Pool Industry Innovations and Challenges with John Poma

In this episode of the Talking Pools podcast, host Rudy Stankowitz interviews John Poma, a prominent figure in the pool industry. They discuss the Alum-CyA removal method, John's background, his experiences in pool service and construction, and the importance of mentorship in the industry. The conversation delves into the challenges faced by pool professionals, including controversies surrounding pool chemistry and safety regulations. John shares insights on community engagement, online discussions, and the common myths that persist in pool care. The episode concludes with a look at the future of the pool industry and John's personal aspirations.

takeaways

• John emphasizes the importance of helping newcomers in the pool industry.
• There has been a shift towards better collaboration between builders and service companies.
• Mentorship plays a crucial role in the growth of professionals in the pool industry.
• John's experience with pool chemistry trials highlights the need for innovation.
• Community engagement is vital for sharing knowledge and support among pool professionals.
• Safety regulations in the pool industry are evolving and require constant attention.
• Online discussions can be challenging, but providing proper information is essential.
• Myths about pool care, such as the impossibility of removing black algae, need to be addressed.
• The future of the pool industry looks promising with ongoing growth and development.
• John's commitment to his work reflects a passion for the pool industry and helping others.

Sound Bites

• "You can't answer all of them."
• "Just to give out proper information."
• "You just have to keep it safe."

Chapters

00:00
Introduction to the Podcast and Guest

00:22
John Poma's Background and Experience

04:59
The Importance of Mentorship in the Pool Industry

06:35
Trials and Innovations in Pool Chemistry

09:30
Challenges and Controversies in Pool Maintenance

10

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Transcript

Rudy Stankowitz (00:00)
So, hey everybody, guess what? It's Friday again. This is the Talking Pools podcast. I'm Rudy Stankiewicz. And in our investigation, in our getting to know these top 10 mentors, a mentor from the top 10 selected every Friday up until

John Poma (00:00)
Okay.

Rudy Stankowitz (00:22)
The belt is awarded in a surprise visit. I just show up on somebody's doorstep. We're going to continue with that. I have here with me today, Mr. John Poma

Rudy Stankowitz AI (00:41)
Back in 2019, I worked out a method to actually lower cyanuric acid, CYA, in pools without draining. The idea was simple in concept, but tricky in execution. Dose 8.33 pounds of aluminum sulfate per 10,000 gallons. Adjust the pH to 7.0. Keep alkalinity in the 81-100 ppm range. And make sure the water was at least 70 degrees, but no hotter than 90 Under those conditions, something interesting happens.

The aluminum reacts with CYA to form a compound that falls out of solution along with aluminum hydroxide flock. That mess settles. And once vacuumed to waste, the CYA goes with it. Field trials showed reductions of 30%, 50%, which was a huge shift

Now, I can't stress this enough. This breakthrough wasn't mine alone.

Rudy Stankowitz AI (01:32)
We had an incredible team of pool pro volunteers who stepped up and ran studies in their own service areas, contributing data and observations that helped prove this method worked in real world conditions. Their effort was crucial in showing that the process wasn't limited to one type of pool, one climate, or one set of chemistry conditions. It held up across the board. That said, John Poma was the driving force that pushed this discovery over the finish line.

He took on the lion's share of field testing, under controlled conditions, collecting the data, and carefully reporting his findings. John's persistence gave us the confidence to say this wasn't just a clever chemistry trick.

consistent and practical no matter where it was applied. Without John's work in the trenches, backed by the support of our volunteer team,

Rudy Stankowitz AI (02:23)
this would have been just another chemistry theory floating around. By 2024,

Rudy Stankowitz AI (02:28)
Thank

Rudy Stankowitz AI (02:28)
Hales of On Balance added more theoretical backbone to what we were seeing, Industry publications like Aqua Magazine and Service Industry News

even highlighted the method, which only boosted its visibility to pool pros everywhere. At the end of the day, this wasn't just about chemistry. It was about giving service techs a reliable, cost-effective alternative to dumping water. And that success rests as much on John Poma's field dedication as it does on the lab work behind it.

Rudy Stankowitz (05:34)
John, now you have your own pool service company, correct?

John Poma (05:38)
Yes, I do.

Rudy Stankowitz (05:39)
And you work for somebody as well.

John Poma (05:42)
Yes, commercial builder.

Rudy Stankowitz (05:45)
So you build commercial pools and your company services residential pools.

John Poma (05:46)
Yeah.

Yes

Rudy Stankowitz (05:51)
you're very active on social media. You help a lot of people. You're usually one of the first folks to speak up and take somebody by the hand and walk them through something. Where do you find the time?

John Poma (06:04)
Sometimes it's a little bit tough, but I just make some free time when I'm available.

Rudy Stankowitz (06:10)
Why do you do it?

John Poma (06:11)
From experience back from when I first started, there was no media. The only people that you had that would help you was who you were working for. There wasn't much of anywheres to reach out to ask for help.

So I just figure it's just helping people out that are just starting out and don't really know or understand certain things.

Rudy Stankowitz (06:35)
do you believe that's important?

John Poma (06:38)
Well, from my personal experience, when I first started, as most everybody knows, it's always been controversy between builders and service. Well, I went to work for what was known to be a real high rated commercial builder. And every time something went wrong, they would always try to throw us under the bus. And anybody that knows me knows I moved up in ranks relatively quickly.

So I was actually put into a position to where I did the turnovers. And I would go out and then I'd have to go back when there was warranty called and they would be saying it was our fault. And I would have to prove that, you know, what we did, not all the standards are above and we did everything accordingly to the plans and what HRS allowed. And,

A lot of times it was just bad chemistry that would destroy. I'd seen heaters get destroyed in as little as six months. And when you're standing there and they start saying, it's not my fault, prove that it's my fault. If you don't have chemical experience, there's no way to really be able to stand up and prove that it was chemically their fault. So I had to step out and

go and learn as much as I could as quickly as I could. That way I could defend our product that we were selling.

Rudy Stankowitz (07:59)
Do you think service companies and builders are working together better nowadays, less of the blame game than they were a decade ago, or is it just as bad as it ever was?

John Poma (08:08)
I see a lot more work in with each other. We've reached out to some, some have asked us cause they want to serve us, you know, and they want to pick up new accounts. So they've asked, you know, and some of them just directly to me asking me to, you know, take care of pools that we build in their area. You know, and since I'm in the field, I don't have full say so of that, but I do have a little bit that I can put in. You know, they asked me.

you know, hey, who would be good in this area or whatever. So I turn it over to the office and let them make the final decision.

Rudy Stankowitz (08:44)
Have you ever had somebody ask for advice and then you give them your best answer and then they all of sudden want to argue with you about what you said?

John Poma (08:54)
Yeah, a few times. Not too often, but it happens.

Rudy Stankowitz (08:59)
How do you react to that?

John Poma (09:00)
Just go off of what you know is right, you know, what your experience was. You can't answer all of them. You don't have the answer for everything. And you're not giving them false information. You're going off of what you believe and what you learn.

Rudy Stankowitz (09:16)
when we were doing the alum cyanuric acid removal trials, I guess trials is the best word for it, you took on the lion's share of those trials

Why, why help with something like that?

John Poma (09:31)
I it was a good stepping point for going back in time. mean, and you both have talked about it. Alam's been around forever. They still use it in most water treatment around the world. It's the first phase of drinking water, for the most part. So I mean, if it's good enough for drinking water, why not use it on a pool?

Rudy Stankowitz (09:51)
We both caught a lot of slack over that initially. It took years before people, the naysayers went away. How did you feel about that?

John Poma (09:59)
they come up with that it was killing people and you know, then, and then some speak out that it creates a altism or whatever. And if you, do the research and you talk to doctors, if you're in the hospital and you're bleeding and they can't get it to stop.

The first thing that they use is they stuff alum in your your wound to make a blood clot. They can do that and it saves your life. How is it killing anybody? We're putting it in water. We drop everything out. You do a vacuum the waste. It's gone. It's not in the pool.

Rudy Stankowitz (10:39)
you've tested it for aluminum afterwards, correct?

John Poma (10:43)
Yes.

Rudy Stankowitz (10:43)
it's not like you're just saying it. We actually ran the tests afterwards. gosh. I know for me, it was like, here we are trying to do a good thing, and sometimes I felt a little beat up because of it.

John Poma (10:56)
Yeah. And it's probably not for everybody, but as you were doing and you running the test, well, you, the one that discovered the loss that it would take out the CYA in certain areas, you're not allowed to just drain a pool and refill it. So it was a good thing to do if it had extremely high CYA.

You can drop it back down to an acceptable range and it'd be like starting over again.

Rudy Stankowitz (11:30)
That was my thought too. It's not, we weren't doing it for everybody. We weren't telling everybody, hey, this is the better way to go. I still don't think it's the better way to go. But if you're looking at areas like the West coast, like you referenced, where they do go through water restrictions because of periods of drought where they can't drain water, this is an ideal solution.

We wanted to help folks, and we didn't look to monetize it. And I think that's part of the big reason there was a lot of slack. It's not so much what we were doing, but the fact that we weren't

looking to make any money on it.

John Poma (12:06)
Yeah, I mean, it was, some of it was silly and nonsense on some people's part. They just didn't understand that they would argue and say, well, this product does better. You know, when you read the bottles of almost every one on the market that I know of on the back of the bottle, the number one ingredient in it is Almond.

Rudy Stankowitz (12:25)
which is also the number one ingredient in pickle juice. It's also the number one ingredient in your deodorant. Some people like the status quo. You seem to like to challenge the norm.

Is that a fair statement?

John Poma (12:39)
Yeah, I'm definitely not one that would be considered the average or the normal. I don't travel with the just the normal. I do things differently than most. I mean, even on the service aspect, you see everybody, they have their style. I have mine. You've seen my setup on my truck. Everything's organized. I can get tough within seconds. Even

As far as my hammerhead goes that I carry on the back that I've been using for over 20 years, I have never once taken it off the truck and taken it inside to charge it. I charge mine off the truck.

Rudy Stankowitz (13:15)
Is it true, that you on job sites grill, you cook food for your team?

John Poma (13:21)
Absolutely, I have done it multiple times. I do it actually quite often almost every single job when we do the plumbing, the perimeter plumbing that is. I'll normally have a grill set up and not where you just stand over it and watch it. Normally I'll do like 10 full wraps. It'd be ribs, chicken, whatever. I also have what I call a can cooker. I've done seafood.

put it in there and it literally cooks itself within less than an hour. So as long as I get off, put it on before lunch, I can have it ready by lunchtime.

Rudy Stankowitz (13:57)
What's the team's favorite thing you grill?

John Poma (14:01)
I haven't had anybody say one thing. They seem to like everything.

Rudy Stankowitz (14:06)
That makes it easy. So you're in Lakeland in Lakeland, Florida. ever pull a gator out of a pool?

John Poma (14:12)
I have not, I've never had one in one of mine. I do recall back in, I believe the early nineties, anybody that's in a baseball knows that, you know, Lakeland's the Detroit Tigers home in the winter. Well, they used to have a hotel. stayed up or I believe it was around Lake Parker and they actually had one that was eight foot long that coming in.

paid a visit in the middle of the night and they spotted it first thing in the morning before anybody got in the area and they had to have it removed.

Rudy Stankowitz (14:47)
About that same time, wasn't there a guy in Lakeland, Florida who got his privates stuck in a vacuum outlet in a pool? That made the news.

John Poma (14:57)
Yeah, we

that made everybody back then. I mean, that was the biggest laugh of the town. And it actually ended up being one of the things that changed in our industry because we used to be able to use just a plug on the wall for the vacuum fitting. And then it went to the safety factor of we have to have a locking mechanism that when you pull the hose out, we'll drop and shut.

so nobody can get hurt and that can't happen again.

Rudy Stankowitz (15:29)
I remember I was – and this wasn't just famous locally. This was national news. I heard about it. I was up in New Jersey at the time and I heard it come on the radio. Remember back then there were those guys that would do the prank calls all the time and they'd play the prank calls on the radio? I thought it was one of their skits. It had to be. They played the 911 call with the operator laughing hysterically as somebody is explaining how this guy –

came down to the pool in the middle of the night. I guess he was in the water. He saw the hole in the wall that was open and felt like getting a little friendly, amorous with it, and was somehow stuck there for three or four hours. And I was just dying. can't imagine. And it was a local guy too, right?

John Poma (16:10)
Okay.

It was to my understanding, he had moved here from somewheres else. don't recall exactly where, but he moved here and then he was staying there while looking for a place, I guess. And, ⁓ like you said, it went national, but it was on all the police scanners. There was so many patrol cars up town that they said they had roads blocked off because everybody had to go take a look and see what the big deal was.

Rudy Stankowitz (16:46)
Now, so for those of you listening, if you are really, really interested, that 911 call that I described, that John just described, that is available on YouTube if you search. It's out there. It's a 911 call about the guy that got his penis stuck in a pool plumbing. but yeah, you can search that and it's, ⁓ it's disturbing because it's an entrapment issue and John's absolutely right. Now we have to have those spring loaded,

Covers, I don't even think there was a plug in that one. I think it was just left open.

John Poma (17:18)
They found the plug back in the equipment area. whoever was servicing the pool just didn't put it back in.

Rudy Stankowitz (17:25)
They just left it out and he decided to have at it.

John Poma (17:27)
Yeah

It's funny that you brought it up too because I still have one of the old plugs that I found a couple weeks ago that was rolling around in one of our vehicles.

Rudy Stankowitz (17:39)
no.

That's gotta be the very, very first A Florida Man story. It's gotta be. Back to less strange pool stuff. When you jump into a Facebook thread that's really active and about a stubborn stain, you look at...

All the comments, you look at all the questions. What's the first detail you ask for before offering a fix or a solution?

John Poma (18:05)
Well, on some of them, the pictures, I just can't make out what the actual picture is. It's hard to draw it in and be able to see exactly what it is. If they describe it and they say that, you know, that it's orange or, you know, a brownish color, it sounds more like rust than anything. Of course, if it's greenish color, if it's not algae and won't brush off, then typically you would think that it's copper.

Rudy Stankowitz (18:30)
Newer Tech posts something, but It's a little bit shaky, their diagnosis. How do you respond so they feel encouraged to rethink their approach?

John Poma (18:43)
You know, we use old school methods. We don't always go straight for what's bought off a shelf. You also helped me with that with the copper. I didn't really understand and know that alum would remove copper stains. So you can spot treat for that and see if that will lift what's stuck.

And then the other has always been a vitamin C tablet. If you think it's an iron stain, you can rub it on and if it lifts it, then you can buy ascorbic acid and treat it with the ascorbic acid.

Rudy Stankowitz (19:17)
And if it turns it black, then we know it's copper. We go back to alum, give that a shot.

what do you think about this thing that the Talking Pools podcast is doing with the mentor award? I mean, you didn't really volunteer for it. You kind of got sucked into it. I'm not that it's a bad thing. Like you feel sucked into it, but you know, you were nominated. Nobody could nominate themselves. Here you are. What do you think about what we're trying to honor in doing this?

John Poma (22:30)
It's really nice. I mean, it really stands out. It was nothing that I ever expected, as you said, you know, it's, and you know me as well as anybody. don't do any of it for recognition or anybody to say that, you know, he does more than somebody else or anything like that. Because I know what it was like when I started out.

don't really have that many people around you that's willing to help.

Rudy Stankowitz (23:00)
don't.

John Poma (23:02)
I know I try to read and see what everybody says and what the recommendations are and think of how I would go about it.

And then again, basically, you know, I always stick to the old school ways more so than anything else, because in the long run, from the service standpoint, I started my service to make money, not to make somebody else a load of money. So if I save a dollar on the product, then that's more profit to me and not spending it out to a, you know, a big name store.

Rudy Stankowitz (23:12)
I tried to do that.

No, I agree. I know when I look at a post in a group like Facebook, read through the comment. First thing I do is I read the question and decide if there's enough data to actually give an answer, because that's not always the case. Sometimes there's just missing information. But then I look through all of the other comments, because I don't want to say, I don't want to blurt something else out that somebody else has already said. If somebody else has already said it, let them have it. I'll like it.

or whatever, there's no need to, you know, just keep saying the same thing over and over again throughout the thing. But sometimes I look at them and I'm like, do I really feel like arguing today before I put an answer in? Sometimes I don't, so I just don't answer, because I don't want to go through all the...

Bullshit, I guess.

John Poma (24:25)
part is very true. There's some that will just argue to the end of time, no matter what. you know, yeah. I'm pretty, I got a pretty good memory in ones that I know that would do nothing but argue like that. I just basically don't answer questions for them. You know, I just leave them totally out of it. And if I've seen it to where they're really dis-hateful to, you know,

Rudy Stankowitz (24:30)
Just for no reason, just to argue.

There you

John Poma (24:52)
It's me and you know, the women, they get about the most and that's one of the reasons why a lot of them don't post in any of the groups is because of, you know, the, the nasty side. So, you know, I don't see where that helps anybody. So.

Rudy Stankowitz (25:04)
backlash trolls yeah yeah

It doesn't. It actually does the opposite of helping. It's just, it alienates people. It's awful. On that note, if you could pin a single golden rule to the top of every pool group, what would it be and why?

John Poma (25:29)
just to give out proper information and not be sarcastic about some of it, you know, and shoot people down so quickly. Why not just give them an honest answer? Why be negative?

Rudy Stankowitz (25:44)
So basically, don't be a dick.

John Poma (25:46)
Exactly.

Rudy Stankowitz (25:48)
Hahaha

So here's like, this one's a little silly, if you went to your pool and saw that the saturation index was sad, I mean, emotionally, sulking, what would you do to cheer it up?

John Poma (26:02)
That all depends on the situation, you know, like you said before every pools different So you got to treat each one of them a little bit different?

Rudy Stankowitz (26:06)
It's had.

What patterns and repeat questions tell you somebody's ready to take on tougher service calls?

John Poma (26:16)
Some of them stand out more than others. They're willing to put themselves out there and they don't really care what somebody else thinks of what they're doing. But they know that they're doing the right thing.

Rudy Stankowitz (26:28)
could you describe a comment that you wrote to somebody that you still think about sometimes because you clearly helped someone a lot that you'd never even had the pleasure of meeting?

John Poma (26:39)
That one's tough because I do frequently get a lot of messages through Messenger. A lot from people that I'm not friends with on social media that ask different things. Some on building, some on using Alum.

Gosh, I can't keep up with all of them. There are so many.

Rudy Stankowitz (27:00)
It's hard to keep up with them sometimes. miss sometimes I'll see, my gosh, I missed that. It's from three months ago. I feel horrible. And I'll respond and I'm like, you know, sorry I missed it, but these questions are coming in from everywhere. Email, text, phone calls, Facebook groups, my page in the group, messenger, Instagram, Tik Tok, and goes on and on and on. what do you do to keep up with that?

John Poma (27:13)
Yeah.

For me, I had the Instagram. I don't have it. Well, I still have it, but I'd never get on it. I'm not active on it. And I'm basically just on Facebook for the social part. I do have the, the tick tock. I post a few videos here and there, you know, jobs that we've done, but you know, it's not the same as Facebook. It's not answering too many questions or whatever. And then, you know, our workload word.

We're booked. We are absolutely swamped for a couple years. So I don't have much time to spend on any of the other social medias.

Rudy Stankowitz (28:00)
you're a moderator in several of the groups as well. So let me ask you this. If you see a thread that's

Really, people are getting all fired up. It's turning toxic. It's about, let's say, I don't know, test kits. Could be whatever, test strips versus drops versus whatever versus spin touch. How do you get everybody to chill out while not alienating anyone? Keeping them engaged, but getting them to calm down and make it more productive talk.

John Poma (28:28)
Usually for the most part, the ones that get out of hand, know, the, the posts that get really wild or whatever, 99 % of the time I don't see them until hours later. Cause they happen during either my travel or whatever, you know, we spend the, we spend a lot of time on the road, you know, if we're pouring concrete, there's days that I'm up at 1 a.m. and headed out the door before too.

Rudy Stankowitz (28:41)
at 2am.

John Poma (28:54)
And I may or may not get back home before eight o'clock that night. So it, it, it comes and goes. I look at my phone sporadically from time to time if I have available time. But if I'm on a piece of equipment, I don't have a lot of time to look because everybody else, the safety is first. I can't be running a, a, a 350 excavator, digging a hole and be looking on my phone while I'm trying to operate it too.

Rudy Stankowitz (29:23)
That would be bad. what's a, and now this is in the field wherever, a common shortcut that you see people talking about or hanging on to like a hack or not a hack, more like a myth, some BS that you see that people are just clinging to And how do you get them to see that it isn't real? And what's the most common one?

John Poma (29:45)
As far as the service side goes, for the longest time, I remember that a lot of people in my area were saying that you just absolutely couldn't get rid of black algae. There was no way you had to remodel the pool. It was, it was the devil. You had to get rid of it and that's the only way you could do it. And, ⁓ I proved it to be,

the total opposite Somehow they got my number and called me and I went and took care of it. And, you know, it depends on how the situation is, how bad it is to what way you take to get rid of it. ⁓ I know I had talked to you at one point in time, I was going to do a video and it just absolutely like it fell off the face of the plant and stopped. didn't hear nobody else saying that, but I've

Literally taking a pressure washer before underwater knocked the stuff off super chlorinate left and never came back again Others you know you got two or three spots you just rub a tablet on it and it goes away And now there's stuff on the market of your selling products you can sell some of the products That would do the same thing basically without a lot of effort

Rudy Stankowitz (30:40)
people.

John Poma (30:54)
I've used a lot of different products just to try and I still will. I always do. You know, I always said that any pool that I touch is my test pool one way or another. I'm testing it for something. Doesn't matter if I'm building or if I'm on the service side. You just have to keep it safe.

Rudy Stankowitz (31:16)
Black algae just not as scary as it used to be? Is that... Is that true?

John Poma (31:20)
just I

haven't been seeing a lot of it here recently in my area or the people have gotten wiser and they're using products that get rid of it. I'm not getting the phone calls I did for it.

Rudy Stankowitz (31:30)
Well, that's

That's awesome. either folks are getting wiser, getting a better grasp on it, or whatever condition was helping make pools more conducive to black algae has lessened. don't know. I like to think that the people have really become more educated and are employing better tactics,

you choose to have a superpower, what superpower would it be and how would you use that in the industry?

John Poma (32:01)
That's tough. From the service side or the pool, the build inside?

Rudy Stankowitz (32:05)
whatever you want,

John Poma (32:06)
the ability to dry up ground waters.

Rudy Stankowitz (32:09)
Hahaha

John Poma (32:11)
We, with the new code, with the main drains and everything in place over the last few years, our pools, you just don't realize it, pools only five foot deep. But by the time you hit groundwater and you dig and it's got a big oversized main drain, you end up digging a hole almost nine foot to be able to get that in the ground along with the under drain to be able to dry it up.

Rudy Stankowitz (32:36)
let's take it a step further. If you could be a DC superhero, which one would you be and why?

John Poma (32:42)
one's tough too. I guess Aquaman because he goes with water.

Rudy Stankowitz (32:46)
he'd have that power that he could dry up the water and send it elsewhere. If somebody time traveled from 1978. And they're giving advice. What tip do you hope they would give people?

John Poma (32:50)
I heard they've heard it.

from 1978.

Rudy Stankowitz (33:05)
1978.

John Poma (33:06)
just to be more nice to people not not to be as rude as some are

Rudy Stankowitz (33:10)
Let ask you this one. Why do you do what you do? Why do you stay in the pool industry?

John Poma (33:16)
For me on the building side, I've talked about, know, retirement, but I've talked about it and was kind of looking forward to it somewhat. But then it's like, what would I do? I go stir crazy, but at the same time I have my pool service. So that was kind of my retirement plan is I could just do the ones that I have and only be working part time. And that would be enough for me.

But I've been asked by several people not to retire and being begged not to retire to carry on. And I've also been asked to go get the commercial end of the license. So multiple people in the office would have them.

Unfortunately, you know, we're just so busy. I never have time to go take the course or, you know, study or any of it.

Rudy Stankowitz (34:06)
It's a lot. is. a lot. And pool builds are still up since the pandemic, would you say?

John Poma (34:12)
The pool building part?

It seems to have absolutely exploded and just growing at a phenomenal rate in Florida. mean, everywhere you go, there's commercial complexes going in. If it's not apartments, it's another subdivision. Some of the largest home builders are right here in the state building all over.

retirement community, it's just, it's, there's no end in sight. I mean, we're just a small company. We don't do as many as some of the larger ones do, but still you're talking for us. We're at like over 30 pools in the next two years already. That's a lot.

Rudy Stankowitz (34:53)
So we talked a lot about your two jobs. You have your job, you have your pool service company, you help people on the phone through emails, through social media, but you do also have a wife, right? When do you get to see her?

John Poma (35:09)
yeah.

We see each other a couple hours each night. And then we spend time on the weekends usually. Unfortunately, since I do have the pool service, I spend about a half of a day on Saturday with the finishing up the ones that I don't get on Friday. And, ⁓ so we have, you know, half a day Saturday and all day Sunday norm.

Rudy Stankowitz (35:18)
Well that's good.

And that time's important,

But in five years, what would you like to see different in the industry?

John Poma (35:39)
On the build inside, there's a lot of room for improvements on different things. I know every couple years it changes, there's a new rule that comes into play.

I said, it's hard to keep up with them anymore. I've got so many codes that run through my head all the time, since I'm the one that look over blueprints all the time and find mistakes from engineers. And, it'd be a lot more helpful that if on that side of it, that the state would step in and do a better job at reviewing the plans and not allowing so much get passed.

permitting stage and getting the contractors hands and here build this and you know, then you go in as a builder and you build it according to the plans, but it's not the code. Then you've got a major problem.

We see that, I see that a lot. It's very common on the zero entry pools. First thing when I get a plan and I look at zero entry, I scale out the one in 10, 99.9 % of the time it is not one in 10. They have one foot drop in seven feet. That's not acceptable by state code.

Rudy Stankowitz (36:48)
If somebody wanted to reach out to you and ask you a question or just say hello, what's the best way to get a hold of you? Where can they find you?

John Poma (36:56)
biggest spot is Facebook. Other than that would be my phone number.

Rudy Stankowitz (37:02)
John, thank you so much for stopping in to visit with us today. Again, John Palmer, one of the top 10 mentors, drew from 70 nominees, one person will receive the championship belt. That's coming up in November, John. You're definitely in the running for that. I appreciate you. People don't know this, taking time out of your Sunday to sit here with me and talk just for a minute. I appreciate it a lot, so thank you.

Anything you want to say to everybody before we anything you want to say that everybody should keep in there in the front of their mind going forward before we leave.

John Poma (37:24)
Not a problem at all.

Just keep the pools blue and keep moving forward.

Rudy Stankowitz (37:33)
There you go, everybody. John Poma. I'm Rudy Stankiewicz. This is the Talking Pools podcast. Until next time, be good, be safe.