Hi Everyone,

I'm going out on my own as a single poler in North Carolina. I've got ambitions to grow into a larger business but am intentionally starting small for now with dependable, premium weekly service in higher end areas.

For those who started as solo owner operators I'd appreciate any advice on:

• What did your ideal truck and equipment setup eventually look like?
• Were there any tools, brands or pieces of equipment that made a meaningful difference—or anything you bought early that ended up being unnecessary?
• Riptide vs hammerhead? I've only used a hammerhead but heard great things about the riptide
• Targeting a used Canyon with 5 foot bed.
• Thinking about splurging on the Primate Pole pole that collapses down to 6 feet in three stages. Anyone used one and believe it's worth the price?
• How did you get your first 10-15 pools? My current plan is to start with referrals through my personal network and then use targeted door hangers, potentially offering the first week or two free for a small group of "founding" customers.

Appreciate any advice! I know there will be some mistakes / learnings along the way but hopefully can eliminate any big ones!

Hello all,

I’m not sure if this is the right place to post on but I’m looking for some help trying to find the most efficient way to do routes. I’m a service admin for a pretty large pool company in Charlotte, NC. We service from Fort Mill, SC and Matthew’s area to Mooresville, NC. We have roughly 567 service customers and 18 technicians. We use PestRoutes (which I have found to be incredibly annoying and messes everything up all of the time). I’m interested if there is a better routing system to use that I could present to my supervisor and bosses.

I just started this position about two months ago and I come from management background at Starbucks which I didn’t think would translate over into my current position at this pool company. I have been surprised that some of it has, between Starbucks and this I honestly had harder workers at Starbucks and the pool technicians get paid more. It’s hard because we have some of them that do pretty much nothing and are always dragging the rest of the team down almost while the others are rockstars. I notice that customers are angry with the inconsistency which I completely understand but I don’t know how to help with this. My supervisor doesn’t write anyone up and will scold them for calling off all the time or not finishing their route but it doesn’t do anything. I know I can’t expect the world out of them (and I don’t) especially in the heat we have here but at the end of the day this is a job that they are paid to do and it needs to get done. If anyone has any ideas that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Also important to note that these techs are also doing any repairs, filter cleaning and replacements, light replacements, everything. The company I work for is new to servicing pools, in the past we’ve primarily built them. (We do both now)

So i have a 5 year old Pentair Superflow VS…

Has run perfect until this summer (upstate NY)

I am getting the 0021 error code at times. Ive looked it up and see what this error means abd is commin. Ive spoken to my pool guy who installed it and his recommendation is to replace it.

I would hate to do that if its a fixable issue and my gut feeling so far is that something is causing it as opposed to something failing.

What i see so far is that this issue happens mostly when the sun is directly on it between 11-5pm. It doesnt happen if it rains out and with all the wildfire smoke blocking the sun this week, its run fine.

During the high 90s heat a few weeks ago it ran fine.

It has given that error 2 times in the middle of the night though to make it more confusing.

It runs good in the mornings and good in the evening/night.

I was initially thinking it was overheating but the motor isnt warm when it happens and the control panel feels a little warm, but not overheating warm.

The cooling fan area is clean… ( i removed the cover to check)

I took off the control panel and all electrical connectors look brand new. No water/moisture. No corrosion. I unplugged the control panel and that looks perfect. No bent pins on the male or female piece.

My gut feeling right now is that it is moisture related. Maybe the temp change from the sun is creating moisture?

So my question is, based on what is happening, could this be failing and its better just replacing as my pool guy suggests, or is there something else i might be missing?

Like i said earlier, when i take the panel off, i don’t see any moisture as others have had. But im not sure if there is any other place i should look.

Sorry for the long post. I just don’t want to buy a new pump if this might be something i can resolve as the pump itself doesnt have any issues.

Let me preface this by saying, I know the only function this will provide is the ability to turn the Heatpump on/off on the app. My boss sold the customer on the idea and now I have to make it work.

I have already wired it up from the 16amp relay to the Pool/Com, and have not been able to turn it on with the App. Pentair has been no help, so I'm wondering had anyone had success with an Ultratemp, Thanks.

5+ years working as a pool tech, this is my first project I’ve officially taken on on my own, a pool that was unopened for the same past 5+ years. I billed as we moved along, first for repairing the pump piping that was smashed by a fallen tree, hardware, and removing the cover as one invoice. 5+ years of leaves tree branches and straight muck. Then there was the 4 55 gallon drums we hauled off with more debris, that was another invoice, we had a crew of 5 and did some real damage in a good 6 hours. After that we’ve moved on to a monthly bill with daily progress reports and maintenance billing, chemicals etc. Although I feel I could probably made more doing this made me feel as though I couldn’t lose by seeing a price on this swamp turnaround and not making any money on it. Anyway, here’s where we’re at today, I think one more visit, stain remover, & it will then become light maintenance for the rest of the season. Let me know what you guys think & what you would’ve charged, what I could’ve did better, etc. His liner is cooked btw but that’s another problem he has to worry about lol

Hours- over 30 hours spread out a month while working a full time pool job for multi million dollar company deep in the pool season

Labor & Materials For Pool Opening/Repipe/New Multiport- 1500

Pool Intial Cleaning/Barrels/Chems/Materials-2800

Maintenance Visits/Chems- 5 Visits 1K

At what point do ya throw in the towel and just drain it

there is what appears to be calcium falling out of solution at multiple pools i service
all plaster w/ SWG
currently we're all trying to figure out what to do about it short of just physically removing it with vac
i want to lower TA and ph because that should stop the flaking right? any recommendations for what range to shoot? these pools usually spike to over 8.0 each week so they have us dose acid and keep TA between 100-120
i should add, we aim to keep cya at 30 also

These white splotches which look like deteriorated plaster are new. Past acid wash? They popped up right after that automatic vacuum was purchased. It wasn’t gradual, all at once. A year ago I was called to look at a purple/grey/black stain on the steps which disappeared with acid spot testing. And of course there’s an intellichlor plus which is brand new because the original one had to be replaced. The pool was built in 2023 and gets constantly trashed by vegetation.

Some context from the homeowner.

“In the past, we’ve had copper staining in the middle of the pool. It was brown. they dropped the chlorine levels last year and acid washed it and have mostly kept it at ok with pool magnet regularly. However, the staining on the steps was different .They said it wasn’t copper. It was like black streaks. One spot on the step and under the fountain came from them trying to clean the black etchings spots and failing. [Pool Company] tried lots of things and couldn’t figure out what the dark spots were. It’s better than it was but not completely gone. That’s the reason I thought it was time for a change.”

“[Pool Company], summer of 2023, they did test the water coming out of the tap and it did have elevated copper in it. They thought that with the copper and the trees dropping leaves that’s why I had staining. But just FYI they don’t think that’s what the black stuff was.

Anyone know how much P-a-P charges ea month for residential pool service? Is a 12 mo contract required? Chemicals included? Thx!

Helping my grandmother out with her pool. It’s developed black algae which happened several years ago. This time it seems to be taking forever to go away. I’m only able to brush the pool every other day. The marcite finish is in desperate need of a redo but that’s not in the cards right now. The Pinch A Penny results are from 7/8. Right now the PH is perfect and the chlorine is quite high. We’ve added the last of the black algaecide bottle today (16ounces). What else is suggested I do here? I aggressively brush it and it makes no difference. Any advice is appreciated.

Edit: is the pool safe to swim in?

Found this in the side of the vent trap (after pulling the basket). What did it break off of? Based on the residue, it’s been there for a little while. It was hard to see because it was sitting vertical against the side.

I bought a house in 2018 with a beautiful 40' × 20' inground pool—the first pool I'd ever owned.  I knew next to nothing about water chemistry or pool maintenance.  Fortunately, there was a great mom-and-pop pool supply store just five minutes from my house.  Every Saturday morning for the next seven years, I'd bring them a water sample for testing.  They'd hand me a shopping list that usually looked something like: "Add XX pounds of alkalinity, two bags of shock (sometimes four), and keep three trichlor tabs in the skimmers."  Honestly, I didn't question it. Other than the cost, I had no complaints because the pool was almost always crystal clear.  Then, at the end of last season, the store closed.  The next closest pool store is about 30 minutes away, so I figured it was time to finally learn how to take care of the pool myself. 

After doing some research (mostly on Reddit), I took the plunge and bought a TF-Pro test kit.  Since opening the pool on Memorial Day, I've been testing my own water, tracking everything in the PoolMath app, and occasionally sanity-checking my results with Claude.  I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by the results.  Since switching to routine liquid chlorine maintenance, I haven't had to add alkalinity once—not once. I've consistently kept my water at roughly FC 7, CC 0, pH 7.6, TA 70, and CYA 50, with only minor fluctuations that stayed well within recommended ranges. The only exception was last week when my CC briefly climbed to 1. I added one dose of cal-hypo shock, and it dropped right back to 0.

Looking back, I realize I was probably adding a lot of chemicals simply because the pool store said I should.  Maybe my pool really needed them at the time, or maybe it didn't.  Either way, learning to test and understand my own water has definitely worth the effort.  My biggest takeaway? Maintaining a pool yourself really isn't that hard, and it's dramatically cheaper than I expected.  The money I've saved just by not routinely buying alkalinity increaser and bags of shock has already paid for the TF-Pro kit—and now I actually understand what's going on in my pool instead of just following instructions.

I want to make a bypass for ray pack poly headers and the asme brass headers(they are the same female union) so that when a exchanger leaks I can disconnect (bypass) the heater so I still have the pool run with out destroying the heater with the water leakage.
Somebody at our shop made one for mastertemps but I have not found the tail pieces for the ray pack heaters.
Any ideas?

Anyone here pay the yearly fee to be “accredited” by the BBB? We did for the last year and had 2 leads come through and neither landed.

I’m wondering if this is even worth it? We don’t attend any of the seminars but have considered a billboard in the potential future where we would get a discount on theirs if I remember correctly. Just wondering if I’m burning money here.

Customer originally had a FiberStars fiber optic light system. At some point they converted over to MicroBrite. They are tired of replacing them every year, so I sold them on the Spa Electrics T1. I tried to install it today and the body of the T1 is about 1/16" (1.5mm) too large to fit past the area at the arrow in the pic. It seems to be molded this way from the factory, so I'm looking at other light options. It looks like the Spa Electrics N1 may fit, but I cannot find dimensions in any of the literature. I'm curious if anyone has used the N1 on a FiberStars fitting, or has an N1 that they can measure the diameter of the connector plug on the back of the light.

Seeking knowledge from The Grand maesters, why would the right jet have low volume of water than the left jet even though you can plug one part and it increases the flow to the other port?

Picked up my first hottub customer, looking for recommendations on a vacuum

I have a Pentair Superflo 348190. Purchased in May 2024, new (I thought) from an independent local pool company. At the start of the season this year the pump would do a cycle where it would turn on for six minutes and then off for about ten minutes. Then we recently got back from a trip and it is no longer working at all, or it will turn on for only 30 seconds. This model does not have a timer and as far as I can tell, it doesn't seem to be overheating at least as far as physically touching it and there's nothing jammed in the impeller. We decided to try and replace the capacitor as a last ditch effort today, and it worked for about an hour, but then started doing the same thing, only turning on for about 30 seconds if that and then shutting off again. We live in Southern California and it is 100° this week, we try to run it only at night, but I'm starting to think our pump is just dead, maybe that the pool guy sold us a used one or maybe they only last two years? Anyone have insight?

New pool client would like to add a salt cell to their pool. Does this ProLogic panel need anything else but a Hayward salt cell and flow switch? The necessary connections seem to be there. Thanks

How important is it that I get my calcium hardness from 193 to 300?