Saltwater Pool Problems

Talking Pools Podcast - Thursday Episode Overview

Hosts: Wayne and Steve
Topic: In-depth Discussion on Saltwater Chlorine Generation

Episode Highlights:

1. Introduction to Saltwater Chlorine Generation: Wayne and Steve kick off the episode with an engaging introduction, explaining the basic concept of saltwater chlorine generation. They dive into how these systems convert salt (sodium chloride) into chlorine through a process called electrolysis, providing a natural, continuous method of sanitizing pool water.

2. The Chemistry Behind the Process: The duo delves into the science behind saltwater chlorine generators, breaking down the electrolysis process in detail. They explain how the electric current passed through the saltwater solution produces chlorine gas, which then dissolves in the water to form hypochlorous acid and sodium hypochlorite – the same compounds found in traditional chlorine sanitizers.

3. Benefits of Saltwater Pools: Wayne and Steve highlight the numerous advantages of saltwater pools over traditional chlorine pools. These include:

• Lower Maintenance: Reduced need for manual chlorine addition and less frequent chemical balancing.
• Softer Water: The presence of salt creates a more comfortable swimming experience, reducing skin and eye irritation.
• Cost Efficiency: While the initial setup might be expensive, long-term costs are often lower due to decreased chemical purchases.

4. Addressing Common Misconceptions: The hosts tackle prevalent myths and misconceptions about saltwater pools, such as the notion that they are completely chlorine-free or that they can cause corrosion in pool equipment. They clarify that proper maintenance and monitoring can prevent these issues, ensuring a safe and efficient system.

5. Maintenance Tips and Best Practices: Wayne and Steve provide expert advice on maintaining a saltwater chlorine generator. Key tips include:

• Regularly checking and cleaning the salt cell to prevent calcium buildup.
• Monitoring salt levels to ensure they remain within the recommended range.
• Balancing pool chemistry, including pH, alkalinity, and stabilizer levels, to optimize the generator’s performance.

6. Real-World Applications and Case Studies: The episode features anecdotes and case studies from Wayne and Steve's extensive experience in the pool industry. They share success stories and lessons learned from clients who have transitioned to saltwater systems, providing practical insights and relatable scenarios.

7. Q&A Session: Listeners' questions are answered in a dynamic Q&A segment, where Wayne and Steve address specific concerns and curiosities about saltwater chlorine generation. Topics range from installation challenges to troubleshooting common problems.

Conclusion: Wayne and Steve wrap up the episode with a summary of key takeaways and a reminder of the benefits of saltwater chlorine generation. They encourage pool service professionals, apartment complex maintenance personnel, and hotel engineers to consider this innovative system for its efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and superior swimming experience.

Tune in to this enlightening episode to elevate your understanding of saltwater chlorine generation and discover how it can transform your pool maintenance approach!

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:53

Happy Thursday to everybody. This is the Talking Pools Podcast with Wayne and Steve on your bright, nice, beautiful Thursday afternoon here, at least on the east side of the thing of things. You probably don't see it yet, Steve, but uh we have a hurricane coming down. It looks like uh down further south, but still yeah, it's supposed to be hitting Jamaica, from what I understand. And I know that uh uh we put out some things about you know how to deal with hurricanes and and equipment and things like that on past podcasts. We're not gonna touch base on that. I think Rudy actually has something out on that or is preparing something about that. But uh everybody who's listening, please be safe out there. Um, you know, uh it it's not not a good thing, but um, you know, taking your appropriate precautions, every everything, you know, knock on wood should be should be okay. I mean big, big should be. And we'd like to welcome back Steve from his international travels all over the place. Uh kind of had to do a couple solo episodes because um Steve is a bit of a distance from us all. Uh Steve, why don't you uh take a couple minutes and tell everybody what you've been doing over there?

SPEAKER_02 2:04

Yeah, so first first off, I do want to talk about Hurricane Burl. So we last year I actually took a trip to Union Island, which is in the Grenadines, uh, which is really close to Trinidad, Trinidad and Tobago. And I just saw on Instagram yesterday that basically the whole island is basically leveled, so 80% of the houses don't have roofs. It hit them basically, the eye hit them as a category for a hurricane. And being part of Sandy in 2000 and I guess it was 2011, 2012, right? So I remember that really well because I I was on a trip for a CPO and I got back from Boston, and my car was parked about a quarter of the mile, a quarter of a mile inland from the ocean, and it had water in the cup holders.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Oh, lovely.

SPEAKER_02 2:47

Yeah, the ocean had just moved about a half mile upwards. So that the surge the surge was about 12 feet to 20 feet. Um so it is something that's super serious, and uh, you know, there's a there's a lot going on, so I do hope and pray for those people in that area because it's something that uh, you know, with the way global warming is and everything that's going on with everything that we're doing to the the earth, you know, is really what it comes down to that it's changing our weather patterns and you know we don't have to go over that, but it's just uh it's an unfortunate situation, so I hope and pray for everybody. I actually had taken a you know, talking about my trip, I went on an international trip to Egypt, and I was actually a kite surfing trip, so I didn't actually do the regular stuff that you would do in Egypt. I didn't go to Cairo or Luxor or anything like that. I went to El Guna, which is in uh basically uh 20 minutes from Hergata, and uh did like a kite. The first week we we hung out there and did some kite surfing and stuff, and then you know got some footage from my sponsors, which was nice. And uh the second week we went on a kite safari, which was kind of cool. And we went we lived on this yacht for six days, and they took us around and we got uh you know foil and kite board off of the yacht. So that's why I appreciate you taking over for the show for a couple weeks, but it was uh with the with the internet connection there and the time difference, it was uh it was a bit hard for me to to to get on. Shameless shout-out for myself. If you guys want to check out any of my travels, uh I am on Instagram for my personal account, not my business account, and that is surf on foil. So it's just all surf on foil, and that's on Instagram. My name is Steve Sherwood, and if you guys want to check it out, I'd be more than happy for you too.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

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SPEAKER_02 6:05

Get back to the book.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

Yeah, but before we do the the real stuff, um when when we talked the other day, the the pictures that you have on that Instagram account are absolutely outstanding and amazing. Um this is something I would never do or ever would want to do, but some of the pictures that that that you posted, not just a view on on your board, but just some of the other pictures, the the sunsets and and things like that. Absolutely stunning. So yeah, I I agree.

SPEAKER_02 6:34

It was just really beautiful, and it was really beautiful, and it was really great to see a new culture and the you know the Egyptian people are so welcoming. Uh my stomach had a a funny time the first couple the first week to get some adjustments per se. Um but after that everything was uh was golden for sure. And like I said, it was a worthwhile trip. It was a very long flight, it was about 13 hours there, 13 hours back. Uh we went through Zurich and I have a buddy who lives in Zurich, so he actually we saw we had like two nights in Zurich, which was great. Um kind of was like a bonus for the trip. So uh so again, it was really great, and it was great to see a different culture. And I've never actually been to Europe or Africa. Um, so it was like uh kind of uh a first step for me, and you know, it's you know, putting my foot across the pond. So it was it was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Yeah, we um my wife and I travel a lot, and um as as you know, we just got back from the Philippines back in March, but we were gone for three weeks, so we've done a lot of international traveling, but but like you said, it's really, really great to see uh and experience different cultures. Um and and uh you know, even though you know, like Manila and and some of the other towns and villages that that we visited very, very I won't say Americanized, that's the wrong word, but you know what I mean? Kind of modern, kind of normal, maybe. Um I mean aeranormal.

SPEAKER_03 7:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Yeah. But when I got passed around the plate of crickets to try to eat, I knew I was not like in in Boston or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

So they did introduce me to a few things. One of the things that I got introduced to was um this thing called a bidet. And uh it was great. So we're actually gonna they have this thing called like uh called Tushy, actually. And uh it's like a little bidet system that you can change your toilet, and it's already on order, so it should be here in a week.

SPEAKER_03 8:22

It's gonna it's gonna change everything.

SPEAKER_02 8:24

So it'll be great.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

Sweet. So let's get back to the past hand, so much so much of this brouhaha. So what we're gonna talk about today is um salt systems, the good, the bad, the ugly. What are some of the um um highlights of a really good salt system? And should it be something that you should you should consider? And if you are dealing with it, how do you deal with it? So what I'd like to do, Steve, is start off with with a little bit of uh uh history uh just uh just uh for a couple minutes is that when I started in the industry in 1991, I remember one of the first classes that I ever taught. I asked a question, I said, how many people in the room were using assault system? And out of a class of maybe a hundred people, I had maybe two or three hands go up. Because you it was it was not it well, it wasn't not popular, it was just becoming uh popular. The the the the surge was starting. And now I remember one of the last classes I taught before I retired, um, I asked the same question, and just about everybody in that room would raise their hand. I mean, just just the technology itself of uh salts, I always uh refer to it as salt systems. Uh salt systems are um it's so much easier, more efficient, more economical, um greater uh uh a greater work environment, I guess maybe is the better way to put it, as far as how well salt um uh is converted to chlorine. And um and there's obviously a whole bunch of different ways you can do that. We're gonna be talking about that. But you know, it as far as you know our industry is concerned, introducing something new, you know, it's not an overnight thing. It takes years. And uh I can honestly say it probably took uh at least a good 15 years, maybe a little bit longer, for people going, hey, wait a minute. Well, I'm not I'm not doing this, you know. Um I it it works, it works very well. So brief history, I know it's very, very condensed, but but you know, here we are in in 2024. Everybody knows what its salt system is. I mean, if if you watch the the home and garden TV shows, you know, House Hunters International and you know, in the States, and I love it when they go up to a house and the the agent or go will go, Oh well, and look, it's a salt pool, they don't have to have chlorine. I just want to kill the TV.

SPEAKER_02 10:56

The old chlorine, yeah, the old chlorine-free pool. Um most I I can't tell you how many of my clients' neighbors will you know look over the fence and they'll be like, Hey, Mr. Sherwood. Um I'm like, hey, how are you doing? And uh say, hey, uh uh, we want you, you know, Mr. Jones here. He gave you my, you know, gave me your number, and he I wanted to talk more about that chlorine-free pool that you hooked them up with. And I was like, I'm sorry, what do you mean? And they're like, you know, the salt, the salt pool, right? They have a salt water pool and it's chlorine-free. And I have to explain to them that yes, it is a chlorine pool, or it's it's yes, yes, it's a salt water pool, and yes, it's still a chlorine pool. Um, so I think it's one of the most misunderstood things in the industry. Um, and I do think that the technology in the last 15-20 years has has got like every with everything else, with the iPhone and video games and all that stuff, right? It's just it's been on a trajectory where it's kind of just blown through the roof. So now the salt chlorine generators, what used to be five to ten thousand dollar installs, are now becoming you know a couple thousand dollars with a with a couple hundred.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Affordable.

SPEAKER_02 11:59

Exactly. So now it's it's way more affordable. And I always in my CPO class, I always give the the analogy of if you know when PlayStation first when they drop when they drop a new PlayStation system, right? It's whatever, let's make up a price, $7.99, right? When it first comes out. But then later six months later, when when Xbox drops their new system, then all of a sudden now PlayStation has these deals where you get a controller and a couple games, and you know, it's just it's the same thing with supply and demand. So as these things get better and as there's more competition that comes into the wheelhouse, um, you actually have the price driven down, which is good for you know, which is good for both the consumer and for the installer. Because again, uh, you know, we have to make money on these things because it's not just a simple install on all of these, no matter what, you have to add another relay or another breaker or another power system. So it has gonna be hardwired in and it's gonna be, you know, a control center, and that control center is going to be connected to these plates that are usually in like a circular form, and they have these plates that go in them and it goes through a process of electrolysis. And you know, I know that you know you are the chemistry guy, right? So you're gonna go over a bit of that of how it actually works and what actually happens during this process. Um, but basically what it does is it makes its own chlorine. So I always explain it to people and clients, and I say to them, if you have a salt chlorine generator and you also have a robotic pool cleaner, it looks like your pool guy has been there every single day. Because now we're not just chlorinating the pool once a week and then it's six days before we come again, and now the chlorine could be at zero, it could have been at zero for a few days, and now you're walking into a situation where maybe the pool isn't looking so hot. Um, so if you're the type of you know consumer that wants to look outside and see your pool perfect every single day, then 100% salt chlorine generators and robotic pool cleaners are going to be your best friends.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Absolutely, absolutely. Um, let me talk a little bit about some of the ways that that you can create a salt water system. Um let me start off with the commercial aspects. I mean, um when it first came out, it was primarily directed towards commercial properties. And you might have uh a series of inline cells uh that were very expensive back then, uh depending upon how big your your your pool was. Then you also have brine systems, and and a brine system is is is essentially you have a a separate tank of uh pool water that's been heavily salted, um, and then that is fed into uh the flow of water through the system and and then it it generates hypochlorous acid that way. But the the salt cells are are obviously the most popular, the easy the easiest, I guess, to deal with.

SPEAKER_02 14:57

We'll talk about the brine systems a little bit later on in the show, but I do want to, and I didn't mean to cut you off there, Wayne, but I I do still have an issue with commercial pools with with installing and salt chlorine generators, and the reason being is because like in California, they basically want you to have I think it's 10 milligrams per liter per hour, it wants it to make. And for that to be um achieved, let's say it was a 30,000 gallon pool, commercial pool, you know, the let's just throw out one or two of the salt systems, like the smaller Pentair one or like the Gen D True Clear, the smaller ones they work for 33,000 gallon pools. You would actually have to put in two, three, or four of those in line to make enough because the the health department wants it to make all of the chlorine on its own. And I always explain to people that if you have a salt chlorine generator, it's going to give you X. And in the winter time, that might be enough where you might your demand might be up here at this level, which is way high, and you're only making this much, which is not enough. So every week when we go, you know, in the summertime, we have to add chlorine to fix that. But in the winter time, right, we might have to actually bring the cell back down to 40% or 30% because it's making too much chlorine. So people don't understand. They're like, why are you still putting in chlorine to my pool? And I explained to them that, hey, no matter what, we're shocking your pool up to 10 parts per million every week. So if the salt chlorine generator isn't gonna do it on its own, we're gonna have to do that. We're gonna have to supplement with calhypo or liquid chlorine or whatever you're gonna do with that. But a lot of people, you know, and I think that this is part of the manufacturer's fault in saying that, oh, this is just no maintenance-free, you know, there's no maintenance anymore. Uh, or the old set it and forget it, right? That is what they say. And it is a little bit less maintenance to some degree, but you have to know what you're doing. Um, because there is a bunch of things that could happen, and there's uh there are some downsides to the salt water pools because salt water is obviously super corrosive, right? So for me, there's three things that I'm pretty much uncompromised about on the on these chlorine generators. And when I sell a chlorine generator, what comes with it is not only the cell and the installation, I'm also with that, I'm gonna give you the first thing is a zinc anode ball, which is called a sacrificial zinc anode. And for those out there who don't know what that is, um, any marine product like a jet ski or a boat also have these, right? Because there's a lot of metal parts like propellers and engines and you know stuff that's gonna get salt on it, right? Right. So what we really have to do with that is this piece of zinc, you could either plumb it in, and if you plumb it in at the equipment pad, then you have to actually bond and ground it. But if it's a you know, zinc anode plate or a zinc anode ball, you can just zip tie it to the skimmer or just pop it into the skimmer basket. Um, and it just wears away the zinc ball as opposed to wearing away the parts inside the heater and the metal parts inside the pump and all that stuff. So that's the first thing that hangs. Exactly. That's why that's the first thing. The second thing that I'm uncompromised about that you have to have is you have to have some sort of chemically rated check valve in between the heater and the actual cell itself. Because commercial pools they run 24-7. Um, residential pools are only usually running on a six to eight hour schedule, depending on the time of the year. So, with that, you now have a new problem of this pool's off for 16 hours and it was just making this highly chlorinated water. So now that highly chlorinated water is sitting in the lines, and if you don't have something to kind of flap down and hold that water on the other side of the line, water takes the least path of resistance, right? So now what winds up happening is it goes back and sits on the heater, and now you start to put the heat exchanger pieces into the pool and all that stuff. And if your water chemistry is off by any means, it's just gonna cause a slew of problems for you. So that's the second thing. And then the third thing, which is really expensive, is a sequestering agent. So if you have a newly plastered pool with and newly plastered, I always laugh because my clients will be like, Oh, the pool is new, and I'm like, Okay, well, when was it done? Because it doesn't look new to me, and they're like, Oh, six years ago, and I'm like, six years ago, I'm like, the lifespan of these surfaces are 10 years. So I'm like, if we were in a game here, like we're almost in the third quarter already, you know. So I I I laugh at that, but the price of sequestering agents have gone, I mean, through the roof would be an understatement. Um, pre-COVID days, we were getting gallons of sequestering agent for probably maybe $50, $60, you know, on the you know, on the wholesale side. And now on the retail side, it's like $120 to $130 a gallon. So if you have if you have modeling on your pool or you have an older surface or anything like that, I'm gonna say to you, hey, let's not waste your money. We don't need to use this right now. But it does, the sequestering agent, what they do is it supposedly helps clean the salt cell or keep it, you know, a little bit cleaner than it normally would be with the gumming up and the salt and calcium, you know, building up on it. Um, and then it also, you know, it just acts as it stops the metals from it, doesn't take the metals out of the water, but it you know envelopes them to make sure that they're not precipitating or coming out of solution and staining on the walls and floors. So those are the three things that I always tell all of the people that hey, these are things that we absolutely need to do. And you know, if you guys have salt chlorine generators out there and you don't have a zinc anode ball, please just go to Amazon or go to your local distributor and they're 12, they're 12 to 25, and it can save you us, you know, just so many problems down the road. Of you know, because if you are the one who installs this, and then all of a sudden, six months down the road, seven months down the road, you have a problem, who's gonna be at fault? And right, you know, the only thing that I've found is that especially with all my commercial clients, I'm just the fall guy. You know, anything I have a leak that's going on with one of my pools right now, and you know, my guy touched it, and now they're like, What did you guys do? You know what I mean? This is uh this is unacceptable. We need to get this fixed. And at this point, I think we gotta drain the pool under the light to get it fixed. There's no other way at this point, you know. But we got ourselves into this situation, and in, you know, if you do good business, you gotta stand up for your work and say, Hey, we we made it worse. We apologize about that, but uh, you know, sometimes it's you can't fix it when there's water in the pool, right? So it's kind of the situation that we're in. So uh I'm dealing with a bunch of those different things, but but yeah, so let's uh let's talk a little bit more about it.

SPEAKER_01 21:55

Yeah, um I can uh obviously very easily talk about the testing portion of salt. Um uh generally though, from from what I've learned over the years that really and it's going to depend on the manufacturer, but the average salt level you you'd see in a commer in a uh residential pool is probably anywhere from 2700 to 3,000. You might see it slight variations on the theme, but let's say 3,000 to make our life easy. That means you need to maintain 3,000 parts per million of salt, NACL, sodium chloride, in that water in order for the the the generator itself to produce a sufficient amount of chlorine, of hypochlorous acid, which we all know is the good stuff. That's what we want in the water to to clean to kill and and to oxidize. So, how do we test for it? A variety of different ways. The the the easiest way, let's let's go from the bottom up. Um actually I'm gonna From the top down, sort of like that. So the top top one would be something electronic, okay? Some kind of online system where the flow of water passes over probe, probe reads the amount of salt in there, displays it, and might even automatically adjust uh an ad or or do something depending upon what the the system is, to to add salt to the water to get it up to that level. That's the ultimate. But remember, you know, no good deed goes unpunished. That's my favorite saying, is that yeah, you've got this wonderful online system, but unless you clean the probes and you calibrate them you know on a fairly regular basis, it they're no good. Okay, you gotta be able to clean them, gotta be able to to calibrate and make sure that they're giving the right display. They're they're showing the right amount of uh of uh salt in the water. Next would be something um like uh uh a separate um uh wet chemistry test. And the easiest way would be uh uh what's called uh a salt test, uh a drop test, and use two reagents in there. Uh you you use something called a can solution, uh which produces a milky yellowish kind of color in the sample when you when you add your drops to it. And then you add take silver nitrate, good old silver nitrate. And if you're a service tech, you know silver nitrate because it gets all over your hands. Um basically it's also called uh there's a link. Okay, that's what it is. Um so you add the silver nitrate drop by drop, and it goes from that milky yellowish color to boom, an in-your-face, um, dark brown color. It's not a gradual color change, it's a one minute, it's it's light and creamy, and boom, the next one it's it's your your endpoint. That's a pretty it's probably one of the only ones that is a really dramatic in-your-face endpoint change. And then you can have the number of drops, huh?

SPEAKER_02 24:47

Actually, stopped using that the tail that uh you're talking about the Taylor one that starts off as this salmon color and it's like this the only one where like uh at the end of it, I'm I'm like, where do I put this? I'm like, I can't put this back in the pool. I'm like, I can't throw this in the drain, like I can't throw this in the garbage because it's like it becomes this this thick liquid. Um we actually have have had some success using the sodium chloride strips. Um a bunch of different companies take them. At the beginning, they weren't so great, but now they're pretty advanced. It has this little, it almost looks like a marker, and it's got like this um these numbers on it, and you just put it in a little bit of you know, an inch of water, half inch of water into like the bottom of the tube, and then you just leave it there for two or three minutes, and it starts to go up and up and climb up this this ladder. Almost like when you were at the the circus or the fair, right? And you hit that uh the you're trying to hit the bell, right? With the hammer. It's exactly like that. Like it comes up and it's like right. And if you know you're trying to hit the bell and it's it gives you like a number and it says six or seven, and then you look on, you know, you just kind of say on the bottle, okay, seven is 3250 or whatever it may be, and it tells you exactly what it is. Um I have found some success with those. Um, I do have to say that all of the manufacturers will have it give like a uh a readout for you. I have found that a lot of times you need to calibrate that yourself because it will be off a little bit. And then I know you said that there are companies out there, you know, you want it between 27 and 32. There are companies out there like Cloor King, um and some of the commercial manufacturers who actually want you to have it up to 5,000 parts per million.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

I've seen 6,000, that's the highest one I've ever seen.

SPEAKER_02 26:33

And I I understand that they're you know, you always I'm big on following the manufacturer's directions, right?

SPEAKER_03 26:39

Right.

SPEAKER_02 26:40

Um, but with that, that's the one thing where I've um I've always kind of felt like that was a bit overkill because in those commercial pools that I had that had these salt chlorine generators, I always was having like salt-related problems there, where like even if it was like splash out or something like that, like 5,000 is just you can taste it almost at 3200. I think you can start tasting it at like 3800.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

3700, that that's the number. 3700 is where you can taste it.

SPEAKER_02 27:06

Right. So now you can taste the water. Um, so people always ask me, like, hey, what are the benefits of this? And I always tell them that, hey, it's part of the going green movement. So especially here in California, it's a pretty easy sell because I mean, we have uh, I don't know how many millions of Teslas, but I know that we are the leader of having you know Teslas in California for sure, right? So everybody wants to, you know, be on that, they want to feel like they're part of the movement, right? So if you want to be part of the movement with that, it's an easy sell because again, it's it's part now they're not making that chlorine, they're not shipping that chlorine from China, they're you know, so it's not going on the boat, it's not going on the trailers, it's not, you know, so it's if you're saving a lot of money and time and energy with that. Um, but again, it's not the it's not a one-stop shop solution for for for everybody. And uh, you know, I always tell all of my clients that the biggest thing for them is they always ask, can you come every other week instead of weekly, because your service is kind of expensive. And I explained to them that no, I I don't really want to do that. But in the season, in the off season from like November to March, if you have a salt chlorine generator and a robotic pool cleaner, then that's something we can maybe discuss. Right. Because now, again, in the wintertime, it's making its own chlorine. So now maybe you can stretch it for two weeks. You know, you're gonna come back and it's not gonna be such a mess. Where I always kind of and this for you know, I I actually found this through one of the Facebook groups because I was getting tired of like we're losing money on this, and it's always you know taking my text way longer to you know get done with the pool, and how am I gonna get this money back? So now what I do is if you want to go every other week, I might consider it in certain situations, but I'm not gonna give you a full discount price, I'm actually only gonna give you 25% off the whole cost. Okay. And people are always like, why? And I'm like, because it's taking my tech X amount of extra time for him to be there. Um, so time is money, you know, and uh I really need to quantify that with most of the clients because if you're a one-polar and you're a one-stop shop and you're the only guy, then you don't need to make as much money as companies like my company is because I don't go out in the pools anymore. I'm paying my techs to go out. My techs get paid really well. Um, you know, so they get paid twenty-twenty five dollars a pool. Um, which in my pool in my area, that's almost people looking there like, can I have a job, please? You know, um, and it shows it shows most of my techs have been with me between three and five years. And I'm not saying that you know I haven't had a couple guys come and go and whatnot, and it's it's part of the the turnover process and whatnot, but um, most of my guys stay with me because we pay them really well. But again, if it's a five-week month um and you're paying the guy, let's say twenty dollars a stop, that's a hundred and twenty dollars that's coming out of my pocket and going straight into his. So now if I'm spent if I'm spending the money on all the chemicals and stuff, let's say we put in you know fifty, sixty-eight dollars worth of chemicals over the month. Now I'm into your pool for $180, almost $200 for the month. So now that $260 or $325 or $375 doesn't seem like that much. But again, like you have to go back to the basics and you have to be the person that is the the expert for your client, right? Because if you can explain this to them in a clear, concise, and factual way, then you know they're gonna say, Oh wow, that makes a lot of sense. But if they're just saying, hey, what are the benefits of a saltwater pool, and you know, you're giving them the therapeutic line, that usually doesn't work. Like people want to see people do stuff when they are when you're gonna save them money or you're gonna make them money. And I always tell all my guys, and any I used to work in the corporate world for a really long time, and what I figured out is the only time that you get a raise is when you're making the company more money or you can prove that you save the company money. Because if not, if you're not growing, you're dying. And it's good, you know, it's the same thing for personal development and businesses, and it's not just in the pool industry, it's just in industry altogether, right? Right. So that's what I've come to.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Let's let's reel back on to salt. We took a big jump off to the side, but no, but it was good because it goes your perspective on on appropriate charges and and what you know your customers expect you to do and what you expect to do. That's that's important. Um and I wanted to point out something too. When I was talking about test kits, you know, the Taylor's not the only one. Lamotte too also has uh that that uh test kit, too. Uh it's also part of one of the spin discs, if I remember correctly. Um so and and then again the net the next step down would be what what you would be talking about, and just the technology on strips and and things of that nature have improved so much that you get a good reliable answer. But remember, when you're talking chemistry and testing, you've got limitations for and you have things like drop equivalences and and things like that. And most drop tests from any test kit manufactured, uh not just Lamont or Taylor, is um usually one in ten or ten percent. So for every 10 drops you add, you're gonna be off one drop. Now that's kind of significant because when you're talking about a uh a standard uh drop test titration for salt, you're talking about pretty high drop equivalence. And each drop is equal to about 200 parts per million. That's a lot. Okay, one drop, 200 parts per million. Okay, so 10 drops is 2,000 parts per million, which means you're really could be anywhere from 1800 up to 2200. And so, you know, that's pretty significant. When you're getting a normal drop test for like alkalinity and harness, you know, it's it's uh um uh drop equivalences one drop is ten parts per million. So that's pretty, pretty, pretty narrow. But when you're talking things about salt, and there's some other parameters too that have really, really big uh uh drop equivalences, you gotta be aware of that. This episode on salt systems with Wayne and Steve will continue next Thursday. Tomorrow, tune in for the Flocket Fridays episode with Rudy and Andrea.