'm not, I don't have a huge database of, you know, like driver's licenses and credit cards and stuff. So why would anyone come after me? But the the sh the short answer is no. Standard general liability policies will not cover any sort of cyber breach, data breach, any of that stuff. It's actually a separate standalone policy, and they're relatively inexpensive, to be honest with you. Um, they call them cyber liability. And so that would, because you you're under certain obligations to your clients to send them notifications. Um, and so it helps pay for that. It'll help pay for, you know, damages, you know, to others, it'll help pay for your damages. Just depends on how you want to set the policy up. But, you know, one one thing is like the most common thing for cyber for for pool contractors, service or otherwise, or any small contractors, is you know, if you've got deposits or you know, wires or payments that are coming through, coming through your your systems for a bad actor to get in there, you know, hack in and put a stop in there. So instead of routing it, you know, into your checking account, it goes into another account that they operate. So, you know, without getting intimate on the details, that's kind of the the most common that we see in the contractor world for for for data breaches and and for cyber liability.

SPEAKER_05 19:49

And most of the time, you wouldn't even know that it happened. Right. It's not a thing, it's not a thing until it's a thing. Yeah. And so what type of protection and coverage can you get? You can get specific with it, and like uh you can you can recoup those lot that lost money.

SPEAKER_04 20:11

Yeah. Yep, and and yeah, exactly. So there's there's ways to recoup the loss if you had a bad actor in there. You you do have an obligation under, you know, I I don't know if it's federal or all states, but you have an obligation under under regulations to notify your customer base if if that their data might be compromised. If someone were to even just to hack in and get your get your routes, you know, like some of the other stuff is, you know, they get in there and impersonate the owner, like they impersonate you, like, hey, I'm Steve Sherwood, I'm here to collect and and to to one of your customers, and then you know, they end up getting a bunch of money from your customer base pretending to be you, and that that's a that's a very, very common one, just generally speaking, where it's just a bad actor that's faking like they're the owner of the business wanting to collect money from the client base.

SPEAKER_05 20:59

Whoa. Yeah. So that yeah, I mean that I've never even thought about somebody like collecting the bills for me, but I guess that that that could really happen. And you know, obviously this is why you stay on top of you know your bank accounts and you have the the pings and all the the stuff, but guys, this is this is why we have insurance.

SPEAKER_04 21:19

Yeah, yeah. You you'd think it'd be a policy, but it just it really isn't. It's pretty it's relatively inexpensive unless you're I mean, look, I'll for for our world, like it in an insurance agency, we do have a bunch of you know highly confidential information, social security numbers for you know, work comp or bonds, driver's license numbers for commercial auto, you know, EIN numbers. I mean, we've got so we've got very, very detailed info as an insurance agency. So we we we carry of like a very robust uh cyber policy and we have a bunch of internal measures in place with our with our software systems, you know, that that makes it so it's it's very, very, very unlikely that we'd have a breach and someone would get a hold of the information. But like, you know, for for for our business, if someone came in and said, hey, we've got data files of all of your customers' information, like you need to pay us $90 million. Like that's that's a real thing that happens all the time where they just they it's ransomware, right? They go in and say, Hey, I've got all this information, like pay me, you know, pay me X amount of dollars to go away. And then, you know, like it's it's that's a very common one, albeit not so much for small contractors.

SPEAKER_05 22:34

No, now yeah, now we're getting into the the the big picture type look, but more so I want to know Pat, has this happened to you guys in the pool industry where, you know, like should we should should I, as a business owner, right, should I have cybersecurity? Like, should I have this rider? You know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:56

Yeah. You know, look, I I don't think it's a bad idea, especially for the cost. I mean, you're talking, you know, you get a million bucks in coverage for, you know, for a small business, you're probably talking, you know, a couple grand a year. So it's not like, again, it's not like a high dollar amount. I would say it depends on, it depends on, like, look, if you're using like a credit card payment or ACH payment processing service, like it goes through whatever, right? Like you send a secure link, they input their information, you don't hang on to it. Like they've got a bunch of security measures in place with those vendors that offer those services to where uh, you know, I would say, yeah, you know, like dealer's choice, right? Coin flip. If you if it makes you sleep better at night, then it's not a truckload of money. But if you're getting like through your email, if you're getting credit card information, or if you're getting like a copy of a check that's coming to your email and you're not using the sort of secure link, or you are saving payment information to do recurring payments and it's just in a folder somewhere on your desktop or in your email, you know, it I would say if that's the case, then then for sure you should get you should get some cyber liability or at least look at it and see what the pricing comes in at. Um, but it really just matters like what sort of internal safety measures or protections do you have. And if you're using those vendors, you know, then you know if you've got a credit card to company terminal, like they have a a million different ways to keep the to keep the bad guys out of there. And if you're not saving the information and it's not coming through via email, you know, it again, it never hurts to ensure everything, but it just matters that it's dealer's choice at that.

SPEAKER_05 24:31

It's definitely something to at least, you know, look at. And with the age of I the age of AI and what we're really look, you know, rolling into here in the future, it seems like it's something that might be uh something to look at as a big deal, you know.

SPEAKER_04 24:47

Yeah, look, AI's making it a lot easier to break into stuff. It's the you know, the the crack code crackers at the CIA ain't gonna break into my account or yours, I'm sure. But like, you know, frankly, anyone can get into anything these days if they want to, right?

SPEAKER_05 25:02

And so I mean if they're trying if they're trying hard enough and they have the work of all, like they, you know, that they can. Yep. So, you know, we are at that that point in the stage. So, Pat, thank you so much for freaking us the fuck out today. My pleasure, that's why I'm here. Everybody's gonna get hacked, yeah. So and it's it's weird because like you you think you're okay and everything's fine, and you're like you're doing payments through your, you know, through the through the web and all that stuff, and everything's good, and and then all of a sudden it's just it's good and then it's not, you know, and I've I can't in the last three months I think we've had like two different breaches on like our credit cards where it was like, hey, can't use this credit card anymore, you know, this one's compromised and whatnot. So in an age where this type of stuff happens very regularly, it's something to really look at. So as part of your you know, insurance portfolio, I guess you could say, right? You should check out that cybersecurity writer. So, Pat, thanks so much for coming on. Always love having you here. And guys, thanks so much for listening. We'll uh chat at you next week. Have a good one. Thanks, Steve. I'm telling you that like uh it might not be able to get done in in one or two visits. And not showing up and not knowing the readings and not knowing if you have phosphates, not ever stepping on your property. I I'm just fucking guessing here, right? You know, so I was like, uh it's not a good business practice. So that's why I was like, it would just be a service call. So I'm like, you only sent me the one side of the filter. I'm like, can you send me a picture of where the inlet and the outlet are? Because I'm like, it says that it's a DE filter, but it looks like there's two right angles on the front side, and if there's no multi port or push-pull valve there, I don't know what the fuck is going on.

SPEAKER_06 26:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 26:49

So she sends me a picture, and sure enough, it's a DE filter with cartridges inside, or what I think is cartridges. My professional opinion would say, hey, I think there's cartridges inside of there that are probably used cartridges. And he just took, you know, an old Jandy filter, and most people know that the the body for the just like for a small cartridge filter, it's the same for a separation tank for DE. It's like a little star cartridge filter.

SPEAKER_06 27:21

Right.

SPEAKER_05 27:21

Same thing with DE and cartridge, that like they make them the same. It's just the innards are gonna be a little bit different.

SPEAKER_06 27:29

Right.

SPEAKER_05 27:30

So I called her back and I was like, look, I'm like, it feels like we're going in, it felt like we've been going in circles here, but I was like, I'm gonna bow out from this. I'm like, if you're not gonna allow us to put in a new filter here, we're not gonna come and do the algae treatment. And I was like, you you have to understand why. I was like, I'm not trying to be a jerk here. I was like, I just anyone that would tell you that they could come and you could give them money and they could fix this without actually knowing what's going on, isn't it doesn't have your, you know, your best interest at heart here. So, but it took me a little while to to get to this point with her. And again, it's not that it was wasted time, it was just a lesson on my end that like I should have immediately said, Hey, send me, you know, like I can't see the filter, send me the other side. And I could have wasted, I could have bowed out and not have had those six back and forth phone calls, right? You know, so sometimes when you're going around in circles, it's it's sometimes best to just say no, you know? Right. So you have to learn how to say no. Exactly. So for you, you know, in your long working career, was there times where you were like, wow, this is silly. No, we shouldn't do this, or like anything like that. Like, you know, there's been times where people have done crazy stuff or like made a product, and then they were like, Whoa, this product sucks. That wasn't a good idea, you know, and then like it's off the it's it's gone like a year later. So anything like that?

SPEAKER_01 29:13

Kind of without revealing a whole lot, because if I do, I'll probably get in trouble. But but uh the the products that uh Taylor made over the years had a lot of research behind them, and and I'm not just talking about the chemistry end of things, I'm talking about case design, comparator block design, you know, the little caps on the comparator block. I always call duck feet because that's what they look like. So it was had more to do with the actual non-chemistry kind of thing, specifically, specifically for those of you who've been around for a long time, may remember a version of the water gram that Taylor made, which is that round I got one. Saw here, there it is, still got it. Watergram, okay, makes a great coaster or or a mini frisbee too, by the way. But uh somebody suggested or mentioned, cre tried to create a a little calculator that was basically the electronic version of this, and it was about the size of a of a large credit card, and not only was it uh a calculator, but it also did water balance. So you could enter uh the numbers for everything for all the parameters, and it would do the LS sign and tell you what it is. And so I'm not gonna get into the whole all that water balance stuff. That's another that's another episode. But um I remember distinctly when my then immediate boss came into my office and said, Oh, here's a prototype of the electronic autogram. And I looked at it and I thought it would look pretty good. It was kind of like it kind of looked like it had a stainless steel cover to it. And I thought, ah, okay, not great around water. But then come to find out the first question I asked was, is it waterproof or water resistant? And he told me, I don't think it's either. And I said, Really? It's neither waterproof nor water resistant. He said, Yeah. And I said, Well, we're working around pools here and it's gonna get dropped and it's gonna get wet. Why should we make this product if it's going to go bad immediately and unless we intended it to do that? And he looked at me as if I was talking a different language, like nobody had ever thought about this before, and probably nobody did realize the practical application. So then it went back into research for two more years, and they created the version of it that was water resistant, which which for three or four years, and this was the early 2000s, for three or four years, it was a nice little product to have, but nobody really ever used it because it was just a big pain in the butt. The buttons were small, you know, everybody's got big fingers kind of deal. But it was just an example of nobody really thought it through, you know, to the final end. It had to be me if after the fact to go, yeah, this isn't gonna work, kind of deal. You know, practical applications here. You should have talked to me first or or whatnot. So yeah, it it happens. It it but again, for for chemistry, for testing, not so much, but for everything else that was involved in in developing that, yeah, it it had to go through a lot of review and a lot of angst over the years.

SPEAKER_05 32:32

Yeah, I mean, I feel like that happens a lot, right? Especially like as you grow as a company and then as you get bigger, because now you have more kind of heads that come together, right? And uh, but you know, sometimes it takes someone that's looking from the outside to be like, hey, you know, and a lot of these capturing apps, like Pool Brain and Skimmer, and you know, all of all of them, Pay the Pool Man, they've really done a great job in fixing a problem that needed to be fixed, you know, because can't imagine not using one of those, right? You know, and just to think like just five, six years ago, I was putting everything in Apple Notes, you know, and then my guys were copying and pasting Apple notes to me, and we were sending notes back and forth to each other, and that's how we kept records, you know, because for commercial pools, you gotta have a book. You gotta have a logbook, right? So that log book, you gotta fill it out, and then you gotta, you know, do the whole nine. So what we do is we actually take a picture of the logbook and then we also input the readings into it. Um, but for residential, there's no law that says you need to have a logbook. So where are you gonna you know put all these readings? And I had in the past two weeks two clients ask me, Hey, did your guy come last week? And I was like, uh, let me check. And I, you know, I'll look at the before and the after pictures, and it's just so windy this time of year that a lot of people just don't understand that like uh there could have been a windstorm. And a lot of people, this is the time of year because people are using their pools all the time where we get the complaints of like uh the pool only looks good for you know the day that you're here and the next day and maybe the day after. And I just look at them like blankly, and I'm just like, yes, yes, that's what yes, that's what happens for sure. And they're like, Well, how do we fix it? You know, and I'm like, Well, remember the vacuum that I gave you, and then I I gave you the demo vacuum and everything was really clean, and then we took it away, and now you don't have a vacuum. I'm like, that's why it doesn't look like the pool looks clean. Like you can't, yeah, you can't, and you always say that you can't have a magic wand and wave your magic wand and say, Okay, the pool's gonna be good for forever, you know, and that's because of not being there, right? Enough. Now there's also the other side of that coin of you know, being too much, like being there too much. And I I've been having a really hard time with this commercial spa. And the commercial spa, it's only it's only 800 gallons, Wayne. So as soon as two people get into the spots, three people maximum that are allowed on the spa, and it really is a two-person one, as soon as two or three people get into this thing, the ORP, like you'll be sitting there in front of the machine, and it just plummets. Also, the pH goes up, which it's it's fine, but like it just creates a creates a problem, you know? And you'll I'll give an example where I we were messing with it the other day, and like what it's supposed to do, the way that we have it set up in the box, is like if there's no chlorine demand, you would and you wanted to add to chlorine, you would just dose it one time, and it should bring it up about one part per million. So the chlorine was at two. We dosed it three times, and this is the type of machine where like there's enough bodies of water at this place, like you can dose it, you can go do something else, and then you can come back and you can test it again, and you'll see the immediate results. So the first thing is that comes back, and the chlorine went up one part per million to three. And I was like, okay, I'm like, it should have gone up like a couple, like one one more than that at least, but that's fine. So we put in some cyanuric acid into the spot, you know, we put in some cyanuric acid because they're always draining it out, so we're constantly always having to add cyanuric acid back to it manually. And uh we it's at the chlorine is at three, so we dose it three times. What do you think the chlorine went up to? 15.

SPEAKER_06 36:43

Wow, right?

SPEAKER_05 36:44

So, and then riddle me this. I don't know what the answer is for this, but we will it's a it's a two-minute walk from downstairs to go upstairs to the spa. Like you gotta go like inside and then up and out, but we're constantly getting a different reading from the flow cell of the automation system than in the spa for chlorine. And and pH and pH and cyaneric acid.

SPEAKER_01 37:12

Okay. Look at or or be conscious of the temperature of the water.

SPEAKER_05 37:17

That's exactly where I went with it. I said I was like, if we're having that problem, I was like, the next step, I think, is to let it cool down before take a sample, let it cool down.

SPEAKER_01 37:26

Yeah, because because remember, the hotter the water, the faster chemical reactions can occur. So things can happen that you don't want to happen at a at a rate you don't want to have to deal with.

SPEAKER_05 37:39

No, exactly. It's just it's one of those things where it's like, you know, we've just been having a lot of issues with it because we're only, you know, and part of the problem is that and it's not a problem, it's just that we're only there for a couple hours, right? So we we don't get to monitor it all day, and you know, their staff is having to monitor it, and obviously, like it it has a bunch of problems, you know, where like if a bunch of people get in or whatnot, and you know, people won't get in for a while and everything will be fine, and then it's almost like you have to change the mixing time with the direction of the wind, if that makes sense, you know, because sometimes we keep it at eight minutes, sometimes we keep it at two minutes, sometimes we because sometimes eight minutes isn't enough if for if if three people get in and three people get out and three people get in again, like the demand is now so high for chlorine that it it skyrocket it or it freefalls down to to basically zero, but it's only dosed one time or two times in the last you know half hour or whatever. So just and like that's really what it comes down to that they're there to to be helpful, you know, so they are being really helpful with it, but a lot of times like we don't hear about these problems because we're the only ones touching it. I would say in 90% of the cases, like uh the staff isn't coming back and actually checking it.

unknown 39:02

Right.

SPEAKER_05 39:03

But with this one, they're having to check it, you know, so often just because they're having problems. So we're getting a handle on it, but it's uh it's one of those things where we've all just kind of been like, wow, this is uh this is an 800-gallon gorilla spa here.

SPEAKER_01 39:16

That's life on the West Coast, everybody. Yeah, I know it's it's crazy. So gang. Uh we come to the end of our podcast for today. Uh as always, if you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or topics that we can do for y'all, send it to talkingpools at gmail.com and we'll take a look at it. And if we do use it on air, uh we'll send you a little thank you gift as as as a gift. That was a stupid way. Speak English. So Steven, have a great week. We'll talk about you later. Give my best to everybody out there. And thank you, everybody. Have a good week. Bye bye.