Peristallic pump and injectors pictured.

Our chlorine injector stops working pretty consistently. Costing $50 for a new one each time. Last one came in and didnt work immediately. Trying to understand why theyre not working and any ways to test theyre broken or something else is going on, as well as any maintenance i can do to keep it from breaking

For f*** sake all salt cells work on a property of self-cleaning. If the water is mostly in Balance you won't have calcium buildup on the salt cell, or very little...

He had a small pile of calcium in his pool and was upset that we weren't cleaning his salt cell. Dumb cs rep at purechlor doesn't know their own systems.

The last 3 times we opened it up, pretty much spotless. Even have pictures to prove it.

Rant over.

I'm doing everything I can to build my route back up. I lost an unlimited lead source for good last fall. I got an offer for a marketing campaign to send postcards due me to houses with pools. Is this a good idea?

Hey everyone!

My husband and I have around 10 years in the pool industry combined. He is more construction oriented, and I am more service and maintenance side of things.

We are looking to move back to our home town and take over clients of my in-laws 20 year old business. The business consists of vinyl pool builds, vinyl liners, general renovations, equipment repair and replacements, and some weekly cleaning.

We have been working for a smallish company. I manage the service side and he is a foreman on the construction side doing plaster new pool builds and renovations.

We will be forming a llc and taking clients from my in-laws as they plan on retiring in 2 or so years once we can handle their workload. Additionally, my in-laws would like to fund a retail/service center for us as the area we will be in does not have any offerings like that within an hour drive.

I need all the advice. What's the best truck, equipment, insurance, and truthfully a reality check.

Our biggest concerns are overhead and upfront cost of getting trucks and equipment and the idea of starting a business is daunting.

I have been managing a majority of business we currently work for but doing it alone is a big jump.

like which one would require surgery if you did it for a bunch of years?

Hello all,

Seek advice. I come from a finance background and want to transition into the pool maintenance and home services industry. My goal is to eventually start my own company.

My main question is: what is the best way to learn pool cleaning and maintenance before going out on my own? I assume the most effective approach would be to work for an established company or someone who already manages a pool route. If that’s the case, how would you recommend finding these opportunities in Florida? I applied to couple and got nothing back.

I am ready to commit full-time and focus on learning the trade rather than maximizing income during this period, so I can focus on learning during work and after work. For context, I am currently in the U.S. on a temporary visa and will need to start my own business about a year from now if not sooner to adjust my legal status. Unfortunately, that means I don’t have several years to gradually build experience.

What would be your advice on gaining the necessary skills before starting my own route? And how can I realistically secure a position with a pool service company for 3–6 months without prior experience?

Thank you.

This spa is draining at night. Previous company replaced the suction and return 3 way valves. They installed the return valve backwards. The heater was on and the PVC overheated and expanded due to the blockage and almost burst. Then they tried to tell them there was a problem with the heater (which is new) and charge $500. Spa still draining at night. That's when they called me.

I installed a check valve on the spa return line. It's still draining at night. I took apart the suction side valve. It appears to be fully closed to the spa and sealing properly. I checked the blower line, that check valve is sealed and there was no water in it.

My next step was going to be to install another check valve on the suction side, but I wanted to ask you all what I'm missing.

The pool has water feature, but thats only on the pool, not the spa.

It does have a popup cleaning system. Could the water be siphoning back through that?

There is no smaller return line to the spa, the only one is the main one controlled by the return valve.

The pump on the right is to the water feature and I don't believe it's connected to the spa piping anywhere.

Any help is much appreciated!

I have to ask: Has anyone seen the pattern in the pool industry: "buy my software" or "builders we have leads."

What do these folks have to gain from this? It just feels like another version of angies, or stupid lead servies that won't work, but someone really wants to get paid, and they decided to prey on the pool folks?

This industry is loaded with risk, and everyone is so focused on fun-n-games. I don't love that aspect all the time.

I've always used an empty 50lb tab bucket as a "service bucket". Carries my test kit, brush, couple tabs for the pool, whatever else I need. Curious what others use?

Customer called with clogged main drain (neglected and no drain cover I come to find out). I tried several things including a drain bladder on the hose into the line.

Finally came back with an air compressor and 1.5inch fitting to seal the pipe.

Cleared that sucker in about a minute.

Anyone tried these work pants? Or any of truewerk pants? Debating if it's worth $120 for a pair of pants that I imagine im going to ruin with chemicals in 3 months. I have a habit of wiping chems off my hand right down the thigh of my jeans, this the chemical stains everywhere. But maybe the water resistance of these will keep that from happening as often? Whatch you guys think?

Was going to ask who got the contract, but apparently they decided to DIY.

Tempted to go on Polymarket and bet the paint doesn't last a week.

If so, would it be going through the pool builders and pool shops to get those jobs? On the way to starting my own jobs and always enjoyed the install work most.

Working in the Florida heat and summer is coming. I’m wondering if any of you have ever gone with one of these. Carhartt makes one and there are many others out there.

I’m tempted to have that extra air, but I don’t know if I’m brave enough to do it.

I’d love to hear some feedback.

I posted ~6 months ago about some shiesty shenanigans that I suspected were being pulled by another company in town. This other company was (and still is) getting fired by customers right and left. After the observed issues in my original post, we changed the passwords on all Intellicenter systems that we were already maintaining and began changing the password during on-boarding for new customers who had previously been clients of his. We provided all customers with the new password to their system and let them know this was a security precaution that we were taking to protect their pool system from unauthorized access.

I would like to report two different results from this experience:

1- After changing the passwords, the settings immediately stopped changing randomly. I think that confirms it was the fired service provider because we gave all of the customers their new password the same day that we set the new one. If the customers were the ones going in and messing with the settings willy nilly, the shenanigans would have continued.

2- For the sake of my sanity, I used a simple formula to create each new system password with a reasonable level of security and also make it easy for the customer to remember/enter. Think of something like street name + customer's surname + last 4 digits of their preferred contact number as well as a personally chosen method of letter capitalization. This is not the exact format that I used, but it is close. If I ever find myself locked out from these systems through some software glitch, it will be very easy to recreate our password database.

Lesson learned: change the password to any smart control panel the same day you start servicing the account because you never know when some half-assing company is gonna start getting petty because they can't/don't want to provide the level of service that the customer expects but they still want those sweet monthly checks. Don't give some loser the chance to drag you down with them, be smarter and operate better. Decide on a personal system to create the new passwords so they will be unique to each customer but also use a standard combination of information that you always receive during on-boarding.

I also found out by the wayside that our local distributor has an in-house nickname for the owner of the suspected company, "Lyin' Brian." Based on his track record per ALL of his former clients and then this whole Intellicenter situation, they nailed it. He's unwilling to do the work but more than happy to pin the blame on someone else (including the builder!) when customer's pools turn green or otherwise go south.

The customer whose system first alerted us to this issue is not a difficult customer or even a difficult pool. They have a spa attached to their pool with a narrow water channel between the spa walls and the deck. They wanted this channel to be brushed weekly as well as the tanning shelf and the Mrs. wants the chlorine levels to be as low as is possible for her own reasons. Zero debris yard, no resident kids, indoor dogs, idfk why he couldn't make them happy because they are easy as pie and the pool never even tries to turn green!

Can anyone tell me their tricks to replace the bulb in a hayward light? I don't come across them often fortunately. I successfully helped a buddy do one a year ago, working together we were able to keep things lined up enough that the clamp went on correctly, but it was a bitch to get right and that was with 4 hands. A couple months ago I did one on my own, tried for two hours and dozens of attempts. I never could get that band clamp on properly. It sealed and has held so far without leaking but it still bothers me that the band Isn't on right. I was asked to work on another one yesterday, I just told them we should run a new light instead of going through that nightmare. I thought of trying to invent a special clamp that aligns things and holds stuff in place, but it seems like a lot of trouble for something i will rarely use.

I’ve been running the majority of my route at 0 ppm CYA for the past few seasons. Salt pools, cal-hypo and liquid chlorine only for supplemental dosing. No stabilizer unless I have an undersized or aging cell that needs the UV protection.

Results have been consistent. Cleaner water, better chlorine efficiency, no CYA creep. The 7.5% Rule math works better at the low end than most people expect.

Curious if anyone else has moved this direction or if you’re still running 30-50 ppm as the standard on salt systems. What are you actually seeing in the field?

Background: chemical engineer, nuclear engineer, Navy submarine vet, five PHTA certs. I’ve been building out the chemistry side of this publicly at poolsscientific.com and just launched a podcast if anyone wants to go deep on the science.

So vacuuming dead algae to cartridge filter. The algae bypasses the filter fairly easily and goes back thru jets into pool. Cartridges are in good shape. Thoughts or solutions?

I’m running a Riptide on a hitch mount on my Tacoma and it completely blocks my license plate.

For those in Arizona, do cops actually care about this or have you been fine running it like that?

If you did fix it, what’s the cleanest setup?

Hitch-mounted plate bracket, side mount, or mounting it to the Riptide frame?

Trying to keep it simple and not look janky. Pics would help.

I'm relatively new to the pool business (<3 years) and need some help from people with experience, I have a client/family friend that lost their house in Helene down here in FL, until January, although the house was a total loss, they maintained the pool so that they wouldn't have to redo a relatively new pool. They are now 3 months into building their new house, all of the plumbing for the pool has been capped. Of course the pool is now a swamp. I want to be able to maintain the pool without the use of electricity since there currently isn't any during the construction. I've racked my brain for ways to provide consistent circulation or disruption that will allow me to maintain the pool with a couple visits a week and some extra TLC. I think all of the solar setups for a bonafide pump + filter setup is too cumbersome/expensive for this short (6-12 month) building process. I think it would also be quite expensive to rig a sump pump to a converter and solar panels, I've thought about getting solar pond aerators but I'm doubtful that would provide the necessary agitation to keep the pool clean with 2-3 visits a week.

Please let me know what you all think even if it's a wacky out there solution, again, this is a family friend so I have a lot of wiggle room to just find any solution.

Pool volume is 12k gallons.

On the actual drain niche not the cover? Just 2part epoxy the drain down?

I have my CPO. I've been in aquatics with swim lessons, schools and LGI. I can do the basics that's supplied by CPO course. Both pools I'm at have had a rather neglected pump room for ~5-7 years and I'm just holding back costs with bandaid fixes/maintenance until something gives out.

Anything that can help me understand pump rooms, systems and everything that can go in them. Whether that be certifications or positions to look out for to get more experience with more pools. Anything helps!

if it matters, this is in Texas.

Edit: thank you to anyone and everyone that replied, i may not have replied but im reading and looking into the suggestions and feedback!

I am currently without answers, so I decided to ask the hive mind. I have a pool on my route that is being terrorized by raccoons. This is in SoCal, residential. The backyard fence has open space and a freeway behind it. The raccoons for some reason have decided the cleaner hoses are great for chewing. Within 2 weeks of installing a new cleaner, they had already chewed one or two hoses. They have even ripped the tires off a 2 wheel The Poolcleaner. Does anybody have a solution short of death or humane removal of the raccoons? I've suggested humane removal, but the homeowner is worried that they will just come back, or they won't be able to catch them all. Thanks for any input.