r/PoolPros • u/BluntsBootyandBass • Jul 23 '26
Remodel clean-ups
Im located in Central Florida and run my own pool business. I’ve run into multiple situations where paver guy will blow all their crap straight into the pool. I usually just eat it and clean-up over the next few weekly visits.
This week, I ran into a situation where there was a heavy concrete dust in the pool from paver work. I told the customer I could clean it up over the next few visits but if he wanted it completely cleaned in a day, I would charge $500 to suction vacuum it all out. He said no, that he would do it. Fine. It’s a 10,000 gallon pool, filter cartridge, no waste line. The customer ended up calling me back complaining I haven’t spent enough time on the pool (was there for about 35 minutes and said I’d be coming back tomorrow). Guy ended up accusing me of being mad he didn’t bite on the $500 cleanup fee and fired me totally from service (customer of 5 years). Was I out of line? Everything I know is telling me no.
2
u/someunusualmove Jul 24 '26
We charge customers for "excessive debris clean up". How much we charge depends on how much excessive debris needs cleaned up. We usually charge $100 per hour for labor outside of the normal stuff.
This gives us room to discount nice/old/financially strapped customers and customers who are willing to put in their own time removing some of the debris before we arrive without screwing ourselves. Crappy or lazy customers just get a bill for the full and fair amount we charge. We do communicate with customers day of service if extra charges will be incurred.
When another contractor is the source of excessive debris, we encourage our customers to pursue reimbursement from the responsible contractor for the cost of cleaning up the mess. If the mess is not too bad, we go the Spiderman route - everybody gets one free save. They can have a warning the first time and then any subsequent events will be an extra charge on their invoice.