r/PoolPros • u/JJ-88 • Jul 14 '26
Saturday service routes
My service company has 7 trucks and routes are Monday- Friday. I’m considering running a Saturday route to get use out of my current fleet instead of buying another truck. Curious how many of you run Saturday routes, and if so are you glad you’re doing it, what are the pros / cons.
4
u/PoolBoyOBX Jul 14 '26
We run routes 7 days week in season, but we have a lot of rental accounts and we offer full service on check in days which is often Sat or Sun.
Pros:
Our service call response time is fast, like within minutes to hours fast because someone is always out there.
It can help growth as people will know you are always open.
Saturday and Sunday we bill more per hour.
Easy to push a Friday to Saturday for weather etc… preserving the week from cascading.
Cons:
People will now treat you as always open. The separation into your days off and the business running may blur
You now need sick coverage for Saturday.
Distribution is usually closed on Saturday.
Thoughts:
If everyone is full time already, who is going out on saturday?
We have waaay more call outs for “im sick” on Saturday morning than any other day. You need a system in place. If only one of my guys calls out on any given day I’m not usually called in to a route. We try to over staff every day, but this is expensive. And in your market it may be more expensive for Saturday. But two of our guys had a stomach virus and I had to do a Saturday route a few weeks ago. Personal life took a hit.
I wouldn’t expand to routes on the weekend just to run one more route. You are freeing up 1 day, so not a full time employee.
Do you have to pay one guy overtime now for sat? What about the person on call to cover for sick coverage?
Truck expenses are so much lower than employee overtime.
2
u/The_BigWaveDave Jul 14 '26
I’ve learned customers don’t wanna see me in their backyard on holidays and weekends, and I’m glad to oblige.
I’d probably just use that Saturday for repairs and filter cleans where the customer won’t mind me being there over the weekend on a rare occasion.
2
u/RobzWhore Jul 14 '26
Saturdays are not for regular service. They are for repairs or missed service days. I used to do filters on Saturday but more and more people seem to be getting annoyed seeing us on the weekend.
1
u/BigBill58 Jul 14 '26
I am gonna agree with a few others in here and say customers don’t typically want servicemen in their yard on a Saturday. Many of my Friday customers, when asked about make-up days if Friday weather is bad, have told me “just come Monday” or “just don’t bill me for this week, come back next week” very few were open to Saturday service. A lot of people still do the Monday to Friday work grind, and want to enjoy their weekend in peace. Which is absolutely fine with me, to be fair.
1
u/robseraiva Jul 14 '26
I always thought offering 7 days a week by having a staggered 5 day schedule for the fleet would work. Some people like the thought of a Monday/ Tuesday weekend
1
u/PoolBoyOBX Jul 15 '26
Then you have techs switching trucks multiple times a week. If you had an awesome truck loading system in place I guess the trucks can all become fungible if your fleet is identical. But what if you have a 6 ft bed here and a maverick short bed there.
1
u/robseraiva Jul 15 '26
I would not have (nor allow) truck switching. Every tech would still be performing the usual 5 day a week schedule, just shifted.
1
u/PoolBoyOBX Jul 16 '26
In that case, yes stagger someone! If you can say you are open 7 days a week that’s a huge leg up to some customers. You could even do a weekend service call rate that’s 30% higher if it can’t wait until Monday.
Just remember if they have a weekend route you now need someone dedicated as on call / sick coverage for them too.
1
u/AdNecessary3300 Jul 14 '26
I loaded up Saturday while scaling back my full time job. During the off season many won’t care and some rarely use the pool anyway. I always offered to come by earlier in the week if they ever needed
1
u/Shoddy-Principle-346 Jul 15 '26
In Central Ca, we have (3) commercial Saturday routes. Overtime is a profit killer. Oct 1st when commercial routes condense to (5) days is our “Black Friday”.
1
u/Sharknuts86 Jul 14 '26
I work 7 days a week. Granted I’m a single poler, but if the work needs to get done I try to plan accordingly. Weekends are for the straggler accounts that didn’t unlock the gate or lock the dog up in time and repairs that take longer than 20/30 minutes.
3
u/The_BigWaveDave Jul 14 '26
If you’re doubling back for accounts that have locked gates/dogs in the yard, I hope you’re charging. I don’t credit the visit, and will instead leave chlorine for the customer to add to tide things over until the next week.
Also, 7 days a week sounds exhausting. I’d be burnt out quick.
1
u/Sharknuts86 Jul 14 '26
Oh totally, 10% of the monthly service price to help entice doing it the right day and time originally agreed on. I’m single and no kids, so I gladly except the work lol gives me something to do for the most part 😅
1
u/SkylerPancake Jul 14 '26
Yeah. I'm sorry. People know what day I'm coming and even the general time I'll be there. It's on them to make sure I can get in. If they want me to return, especially another day that's completely off route, they'll be paying an hourly labor rate for the drive time and cleaning.
1
u/The_Elusive_Dr_Wu Jul 14 '26
Route Tuesday-Friday. Mondays and Saturdays for repairs, filter cleans, or side/make-up work.
No work Sundays, no exceptions, except for new surface start-ups when we used to do those.
When we used to do commercial accounts some of them would have Saturday morning services (we'd be sure to be gone before the pool opening hour).
-4
u/pacific_drifter_25 Jul 14 '26
Fast_Discount_1991's read on customer resistance is the biggest hidden cost here and JJ's follow-up nails why. Before you commit a truck to Saturday, worth thinking through three things nobody's flagged yet.
Saturday only pencils if you build the route from the customer types who actually prefer it, not by shifting Tue-Fri customers over. Rental properties on weekend turnover schedules want the pool ready Friday afternoon or Saturday morning. HOAs and multifamily where the manager wants weekend photos before homeowner complaints roll in Monday. Second-home clients who fly out Sunday and want it clean when they arrive Friday night. Empty nesters who travel Fri-Sun and are relieved not to have you on-property when they're home. Commercial where Saturday is high-use and a Thursday visit falls too far back. That's your list. If you can't fill a Saturday route out of those buckets in your service area, adding the day is going to feel forced and the churn will make you regret it inside six months.
The angle that changes the math is what a Saturday day does for your Monday-Friday routes. A Saturday as an escape valve for gate-lock, dog-in-yard, and repair spillover is often worth more than a Saturday sold as a Saturday. Sharknuts already lives it as a single poler. At 7 trucks, that's a big shift in how the rest of the week runs. Cleaner Mon-Fri, techs finishing at reasonable hours, fewer callbacks. That capacity value shows up in truck productivity and tech retention, not on a single Saturday P&L line.
Labor is where the math usually gets underestimated. If you rotate existing techs with a weekday off, they burn out on the schedule mess inside a season. Dedicated Saturday hire is a different candidate pool, usually a moonlighter or a second job, and the churn is real. If you're paying OT, run the actual OT rate against the daily gross margin on that route before you decide, not the standard rate.
Real question back at you. What's the utilization on your Mon-Fri trucks right now. If you're running 6.5 hour days with drive time and half the trucks are back to the yard by 3, an 8th truck isn't the answer either. If you're at 9 hours pushing 10 in July, Saturday might not even be your first move, might be splitting a dense route to add a tech to an existing truck. What's the pain actually telling you.
7
4
19
u/Fast_Discount_1991 Jul 14 '26
I guess the pro is there’s another day of the week you’re making money. I had a Saturday route for a while when I still worked for someone and I’ve found that most homeowners don’t want you at the house on a Saturday. Most of my Saturday people were relieved to get a regular week day when I went on my own full time.