SWIMMINGPOOL INTERNATIONAL
The podcast from pool experts for everyone
SWIMMINGPOOL INTERNATIONAL
#8: We Group: From vision to concept to turnkey pool solutions - all under one roof - unique
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Swimming pool international, the swimming pool podcast.
SPEAKER_04A warm welcome to our international swimming pool podcast. In front of me sits Angela. Angela Herrmann, International Sales Manager at Bank Manufacturing in Germany.
SPEAKER_02And in front of me sits Michael, Michael Fisser, Export Manager at Fluvor Schmalenberger from Tubing in Germany. Hi Michael.
SPEAKER_04How are you today?
SPEAKER_02Oh very well. I had a great sleep, so that's the base of everything. And actually, I'm looking out of the window here and I see big I don't know if it's ferries or big ships. So it's a super beautiful site. So guess where we are?
SPEAKER_04We are actually in Sweden. We are sitting here with Emile and August Ehrmark from the Wii Group in Gothenburg. And we have some interesting topics to cover. And uh well, welcome to both of you. Thank you. Nice meeting you uh again. And um well, we've read uh and heard a lot about uh the company Wii Group, which is uh very well known in Europe, I could say. And um yeah, we are very interested uh in the history of the company, how it started, what made you uh set up this company, and uh tell me a little bit more about this, please, Mela.
SPEAKER_03A long story it could be then, but uh I try to keep it as short as as possible. In 1984, I was uh recruited into electronic company who were building uh measurement instruments for water. And they were doing it for uh pool water and uh and potable water and uh environmental water also. And after just a couple of years uh it developed, so it started to be an installation company for public pools, and uh that company is still working, it's the company Enviro today. I'm really proud of the development of the company, uh, even if I'm not a part of it any longer. Uh, we uh we were a small company in the 80s and uh struggle against the other bigger companies here in this region, and uh by a lot of work, it developed to be the biggest company in Sweden for that. Some of the other companies have disappeared by bankruptcy or they've been going in retirement or something like that. In the 90s, I left this industry and went over to a stock exchange company working with environmental questions all over the world, and I was entitled to be rep one of the representatives of good environment thinking in the 90s, working uh in South America, in South Europe, in here up in the northern countries, of course, and United States, not Asia so much, a little bit but not so much. And in the end of the 90s, uh we made a management buyout of this company together with some changes in the stock exchange and and new owners in in the company. And we transformed it in the 14th of November 1999 into a consultant company for environmental and pool business. And there we are today. We have uh developed uh that we we started with uh only engineers today. It is uh architects, engineers, uh economists, uh uh almost social workers I should say. And we have developed so we in the 2010 era. I what I know we were the biggest consultant company in this field in the world. And of course, we were the biggest in Sweden. And uh in in the nine uh 2019-2020 the market changed a little bit, and today I would guess it is ten companies of our structure in the market of the the Swedish market. And we work uh 80% we do is in Sweden and then 20% in other countries. So we work in Norway, we have been working in Thailand, in Russia, uh in Finland, Denmark, and Austria.
SPEAKER_02Maybe you can tell us a bit what you do, like where you start uh with the work, and uh you know the whole process of what you actually are doing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so we are basically a product management office uh for uh bath facilities, so it could be a spa or a wellness or a commercial uh public pool and so on. And everything starts with the uh facility study. So you do a pre-study for the project where you want to see the current situation of the um location, or if you have a bathhouse or something like that, you do uh needs and uh assessments, uh you do a market assessments, uh, and then you know what type of facility the customer needs. And after that, you go uh and do sketches and price assessments uh for the project, uh, and uh then you see the net operation of the uh facility. So basically, you're getting a um uh the market of what are you supposed to build to uh accommodate uh the needs for maybe the municipality or the customer in hand. Uh after that we go into the program documentation, uh which is more uh architectural uh designs, uh, where it's supposed to be located, how big it's supposed to be, uh you look a little bit more of uh the technical parts, what the square meters do you need to make the installations and so on. Uh and after that you go into the project planning documents, uh, which means uh you do a lot of uh LCCs and LCAs. Uh you look at the product, you maybe you have a 25 times uh 12.5 meters pool. You need to check how this is supposed to be run, how it's supposed to be the lifespan of it, how long is the facility going to stay. So you you know how how many filters you're gonna have, uh, you know how uh you're gonna do with the pumpings, and you know how you're gonna do with the construction of the pool as well. Uh after that we go into detail uh project planning, uh, which is the the planning of uh how it's supposed to get built that the constructor uh can take and build after. Um and it's everything from construction, architecture, uh installations and so on, uh heating, water, ventilation, uh electricians, and uh yeah, everything in between. Um when we've done that part, we're going into um uh subcontractors. So we we are finding the contractors that are going to do uh the contract. Often we do it in uh public tender. Uh so we go out, ask the market, uh, come in with a price, and we find out uh which one is uh going to make uh the installation. Either we go for uh general or we go uh in divided um uh constructions. So either we go with one or we can go with 32. Depends on the customers' um goals for the uh project. Uh and then we go uh into the construction part where you have the establishment, everybody comes there, maybe 100-200 people works at the site. Uh, we're doing the construction, um, and uh yeah, and then the facility is done. We cut the bands off, and uh we're planning on how are we going to work with this facility, how are we going to um uh establish a renovation and so on for it.
SPEAKER_04If I may go back a little bit to the beginning, especially the the very first part.
SPEAKER_01The first part, yeah.
SPEAKER_04When uh one uh perhaps it's sales people of your company that visit uh a potential client. How does this go? Uh do they together sit in in a room and say, okay, we have this pool, we are thinking of having some water features there, we want the 50 meters, it needs to be suitable for teaching swimming, for instance. How does this decision process go to the with a client? Because if eventually, in the end, it's the client that uh is uh is this decisive factor, I I assume.
SPEAKER_03But it will be divided if it's a renovation of a facility then it's uh it's not so much more to do than look at the laws, because then we have to fulfill the new laws. It was were maybe built in the 1960s and it's it has a lifespan of forty to fifty years. After that it's uh used so to speak. So if in that situation, and that is not the huge amount normally, it is new facilities. And then it part uh is often that they have an idea, the politicians, what they want to fulfill, of course they want to uh fulfill learning of swimming, that is uh number one. And then the next is uh getting the people to be healthy to uh to exercise and be in the movement of doing something. And according to uh checkups the the uh branch association is doing each year, about fifty-four percent of the inhibitants go to the public pool at least one time a year. 54%. Number two is the libraries, but 27%. So it is more people going to the public swimming hall here in Sweden than they do anything else together. If they have uh a lot of older people, then they want some relaxation, they want a sp a spa, maybe you call it relax we call it, that saunas and having time together. If we have um integration, a need of big integration, then we it will be a family bath, then it will be attraction, slides, and and so on. But the the basic is still the need of learning to swim and getting people to exercise. And then we have the sport coming in here. The sport is using the facilities depending on the region. 7 to 11 percent of the visitors are sport people the swimmers. And if they have a big volume of people in the sport it will be more sporty then it could be a 50 meters pool or something like that. Depending on how voy high vojs the sport organisations have. That will depend that will deflect what the politicians want. When we get all that material we have numbers how to kalculate for example the changing rooms. It is not the same changing room for each facility. It's depending on how they are going to use it. If it is baby swimming, for example, then we need special areas for that. If it is the swimmers, then we can get it much more narrow. So no project is like the next project, because it's depending on what the politicians want to get in there. And if they have been doing their job, they have been asking the inhibitants what they want. The only problem is that they normally go and ask them who are using the old facility, and the only thing that you will know then is what's not okay in that facility. So they should be in IKEA or the supermarket or something like that and ask old people. So but still, I understand the politicians: 54% of the inhibitants are using the facility, so they are quite uh satisfied with what they get.
SPEAKER_04But that means there could be a difference between uh municipalities that have more older people than uh where it's more the younger generations, it will have an effect on the design of the facility.
SPEAKER_01The the big part is uh in it is that uh customer that is uh ordering a bathhouse don't know what they are ordering because they've never done it before. So the important part for us that's done this uh 300 times or something like that is the market analysis. You got you go in and you watch what uh is the competition around, even for a municipality. So if they have a lot of water slides over there, maybe we're not gonna have water slides, maybe we're gonna have a wave pool instead or something like that, so you can attract people. And what Mill is saying as well is every stage of the pool facility is to get used to the water so you are able to swim. And in Sweden we are doing it with attractions, we are doing it with uh uh 25 times 12.5 pools, and so on and so on. So it's uh supposed to bring people to the water so they are comfortable when they are entering it, and you can do it in a water slide and you can do it by swimming. So the market analysis is the part where you decide what type of facility is it going to be. Then you go into the uh project planning uh documents and the detailed project planning where you decide you're actually gonna get this type of attraction, maybe a cobra or something like that.
SPEAKER_02So you can really convince also when you have done this analysis, you can can convince and say maybe here it would be better to do more, as you said, more water sliders or more attractions because people would be, you know, they would more take this than just go swimming, for example.
SPEAKER_01And and for a company like us, we are uh not partial of the installation because we are consultants. So when we are telling them it's a good part for you to bring this to the facility, we don't make any money of saying that. It's it's just it's a good thing, and we are not living in the municipality, so we are not partial to I want a water slide or I want a way pool or something like that. It's uh something that I'm probably not even going to visit because Sweden is uh approximately 1,600 uh case long so compared to Holland with 400 years.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. But but today we we we need to remember that we the society is changing, and we were doing mostly of the facilities in Sweden in pre after wartime up to 1975. Today, together with the the the everybody is afraid of it's going to be too much cost for inhibitants to live in on each site. But still, we need to learn to swim. So, what we believe is it's going to be Macpool in the future. It will be standardized, it will be smaller, it will just fulfill uh the the need that that they uh they really need to do. The the other parts with the with the slides and so on will probably disappear.
SPEAKER_01Not disappear, but it will take less space.
SPEAKER_03We have the need of having, if we should go back to the 1980s in Sweden, we have today 392 publi pools. Norway have 840 public pools, but they are smaller. And Finland have has about 320 public pools. In 1980s was 15,000 inhibitants per pool. Today it is 27,000 inhibitants per pool. So, what we we have to do is building more, and all of the old facilities is 80% is above 40 years old. I believe the figure is. If I should go back to the 15,000 inhibitors per pool. But it's only 68 of these who need to be X large. Where we have the 50 meters, or we have the slides or the wave machines or something like that. The the rest of them, the 550, really needs just uh a pool for education, exercise, and the swimmers to develop. It is fantastic when we make an Olympic and we get the gold medal, so we still want to be there. We are good swimmers in Sweden. Uh the Norwegian normally say Swedes are born with swim uh paddles, uh Norwegians are born with skis. Right, right, then yeah.
SPEAKER_02You actually said something when we were talking before, you said something very beautiful, I thought, because you said in a pool everybody meets on an equal level. No, so you can talk to people on an equal level, there's no distinction. Uh, this is one thing I I thought it was a nice thing, you know, to say that a pool is really a good place where people meet. And the other question I have is uh you were talking about history, which I found very interesting. What is actually the biggest change? Um, because you ha you can see a little bit back to today, what is like what do you think is the biggest change in this kind of field?
SPEAKER_03The biggest change today is uh that that the communities don't have money to develop, they just have to fulfill. So what we were doing in the eighties and nineties with building palaces of pools will not be there in the future. It will go back and will not be as uh nice to go to. So maybe we are not going to get fifty-four percent of the inhibitants to go to the pool. We it will maybe go down to forty percent, but still they will learn to swim. And as long as we learn to swim, we are saving money each day.
SPEAKER_02Why is that? I know why, because it explained, but maybe say it again. What's it?
SPEAKER_03The reason is quite simple. A drowning has a cost, direct cost for the society of 700,000 euros, one drowning. That is the cost of the society to take care of that. And if I have 2,000 people drowning, then you can calculate quite fast how much money that will be in the society cost. And if you go the other way and you take away that, that's an alternative cost. And that was something we were really good at in the 70s and 80s to calculate if we could get people not to kill each other, uh uh shoot on each other or whatever, destroying facilities, uh, what could we do with that money and what could we use to do that? And we did do that. We were doing that quite well. Unfortunately, today I I don't I don't believe a politician knows about alternative cost. They they only know about cost. What you find in the when we are in the process of building something, if I'm if today the society has a problem with the sewage treatment plants. They were built in the 60s and 70s, so they are old, and uh the amount of people have been more. And the cost, the cost of building a sewage treatment plant today is between 100 to 150 million euros. That's the cost. To build a pool facility with slides and who is in Interesting for the 54% to visit. The cost is about 40 to 50 million euros. The day they talk about building something for 150 million Euros, you will see a small notice in the press, and nobody is taking notice about it. It will cost 150 million Euros and nobody is talking about that. It's because they are not interested, they are not visiting it or anything. And then the next day we will build a swimming facility for 400 million 40 million euros, and that will be page up and page down of people commenting if this is correct. Are we using the money in the correct way and so on? So what we understand is that people love pools. And we should always remember that because then it's an interesting market we are into because we're doing something for the society.
SPEAKER_04Well, and so like you said, the spending is lots is a lot less, which we see uh across Europe, of course. Uh but one other thing that really fascinates me uh in the chain uh that you support is you with is the the business development part of it, is that where you also advise your client how you can run the pool, how to make money, how to get at least break-even on costs. Uh how does this work? Is this on uh things like energy consumption and and things like that as well?
SPEAKER_03Can you yeah a little bit? Yeah, just one thing. You can never get the cost and the income to be in the same level. It will always be a higher cost than the income you get from it when when you talk about direct income. You need to have the alternative cost income, then it will be profitable at once.
SPEAKER_01Food and beverage, um uh hotel nights, and so on. You you you can't make money just for the bathhouse. Uh you can't just put a bathhouse and think you're going to make a lot of money, you need to have everything else around it. So that's what he's saying. So, but basically for us, it's you when you're going into the planning, you're you're doing the market analysis to see if the product is good, uh, you're having the right type of pools, the right type of uh attractions, and so on. Um just uh Mille has an uh explaining that just if you put in a um a water slide with a loop, you're actually going to make money uh in the uh marketing way because everybody else is going to market you that you have uh a loop. Um so it's it's a lot of those things that you look at as well. But if if you're going into the uh facility, uh you are looking at um uh how we are going to uh construct uh the house and the pools and see how we can make it uh efficient uh with isolations, with windows, with the the concrete, uh or what type of uh installation you're going to make, and then you go in for the installation. And the installation in a bathhouse is basically like uh a body, everything needs to work together. You can't have uh good heart, bad lungs, that then it's not going to work. So it's the same with the bathhouse, you you need to have the water treatment good and the ventilation good, and um the energy consumption good, and so on, and you need to build it together uh like a big heating pump to make the most of uh out of it. And if you are able to do it in a good way, you're actually gonna uh uh save money in the long run because you're going to get uh a facility that is going to work uh a longer lifespan instead of a shorter one because we have a lot of chemicals, we have a lot of heat, we have a lot of moisture and stuff in in the air. And uh then uh you're actually also going to save money in the energy consumption because the water needs the heating and the ventilation needs heating as well. So in the the installation part is actually a big part uh here in Sweden, it's a big part in Europe basically. But in Sweden we are actually really good at it. Uh we are looking uh at it in a different perspective because the customer, uh the municipality or who it is, is actually putting um the project to uh be able to do the best installation able. So when I go in with my team to do the planning for the installation, they are actually asking me, do the best you can do, uh, instead of uh save me uh as much money as you can do.
SPEAKER_03I can add one thing is that people not n normally think about. We are up in the north, we have been having the winters of design temperature minus 25 degrees the last 100 years, probably 1000 years, but as long as we have been uh industrially doing things. And together with that, we have already solved a lot of uh environmental issues with our buildings that you probably a little bit south of Sweden and Norway and Finland are working with as new inventions. Uh when when I'm down listening to you the your professors and so on, and they talk about we have been doing this and and and I uh I I am fluidly speaking of German, so I all normally translate when I have a group, and all of a sudden I understand he's talking about something we were doing 30 years ago, because if we haven't been doing that, the facilities should have been closed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because the the the the southern part of Sweden is the warmest part of Sweden, and that's the northeast part of Germany so so it's a little bit different how uh how we design it and how we are working with it. But the the the the big part is you you need to look at everything, you can't just look at one particular uh part. And the architects need to do a good facility because people need to enter the facility. We need to fill it up, otherwise everything is down the drain.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_02You said like uh when you look at the the things you l um take the best products, right? And my question would be um when the how do you choose these best products? How do you they are specified? How does it work?
SPEAKER_01Uh so when when we are looking at uh what the uh type of installation we need to do, f first hand we need to see how are we going to make this work together. Uh it doesn't mean that we need some specific brand or anything like that. We just need to see the total installation at the beginning, what are the architects trying to accomplish, uh, what are the end customer uh feeling of the facility, uh and then the installation needs to work with this. Uh so that that's the first part. So just see how are the installations going to be. The second part is uh basically uh how long of a lifespan does the installation need to have. So if we are going to make a facility that's we are planning on, we are going to do a renovation or we are gonna rebuild it or we are going to expand it or something like that, we maybe want 10-15 years or something like that. That's one part, and then we have another part that is this is going to be for eternity. Like you understand, it doesn't work like that, but it uh our feeling that it's going to work for uh 25, 30, 35 years, then we need to uh look at different products. So uh what we know is it's uh the toughest environment for us to put in something. We have we have the chlorine, uh it's going to hurt the product, so we need to have the right quality, the the right thickness, and so on. Um and we and we know uh that it's a lot of energy and uh to make this facility work, and then we need to look how good is the product for what it's going to do. That's basically it. So the right materials and the right product in the right place for the situation you are planning for.
SPEAKER_03But it's a continuous development also. Remember the trichloramine we found uh really in the facilities in 2001. We were the first European country who found it as a problem. The the visitors were throwing up, the the the people working there were throwing up, and uh everything there doing a lot of measurements, and it took a year to find out this is trichloramine. Then we were getting a development of products because of that. And uh then we also up here in the north they made made a huge mistake of building uh physics. They were not doing the ventilation enough. For example, in Germany you have a technical paper that states that 30% of the ventilation should be fresh air, outdoor air. In Sweden we were running zero air. We believed that the the air was good enough internally, and it was the German company really who was running that. And and and that was just to save money because they you didn't understand that you were putting alive people into a building who went out to be a gas chamber instead. So today we when we read the the the law, what we have to do and so on, it's not allowed to do that way. So we are still developing the technology each day, I would say. And that will uh defect also the the the choice of products.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so and you have mentioned you have very strict laws uh of the water quality, which we don't even have in Germany like that.
SPEAKER_03No, you don't have it in Germany. Good enough.
SPEAKER_01I always say the German law states. So so so in Sweden we have uh um laws for uh the water quality and the ventilation quality basically. Uh then we have uh some uh laws that uh stipulates uh how the ventilation is supposed to work, how the uh heating are supposed to work, and uh how the isolation is to supposed to be able to resist and so on as well. But um basically it's uh what they are looking at when the facility is done, they're looking at the water and uh ventilation.
SPEAKER_04And nowadays I would assume also uh uh like in in in Germany in particular, heating up pump, uh heating up the pools is becoming since you are so such a let's say cold country, uh energy consumption on heating up or keeping the the pools at the right temperature, especially private pools, is it a topic here at all? In in Germany they said uh uh last year uh between uh for private pools, but uh it's just to uh to uh make a picture of the issue, you could not uh heat up warm up your pool between uh let's say October and March, uh which uh led to many new potential homeowners, uh pool uh homeowners who wanted a pool to say, okay, I will not do this because if I invest such a sum of money and in a year from now we cannot heat up the pool at all, I've nothing back from my environment. Uh is this a topic at all?
SPEAKER_03No, not yeah, we have the same problem. We are not building as many pools and private pools any longer. But the reason is not the legislation that we are not allowed to heat it up and so on, because that's your money. You you you can do what you want with your money. That's uh a little bit of German. Don't touch my home. My home is my castle. That's my castle. Yeah. But uh what happened is a lot of uh when I go to a dinner today, if I tell my neighbor I bought a new car with petrol, he will look at me as I'm an idiot. He he he don't he don't know a shit about electrical cars, but he believes because in the media it have told them that electrical car is good. He didn't ask me how long I'm going to drive this car. If I give him the answer, I will drive it f uh 500,000 kilometers before I uh put it away. Then all of a sudden, if he can calculate, he will understand yes, that's an environmentally friendly car with petrol, but he just believes he's going to run it for 80,000 kilometers and then he will throw it away to the next one. To buy a private pool today is a little bit the same situation. The neighbor don't appreciate that you are doing that. Because we everybody understands if I'm using more energy, I'm going to put more energy in the air and I will be a part of the guys who destroyed the earth. And I don't want to go into that topic, but that's the situation. And and also the cost of energy have rised. So to run the facility we get the problem. But of course, we are as the rest of Europe, we have we have a lot of water, but some areas we don't have that amount of water of fresh water. So then it's not allowed to fill the pools. So where I live, uh I live 60 kilometers south of Gatteborg. There on this Friday they stopped. You are not allowed to put water on the garden, you are not allowed to fill the the pool. We have not been allowed to wash the cars for a long time, so that we don't have to put in there, but we are not allowed to use water for anything else than uh surviving and showering. So I'm fresh.
SPEAKER_02I thought that would be the problem in Spain.
SPEAKER_03It is but it's France, it's local. It's depending on uh how much they have uh developed the the water treatment facility, how much water they can take out from that, and we have a problem. We were 8 million people 1980, we are eleven million people today, and uh I don't believe that they have uh expanded the water plants, the sewer plants, and so on with 30%. They I guess they are in the same situation as the pool is. So so it's nothing funny with that. And and then it's more legislation if it's if they are allowed to take out that groundwater. We have as many groundwater lakes as we have lakes above uh here in Sweden. We have more lakes in Sweden than they have in Finland. People believe that Finland is more, but we have more. I think it's 120,000 lakes. And these lakes are not connected to the groundwater, and the groundwater is not connected to each other. So but it depends on where they are allowed to take out that water.
SPEAKER_01But uh the legislation of not filling the pool or uh watering the garden is a shorter span than it is in Spain. So maybe it's for him he can't uh uh water his plants for one week, two weeks, three weeks, or something like that. Then he can start watering them once more.
SPEAKER_02Now I just really feel so sorry about you because you were like the country of what we see of wellness, you know, like we really see you had sauna, you're always there, and uh kind of like this kind of um yeah, I didn't I really didn't know that uh about this, but uh leads us to the question because we wanted to talk a little bit about the wellness also into the pool. Um, yeah, that you are really actually a big market of all these wellness features, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so it's uh in when you're getting into the project, uh you are looking at at how you're going to uh to do the attraction in the product. Uh so basically you're always going to have somewhere where you can uh uh swim and uh you can train, so it's maybe 25 times uh 12.5. Uh you're going to have uh uh an education, uh so uh maybe a pool with a movable floor or something like that, and then you're gonna have some type of attraction, and then you are looking at uh what kind of uh people do we want to attract the small ones, maybe one-year-olds up to three, four, and then we are looking at how we're going to attract the five-year-olds, six-year-olds, seven, eight, nine, and then how we're gonna attract above that. So that's how we decide. So maybe you're getting a uh just uh a small kids pool, and you're going to have the um uh the attractions in that one, or you're going to do more of a family pool. So you're getting uh uh canal, you're getting uh like a cobra, you're getting uh massage nozzles and stuff like that, and that that's just the attraction parts, the bringing people to the water, and um every everything is fun when you're working with that. It's always fun.
SPEAKER_03It's a little bit also uh you were into that. We we are trying to advise our customers how to use the facility. And uh if we have 100% usage of a public pool facility, that is one hundred and eight hours a week. That is what the maximum we can get out. If they want to have it one hundred and eight hours a week, then they have to add things that attract people on time where it's not normal. So so it is adding into the 108 hours. If you you if you're a good politician, you want to get out 100% effect effect of your investment. That is 108 hours a week. And then it's not good enough with a 25-meter pool. That will not be 108 hours usage.
SPEAKER_01So so if I would go with my family, I wouldn't just go to uh 25 meters pool. I want something else, I want something to splash around and uh happening and um waterslide or massage or anything like that. So it's a cultural thing that we are working with it and it's uh it's there, it's always there in every project. So you're always discussing it in every project. How are we going to do the traction for this uh kind of facility? And then money talks.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so so then uh I was a little bit under the wrong impression. Uh I actually also talked about this topic with my my wife, and she said, You I said, uh wellness is much more a thing in Swedish schools than it's anywhere in the world, in my opinion, in public schools. So she she asked me, does it have have anything to do with uh the the Swedish traditional things with uh with saunas and stuff like we don't have? But now I understand it's also very much an economical decision, yeah. And fulfilling these 108 hours or uh so it's not just about Swedish people uh loving wellness so much more, it is about uh return on investment.
SPEAKER_03People don't know this, but in Germany, we go to Germany to experience saunas.
SPEAKER_05Really?
SPEAKER_03Because Germany has much better saunas than we have. We have the sauna as a culture thing at home. Right. In our facility, our house, and so on. In the in the 60s and 70s, you couldn't build a private house without a sauna.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You you really needed that. But that was a bench, three persons sitting there, it was hot and we were sweating. It was fun. Yeah, but I will not go into what fun I had is. No, no. But in the public pools, that's a quite big decision because uh you also believe that we Swedes like to be naked and so on. No, no, no, no, no. We are afraid for that. We want to have a lot of clothes on us if it's a male and female in the same situation. Uh that's only when we have been drinking a lot we will be. Naked. Right. So all prejudice. Yeah, so I believe you are much better in Germany than we are. And you have developed it much more. But what we are doing with it is more of the physician uh question, the medicine question about saunas. There we know much more, and we know that taking a sauna is equal to go out running. For the body, it's the same thing.
SPEAKER_01But um the cultural part, uh, as we talked about earlier, Sweden is really really long. We got the Arctic climate uh climate up north. There is more of a cultural thing, uh, there is always going to be some kind of sauna uh uh for that part. So that that's what the end customer is expect expecting it to be.
SPEAKER_04And does this also mean that up north they put more uh uh attractions, water features in the pools than in the south?
SPEAKER_01No, no, but uh but but uh for for the sauna it's more important there. The the sauna is always going to get installed one way or another. Uh basically, if it's just going to be a 16 times uh four-meter pool, you're gonna build in the sauna as well.
SPEAKER_03But it's not a relaxation part, it's a sauna, it's a hygienic sauna. So you you it's two different things.
SPEAKER_02So you think like in Germany we have more different kinds, no? There are all kinds of sauna.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and you you you have it as as uh something you you want to go to. In Sweden you go to the sauna to get clean.
SPEAKER_01In in Germany I went to sauna, which uh I think it's called Bakker Bakerbruschen. Baker Bakerbruschen. You go in and you sit sit in a hot oven, someone comes in with a piece of bread, they are cooking the bread and then they are serving the bread. In Munich have that. So it's incredible, but that that's an attraction. Yeah, uh, it's not the it's not the sauna, just the sauna, it's something else besides just the sauna.
SPEAKER_04So one other thing I would also like to ask you is uh is something I uh notice on your website, which is called certification. Comparing pools with others for the clients. Uh, the the way you say it is uh our certification service means that you get a comparison between your pool and other swimming uh facilities and a picture of how well your business operation compared to others, and then you have a certain certification standard for this. Uh I assume you do this before uh when you are doing the business development plan. Uh I I didn't really understand.
SPEAKER_01I think Google Translate uh did it a little bit wrong. It's it's not a cer certification like a certification from the government or something like that. It's I I think the part of that is more that we uh can go inside to a facility and look how how good is your facility, comparison to how many people is going to visit it, what what does the people actually want, what they are expecting, uh and so on. So if you have an old facility uh and you're going to renovate it, maybe you can do some small changes to get the traction more uh to the facility and something like that. So I think Google Translate uh hurt us a little bit on that translation.
SPEAKER_03But you have one more thing, and that is we are uh inspecting uh facilities that they are fulfilling the uh EN standard 15288-2.
SPEAKER_04Yes, that's what it says.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and that we do, and that then they get a certificate that they are fulfilling that, so if there will be an accident or something, they can show we are following the European norm of safety. Yeah, and normally the the media goes home then because the if the the media want to find some someone who have made a failure so they can blame someone. And if you have have this checked up that the you are fulfilling it, you have control of your staff, you have control of your equipment, and so on, that that's uh what what we do. So we have some facilities who have fulfilled that, and they uh the people are more satisfied, the owners are more satisfied, and the owners is always communities here in Sweden.
SPEAKER_04Yes, yes, and I I understand that. And uh uh one other question I have which is not uh uh uh well which I also found uh very typical of Scandinavia or Sweden, I should say. In many European countries, people are afraid to put stainless steel in like cobras, like water curtains and they just don't do it. They go for uh carbon fiber. Carbon fiber. Uh is there a specific reason for for uh water features and attractions, or is it just looks nice, or is it more hygienic? Uh is there something behind it?
SPEAKER_01It's it's a good product if you're doing it right.
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_01So it's a really, really good product if you're doing it right. Uh, and uh doing it the right way is that you are using the right materials. That's uh the the first part, and the other part is that you are doing the installation uh uh really good, so you're not getting it in contact with some other materials and stuff like that, so it starts to uh create, uh, and then you take care of the product as well. But it's a hard installation because you need to be really thorough when you're doing the installation. So the contractor that's going to do the installation they need really need to understand what they are doing, and uh the facility also reads and really needs to understand what they are doing with the product as well, so they are not bringing in uh some uh other products uh to the water and stuff that you're getting the correlation because you are having weights that are black metal and you're putting it uh down on the floor or something like that, then it starts starts to create. So it's a really good product if you are uh you know what you are doing and you are doing the installation in the right way.
SPEAKER_03And a good example of that was uh we were using the the United States standard 316 L for material. That's a lousy standard because it's so wide that you can do different kinds of stainless steel into that standard. So now we have new standards, European standards, that are more narrow. So if you make a specific specification of one material, you will get the correct material. If you just make the the 316 L, you can get garbage because it's possible to have it, it's it's fulfilling the 316L, and and that's not the correct one to use in this kind of facilities.
SPEAKER_01So it's basically like if you're baking a cake and you're either following a recipe, exactly what you're going to do, or you do the 36L, that is something like this. You're getting uh uh the something like this in water, something like this in uh uh wheat or something. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Well in Germany they have something called uh V4A or V4A, which is even broader, yeah. And that is and so then uh and so if our we have a supplier that says, Well, we offer four we don't want that. Yeah, we want 316 Ti, for instance. And uh otherwise, okay. But it but it seemed like that was actually the background of my question, that it's uh it's more not a cultural thing, but like almost like people love stainless steel here more than they do go south.
SPEAKER_03But that but that's we we are we are a uh iron country. Yes. We are really an iron country. We we we have uh uh two and a half billion euros a year in income to the government just from our mine up in Kirna.
SPEAKER_01But but the architectural thing is uh also something you need to look at. So if if you are bringing a cobra, for example, it's really when you're getting it in um uh stainless steel, you're getting it really thin, you can um get it really narrow, so you're getting the Scandinavian touch of it. So the architects are more used to work with that kind of product instead of maybe getting a carbon fiber, and that's maybe getting a little bit more volume, getting a little bit uh another shape, and so on. So it's the structural part of the um stainless steel you can do a little bit different comparison to something else, and the textural part is used to work with that.
SPEAKER_03But we don't like it in pools. We don't want the pools to be in stainless steel. No, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_04I'm talking about the attractions and water features and uh so um is there anything uh we've covered a lot of uh topics, very interesting, I must say. And uh is there uh do you have more questions, Angela?
SPEAKER_02No, but I have learned a lot, and we always ask us uh what have we learned? And I have learned, I mean, that you actually go to the sauna and go to Germany, which I found that most surprising. And but I have learned a lot of things also, to be honest, from from the history and how it has developed, uh, how you start from the scratch until you really hand over and cut the ribbon, and uh how you how the whole process of this uh consulting is going. And yeah, it was a for me a very uh interesting talk. Yes, yes, really for me as well. Thank you.
SPEAKER_04Is there anything uh one of you would like to add?
SPEAKER_03The reason the company exists is because I'm crazy. And you don't find any other consultant company who have the majority of the people working there working with pools. They work with uh uh family houses, they work with uh schools, they work with shops, industry, whatever, and some of them are working with pools. Uh, I think that 80% of the 39 employees here is working daily and solely with pools.
SPEAKER_04Right. Yeah, that's what I understood.
SPEAKER_03But that's because I'm crazy, because I I believe the the deeper you can go into a question, the better you can be and you can give away. My father, for example, was the inventor of three-point bay uh safety belt, uh, and he was uh asked up to the the manager of Volvo uh when he had made that invention in 1957. Niels, what do you want to have for this? Nothing. I have been doing my job. And I believe that was is a bit of the culture I've been raised with. So what we do normally is giving away information before we earn money, and that means we don't earn so much money.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but it it's it's uh it's a hard question to uh make the uh hardest uh building uh for the municipality so you can't do everything. You need to look at something, and here we look at uh bathhouses.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Thank you. Well, thank you very much, and uh I will end uh with uh you can write us with any comments or questions at mail at swimming pool minus podcast.com. Goodbye. Gracias, yeah, messy, thank you well.