Off-Season Hustle: Remodeling, Beta Tests & Big Things Ahead

Hey Pool Pros! We’re back with another Talking Pools Podcast episode from the vault, and this time it's featuring your favorite duo — Kelli and Dan — and trust us, this one’s got it all.

Dan’s been burning the candle at both ends with office remodels, travel chaos, and prep for the Atlantic City Pool & Spa Show, while Kelli’s been making the most of the off-season — catching her breath, recalibrating, and enjoying that brief calm before pool season hits full throttle.

But don’t think “off-season” means downtime. These two dive headfirst into what’s next for the industry — from high-end pool builds and sleek control systems to beta testing innovative products that could redefine how tech meets pool care. Kelli even spills details on a new automation system she’s been testing that might just change the game.

It’s part industry insight, part catch-up, and all-around good energy — the perfect mix of laughs, lessons, and a look at what’s shaping the future of pool maintenance.

🎧 Grab your net, your coffee, and tune in — this is one episode you don’t want to miss.

#TalkingPoolsPodcast #PoolPros #PoolTech #AtlanticCityShow #PoolAutomation #OffSeasonGrind

CMAHC
The Council for the Model Aquatic Health Code promotes health & safety at public swimming pools

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Transcript

 Hey everyone. Welcome to Tuesdays with Kelly and Dan.  Dan, you look a little tired. 

Tired. Yeah. Tired, cold. Um,  a lot going on. I I  of a,  it's been a crazy time since I got back into town. After the first, the year, the, uh, we've got a  ton of remodeling going on at our offices. We're, we're building new service office, a new kitchen, added  all kinds of stuff going on there.  in addition to all of the work that we do this time of year, getting geared up and ready for next year, all the, the new products and processes and pricing levels and all that kind of stuff that, uh,  it's a,  is a busy time of year and there's a lot of travel going on. Um.  That, well, what was it, week after  next I'll be in Atlantic City for the, the Pool and Spa show put on by, by NEPA and all the folks out there in the northeast.  Um, 

I wish I was rich so I can go. 

I wish I'd raised show I could quit working. 

Well, since I'm teaching at the Western Show with Deb, our electrical class,  I  can't go to 

sure.

Atlantic City 'cause it was a,

Yeah.

one or that one kind of deal. And I figure if I'm teaching it's a little more important. 

Yep. It's, it's definitely sharing, sharing your knowledge is, uh, more important.  It's obviously very important to you, but it's,

Oh yeah.

for the people at the Western show that you're there. So yeah.

Right.

it's important for you to be there

And it, and it's a show I like, but I would love to go on the East coast to the shows 'cause I've never done that.  And it'd be a nice little, you know, change. 

Yeah, well, we, you know, it, it's been going on for decades and I'm sure it'll continue for decades. So you'll, you'll have opportunities for many, many years to come. It's, it's, uh,  me, it, it really is  the best show for education, um,  anywhere in the country.

Mm-Hmm.

are a lot of good shows out there, but NEPA really does a fantastic job with their event. Um,  so anyway, we're thrilled. We're bringing a team of people out there to, uh,  be part of all of the education that they offer. I think we've got, um,  I  don't know, 15, 16 people going,

Oh wow.

something like that from our, from our place. So,  um,  it'll be a, a good time, fun time. You know, we got, they, they put on a nice welcome reception on Monday night.

And then Heritage, uh, group is sponsoring a concert. 

Which I'm very jealous. 

Really?

I I love Cheap Trick. They were the very first concert I ever went to in my life. 

Oh,  But when you went to it, they were playing the songs that everybody knew.

Of course.  And then I also know who Marshall Tucker Band is. Yes. I may be 38, but I know who these people are because of my parents. 

Yep, yep.  No, but that, that'll, it'll be fun. And then, uh, we always try to mix it up and do something, uh, something with the group. You know, last year we went up to New York City for the day and, um, you know, spent Thursday up in New York City and then we flew back home on Friday. So  we've got some hopes, depending on what the weather is of doing some of that kind of stuff again.

And  just having a good team building week and education week and everything else.

Yeah.

Um,  but yeah. So that's, that's a week after.  Well, it's when this series, it'll be next week. Um.  I am probably gonna be heading to Washington, DC  the first week of February to, uh,  uh, meet with a whole bunch of other PhD a people and go over a whole bunch of education stuff and, and whatnot there for a couple of days.  Um,  our son's birthday, he lives in Alabama. That's in February, so we'll go down and see him for probably a long weekend. Uh, we've, we've got

You got a busy off season. 

it. It is, and, and also cramming in all of the, the stuff around the business, around all of this travel and education and everything else. So it gets, gets kind of goofy, kind of crazy. But, uh,  um,  I actually enjoy it. This is the part of the year that I enjoy. It's

I will say I've really enjoyed this off season.  The last, you know,  what, after than Thanksgiving to now, it's been slower, not so slow where I'm like, oh my God, I can't pay my bills but slower where  I took yesterday off work so I can run errands  and  um, you know, was able to get home before dark and spend time with the kids and stuff like that.

So it's been really nice to have that kind of like breathing room  to get me ready for the craziness that is upon us. 

Yeah, that's good.  good. When does stuff, so here, everything ramps up really, right around the 1st of April.  that about the same for you or

Yeah, you well.  Every people are stupid that live here. Every year we get, you know, rainy weather like we have right now,  and then we get, um, like a, a tease of nice weather , like seventies and eighties. So you might get some people, then they're like, oh, my pool's green. I better take care of this.  Um,  then you have another stint of cold and rainy weather and you get another tease.

So you get about two or three teases before we actually get like, nice weather.  So normally yeah, about April, because solar season starts the 15th of April here, so people start turning their pools on and stuff.  So April two  Memorial Day is our craziest.  Um,  so 

Are, uh,  pools are, there are some people I'm assuming that are swimming right now by you.

Yeah.

I mean the, the heaters are fired up and it's kind of the extreme, guess maybe, you know, most people maybe get everything in a low

Well, if they have their heat,

or what.

if they have heat pumps, they're definitely swimming about, right? Well, no, this month they don't swim. They start swimming about February, uh, because it's too cold right now. So in my area, heat pumps work really well that they get 10 months out of the year. So December and January are the months that they, it's rare that you will be able to swim.

I do have one customer who does swim every New Year's,  um, but he does keep a bubble cover on his pool with the heat pump working and stuff like that.

Yeah,

It's been really cold to here the last like, week, like down into the thirties. And for Sacramento, that's cold.  And so  the heat pumps don't work as well during this time.

And it's not unheard of for that cold weather stint to happen. 

yeah, 

you know, it would be nice to be able to swim in your pool year round, right?

yeah.

your money's worth.

You know, we've, we've got, I I, I don't know if I've ever  talked about this, but we've had a, a customer of ours. It's actually the.  Owner of WeatherTech floor mats,

Okay.

an out outdoor pool. It's,  I'm gonna say it's about 25 by 50 Gunite pool, and he swims year round. It's

that's nice.

90,  low nineties, 92 degrees or something?

Is he rich 

Oh yeah. Yeah. He's,  very, very well, well off.

Because, uh, that I can just imagine the gas bill on that. 

yeah, he's got two, uh, lock andvar, high efficiency heaters. I think each of them are,  could they be 350,000 bts? I think

Okay.

I. So, you know, he's got somewhere around three quarters of a million BTUs going into it. So that,

Okay.

re to, to be honest with you, most of the, the two heaters is just have redundancy. Um, he does have an automatic cover on it, so that certainly helps.

And he also has  heat in the deck around the pool

Mm-Hmm.

sidewalk that leads from the house to the pool. So there's never any snow on it In the wintertime, you know, right now we've got probably eight to maybe 10 inches of snow throughout our area, but, uh, without a shovel touching it, his sidewalk and deck is perfectly clean and warm and um, you know, so it's more, more comfortable for him going to and from the pool, I guess.

But,

Okay.

uh,

Yeah, we,

there are some extremes everywhere, I guess.

yeah, we, um,  he gas heaters, it's just too expensive to run here.  Gas is ridiculous. They're raising our rates again on gas.  Not looking forward to that.

'cause they're, they're forcing you out of gas. That's why.

Well, it's also because they are mismanaged and we had so many fires that they got  sued on  . So, you know,  uh.

Do you, do you ever get freezing, whether, you know, like Texas right, has been in the news lately because of another arctic freeze that's gonna be hitting them and or has hit them. I don't, I don't know if it's happened already or is happening maybe as we speak.  and people being concerned about their pools and winterizing,  sort of the snowmageddon that  happened, uh, what, two, three years ago?

Three years

Three years ago now. Yeah.

yeah.  But do you ever get that type of concern with freezing weather by you? That, that Oh, people are gonna be worried. Their pool equipment's gonna freeze up. 

Not as bad as they're getting. We'll get, like I said, this last week, it's been cold, so we've gone below, you know, 32  for  pools that have automation.  At least my customers, I do enable freeze protection on them, 

Yeah.

and it turns on at 38 degrees. So do people do have that concern, like, oh my gosh, what are we gonna do?

Like my one pull on service,  the, one of their actuators didn't work properly, so the automation, um,  alarmed out so it wasn't running.  Because in that particular automation system, if an actuary does not respond in the fir in the first 45 seconds the way it's supposed to, it will shut the system down.  And so  she goes out there,  and I get a text at like six o'clock in the morning.

My pool's not running. There's an alarm message for the valve again.  Uh, you know, freeze protection was not able to turn on. Can you please come and check it out? And I was like, yeah, of course. It's my service day. Um, so they do, they do get concerned. Sometimes people put blankets over their equipment and we're like, don't do that.

Like, it's okay.  Um.

Yeah, you definitely have goofy things that people do. Is that valve actuate? I've never heard of that. Is that something that can be  in the programming? That it won't shut the system. Really.

No, but you'll get an alarm on your app and what you end up doing is you just place a demand on it again. So let's say you're in pool mode, you put in spa mode so it can reset.  It's  it, it's on the pool attendant. So that's one of the features on it. And I've had it happen where the builder had come out to do some work on like the lights or whatever it was, and they had put the valve, 'cause it was one of the Pentair Smart, but the intel valves

Okay.

and they forgot to take it outta service mode. 

So.  When the regular schedule came on to have the, the water go into the spa and then into the pool,  the valve did not respond. 'cause it was in service mode, you know,  and instead of it just go continuing on,  then  we had to  reset everything. 

That's,  it seems like, you know, the, the more, the systems seem to be smarter, I wonder if often wonder if it's a good thing or not because, uh,

I can see where they created that being a benefit in some situations,

yeah.

I'm thinking in most situations it isn't. Because if you think about it, we place these actuator valves on  to the valve so that it doesn't deadhead the system. It the water has to go somewhere. It's either right or left.

right.

so where when you have that kind of air code it, it's not necessarily important to have. 

That's just me. 

it's, and, and I guess to that point, the,  I'm sure you've seen  built where the valves do have the ability of deadheading. Right.

Yes. 

And, um, you know,

And that can be, let's say, that's the only way you could put the valve on, which,  uh, in my opinion is wrong.  It, you just have to put it on, I guess, backwards or to make it so you don't deadhead, but okay, then that's a valid point to have this alarm so that  if that happens, you're not creating back pressure and damage from everything. 

Yeah.

But again, most cases you don't, you shouldn't need that. 

Right.  Well, I've not encountered any of those systems out there yet. They're, uh.  I don't even know if, if I'm guessing there's gotta be someone in our market that's using 'em, but pretty much everything by us is one of the, one

So where, where I'm at, there are, uh, that I know of, there are two builders that use them, but their pools are more complicated. In higher end, 

mm-Hmm.

call the bougie pool.  In my opinion, that is probably where the system is a better fit.  When you have a lot of features, a lot of lights, um, you want to be able to have a lot more control of your lights so that, 'cause you can use, you can syn it to Spotify and have your music going and the lights go with it.

If you have the DMX lighting,  um,  but your basic  everyday pool like your, where yeah, you have a couple lights, maybe a laminar or two,  I don't  . Me personally, I don't think that's necessarily the best fit for that system because of cost.  Now I started doing the, the design aspect, remember, and I'm doing like designs, but then I'm also doing the permit drawings for the pools and one of the guys that I do it for builds pools in Reno, and he's gonna be starting to use that system on his pools, which opened doors for me because I have knowledge and I know how to program those systems. 

Okay.

So they're starting to get out there. I am definitely taking advantage of my knowledge and the lack of people knowing how to work on 'em since these builders are, are like, oh, this is cool. I wanna check this out. 

Yeah.  Have you seen any pools that actually have DMX lighting yet  in conjunction with those controls or no?

Yes, but I haven't been able to play with it. So I can see the light sink.

Yeah. Okay.

That's that. I wanna see it. But unfortunately when I'm at these pools, it's, it's daylight

Yeah. Yeah, that

Yeah.

of cool. I'd like to,

I've noticed that, um, these systems, when they do have the pool attendant on it, they're using P lighting,  um,  on the pool.  Now you can use anybody's, you can use Pentair.

You can use Hayward. You can use jandy. But I, I have noticed they they've been putting the p lighting on these builds. 

Is pal. So PAL is PAL lighting 

I think so.

capable?  Is it

I think so. Don't take, I, I don't know, like 100% 'cause I haven't used it. But, um, on the pools that I've seen, they're using the PITE strips. 

okay.

And, and then they'll have a couple of those inch and a half ones. 

Okay.  Neat. That'd be, that'd be cool to see.  Years,  actually, not that many years ago, but, um,  talking about Whiting, Pentair,  excuse me, had, uh,  been developing a.  Light that was also a projector, 

Hmm. 

and they had the ability of projecting  images or video  onto the floor of the pool,  which was, it was super cool. And,  you know, the, the floors of the pool, especially, you know, deep ends and everything else often have slopes to 'em and whatnot.

So, you know, you can envision how projecting  image or, or a video onto it would then become skewed,  uh,  sort of outta shape while they had the ability of correcting for that to square it back up. Um,  and  with, you know, you, so you could play a movie basically on the floor of the pool,

That would be so cool.

and play a movie right on the floor of the pool. They never did come to market with. It was at one, at  of the trade shows. It was before Covid for sure. Um,  that they were, they were,  Showing it as something they're working on, but then I haven't heard anything about it since. But, uh, neat things out there. 

I do like the concept that the pool attendant has regarding, um,  you could put anybody's stuff on.  So you could put penter, you could put jandy, you could put Hayward, you could put pal, you could put  aquastar. And the reason I like that con concept is then you get to choose.  The best of everybody. So let's say PAL has the best lighting.

Okay, now you could put that on, let's say  Pentair has the best pump. You could put that on, like you could pick whatever is like top of the market  onto that pool.  At the same time. That's kind of gonna be a headache  because  uh,  then you have a whole bunch of different manufacturers you have to go through for warranty. 

Yeah. That's what

the cons, the concept is great. 

get into, um, where, you know, most of the manufacturers have the, the quote unquote pad  where if you do their,

Yeah,

know, pump filter heater, everything gets extended  from what the base is. So you're, you're maybe playing with that a little bit, but, um, it is interesting to be able to do,  you said, to pick the things that you, you like the most.

And, um, 

I.

that,  you know,  I wear big Pentair, right? I say that all the time, but there are other products out there that in very, very,  you know, certain areas I feel might be a little better than Pentair, but, um, you know, we're gonna stay with Pentair to keep everything under the same, the same house, the same warranty, and, and all that. 

I think it's gonna be really up to the builder, up to the customer,  stuff like that.  Okay. Here's another great thing about having that availability of working with everything. What if we had another, a shortage in the future  and your pump dies. Oh, sorry. We can't get that pump for, you know, however long and we, and we can't put, you know, so-and-so's pump on because it doesn't communicate  and this with this system you can do that.

So those, there are perks. The more that I work with it, the more  I see benefits and also, you know.  Downsides. My biggest downside at the moment is that valve thing,  that valve air.  Um, I used to have other concerns, but those, those have kind of been answered as I've learned the system  and learned how to program it.

Like one of the things I didn't like at first was, oh, you have to call an engineer  in order to program it. You can't just program it yourself.  And for me, that's like a big service I offer is programming. So it takes money away from me. But then I learned  actually you could program it yourself and you have the engineer available if you need to, but they will do it.

okay.

do do it with you the first couple times until you felt comfortable. 

Okay.  Well, that's, uh, I, that's logical and it's, it's great they've got the ability of being available that way  because we all

Downside they are, it is over the phone slash over video chat. So you, and they are on the East coast,  so.

okay, 

You kind of have to do it during

Yeah.

Yeah, but they do schedule, like the specific time you tell 'em what to, what time you wanna do it and stuff like that. They're super nice calling their one 800 number.

Super easy when you have questions  because I had an issue recently where I was having connectivity issues and they're like, yeah, it's probably just their modem. Um,  but everything has, everything has its own  positives and negatives regardless of who it is. There's no one that's perfect.  I do like that they came out with something like this.

'cause maybe it will help our industry go  quicker into the current technologies  that are available in different fields  so we're not so behind. 

Yep.

'cause I do feel that our technology is very behind of the rest of the world.

yeah, yeah. Hopefully that pushes the others to, uh,  you know,

Step it up,

their stuff a little bit. Right.

Yeah. Step it up.

at, at the expo, uh, in Vegas back in November talking with, uh, our, our friend Steve Barnes over at Aquastar,

Mm-Hmm.

Talking about the control system and how  pump is actually identified in that control system when you're doing the setup that you can pick Aquastar pump  and do it where  a jandy system will run Pentair and tele flow pump,  but you,  um,  depending on, on the system, they, they, it won't necessarily run  the variable flow pump,  but you can run it as a variable speed,

Okay.

you know, so there, there are ways that you can make it work.

I don't, maybe now I, I haven't myself seen one in a, in a little bit, but, uh, maybe now they've adjusted that, that it'll handle variable flow as well. But, um,  but with the, uh,  that system you're talking about, you just literally pick the aquastar pump.

Yep.

you don't have to  around with anything. That's, that's neat.  Always, always interesting stuff out there. 

I I also wish that at these shows,  the,  there was a way for the show to really start spotlighting new products where people can get excited and wanna go to those booths and check those things out. Because there's a lot of companies that are at these shows that we have no idea who they are. So we're like, oh, well I don't know who they are, so I'm not gonna look at this. 

Yeah,

But, but that just because we don't know who they are, what their brand is, doesn't mean their product is a piece of crap. 

yeah, 

And at the same time,  if we don't know that those pro those products are there, how,  how can we  know to stop, I guess. 

yeah,  yeah. The expo has an area, they've done this for a number of years for new products.

Okay. 

and it's always kinda over on on one other show. Atlantic City has an area set aside for new products as well, kind of right where you first come in. 

Maybe they need to make it more exciting. 

yeah. You know the expo one, it is kind of. It's always off on the far end.  Almost tucked away, you know, back

Oh, is that what that was? 

Yeah.

this like corner it like over by the women's area, which I thought the women's area need to be brought over more too. And, and I'm like, well, what is all this where they just have a bunch of crap that like, is it like I had, like was this an awards thing? I have no idea, but it didn't have enough appeal to it for me to wanna go and visit it.

Yep. That's exactly what it was. And only be, because I know,  know, from the years of that being it, I go and walk around in there. In fact, there was a,  a company in there that made a really cool, uh, cartridge, filter cleaner,

Okay.

equipment

Okay.

and, and it had this like hood kind of thing.

You throw the cartridge in there on its side and it has all these nozzles and it spins it and sprays it. And it has its, uh, uh, self-contained sort of a system you can put in the back of a truck  and it, it will clean a cartridge filter.  It from what they were shown, like spotless in about 30 seconds.

That's awesome.

It,

hate filter clean 

So, I mean,

I charge a lot for filter cleaning because I hate doing it. People are like,

Yeah.

so I charge, I charge $150. Well, it starts at $150 to clean a filter. If it's a system three filter, you're looking at like $200, depending on the size. Like if it's the big guy, yeah, I'm charging extra.

'cause that thing's massive

Right,

and heavy. 

right.

heavy when it's, it's full. But if I.  . And so I know pool services charge a lot less than I do, but you know, they do it regularly. Me, it's, they just call, I'm there for whatever reason. Like, oh, can you clean the filter? It's like, okay,

Yeah.

yeah. Do I like it? He'll freaking no.

Um, maybe we need to put like on our, our episode is due like a maybe five, 10 minute, uh, spotlight on a new product every month.

Sure,

Yeah. Because like I said, it'd be nice to kinda learn more about those new products and not think, oh, it's made in China, it's a piece of crap. Or, oh, it's not made by the big three.

It's a piece of crap,  you know?

Well, and especially like the, uh, you know, you're talking about a product that you've used,

Yeah.

you've, so that control system is something you have very, very firsthand and sounds like fairly extensive knowledge about. Um, so that's great to

Well, I told them,

that.

so they first offered the installation  training.  I didn't know they also had a configuration.  Training. And so when I went to the show, that was one of my questions, um, for their booth  was, Hey,  I've done the in install training. I'm feeling pretty comfortable with installing this without calling.

You know, there's here and there things, but overall,  but I need an in depth  like training on this equipment because I need to be able to help my customers.  Friday at five o'clock when you guys are, have been home for three hours or two hours,

right.

you know, I can't have my customers down all weekend until you open up because I have absolutely no idea how the electronics work in this thing. 

Yep. 

And so I, they had that, it was a, it was called a configuration training and it was about an hour and I learned a lot and it answered a lot of the other questions that I had. 

Destroying my mic,  Sorry, that had to be super loud in your ear, right? 

Oh my gosh. But yeah, so  you know,  I would like to try more, you know, off products.  Me, it's a little harder because I don't have the route, so it's not something I can really like steadily study, like I am able to on this one pool. I have  not trying to get more pools on route so I could, you know, put these things on.

But if there's tools that can help me in my job, that would be great. And then,

right. 

you have things that you could put on some of your pools or your pool and see how it works. Unfortunately, I don't have a pool. Don't have any desire to have a pool anytime soon just to test things. 

Yeah. You know, we, we should, we should, actually, here's something we should do. We should put together a professional, the Talking Pools, professional beta testing group. 

Yeah.

Okay. And, and it can be, you know, all of us, of course, the, the hosts of the, the talking pools, but then also people  we know, right? Part members of the Talking Pools group who  have access to maybe their own pool or

Yeah.

route pools that would allow 'em beta tests.

And we can reach out to manufacturers and say, Hey, you want professional, um,  you know,  testing, or, or whatever you wanna call it, or just testing and evaluation of your products.  We will  be the ones to give you honest feedback about the product. And, and certainly if we feel the product is something that's really, really good, we can talk about it in the podcast and let

Yeah.

about it.  know, I,

Well, and you know how we are once  , and you know how we are, we're, when we like something, we, we, we talk about all the time  and

Right,

we're very vocal, like everyone knows, I, I deal with Hayward primarily. Like I work with everybody. I love all my reps regardless of the products. But when I like something a lot Yep, I know that  So. 

Yeah, same. Same with, uh, same with me. We, we, I talk extensively about the things that work.  So there's some exciting thing. You know, we, and this is on a different line, but, so we sell, uh, caldera hot Tubs, right?

Okay.

And for 2024, we just got information from them that they're, uh,  They've been working for 10 years with,  might have been University of Michigan.

I can't, I can't recall, to develop a  chemical  system for  the  self-contained Caldera hot tubs.

Oh, that's cool.

And

like chemical automation like we have or chemical readers like we have for swimming pools.