Clear Water Can Still Kill, Part 2: The Myth-Busting Conclusion with Dewey Case & Natalie Hood

In this powerful conclusion to the two-part episode Clear Water Can Still Kill, Natalie Hood and Dewey Case pull back the curtain on the myths that continue to plague both residential and commercial pool operations. From chlorine “smell” misconceptions to Airbnb water safety, they challenge everything we think we know about clean, safe, and healthy pool water.

Dewey explains why clear doesn’t always mean clean—and why that faint haze, that “smells clean” comment, or that once-a-week test schedule could spell serious trouble. Natalie takes it a step further, sharing real-world stories of visiting family pools that reeked of combined chlorine, and why that chemical sting is the ultimate red flag for poor air and water management.

Together, they break down:

• Why public spas can be a microbiological minefield (and why Dewey won’t get in them)
• The shocking truth about short-term pool rentals and backyard “pool sharing” apps
• Why HOAs testing once a week isn’t just lazy—it’s dangerous
• The right testing frequency for both homeowners and pool pros
• Why water testing at the pool store days later is absolutely not okay
• How education and continuing certification separate the pros from the pretenders
• And why a commercial pool isn’t just a “big backyard pool”—it’s a Ferrari compared to a Ford

Dewey and Natalie wrap with a reality check: certification is just your driver’s license. The real work is what comes after—continuous education, field experience, and doing the job right even when no one’s watching.

Key Quote:

“Be better. Earn more.” — Dewey Case

Next Week:
Natalie returns with The Grit Game’s Jared Medeiros and JD “Positive Vibes” Director to tackle one of the toughest topics in pool care: leak detection. You won’t want to miss this one!

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#TalkingPoolsPodcast #PoolSafety #MythBusting #PublicHealth #CMAHC #GritGame #PoolPros

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:17)
All I care about as a consumer when I go somewhere, you know, when I put on my Pool Pro hat, I worry about health and safety, right? But when my wife and I go somewhere and we want to get into a pool or, you know, Lazy River or what have you, you know, I don't get in public spas.

There's one person I'll get into. I don't get in public spas.

Speaker 2 (00:41)
Is that spot your own?

Speaker 1 (00:43)
Even when I had a spa I maintained for 20 years, I got into it a grand total of five times. And each time after a draining clean, and I was meticulous about my water chemistry, I was meticulous about if I had the slightest whiff or the slightest hint that, huh, it was automatic draining clean, hypercoordination, right?

⁓ And I never had an outbreak with my spa. But as a consumer, our jobs are to protect our families. So I really don't care if that pool gets their feelings hurt, right? Or if that pool tech gets offended because in this weird world, everybody who has a poll is equal in their knowledge.

Speaker 2 (01:23)
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:24)
We went on vacation to a hotel in New Orleans, upscale hotel. We chose it, my wife and I, for the pool. We go up there, first day we're there, I take one look at it, it's clear.

Speaker 2 (02:32)
of that.

Speaker 1 (02:40)
Slight bit of haze. Slight bit of haze. And I was able to find pool logs, 0.5 PPM. Honey, we're just gonna be laying out. Yep. Didn't get in it.

Speaker 2 (02:59)
think too, I I've gone into pools with my husband, you know, when we first moved to Tennessee we were looking at different pools for swim lessons and while I could teach my kids swim lessons, I'm mom and they're just like, you don't know anything, I'm gonna go over here and blow bubbles and I'm gonna swim and you stay over there and I'm like, okay. So of course we have to find someone else to teach my kids how to swim.

There were so many pools that we visited and I would walk in there and immediately I just got smacked in the face with chlorine and I was just like, oh, I don't want my kids to go here. And my husband was like, well, it smells clean. And I'm like, are you kidding me? Like, is that not making your nostrils like flare? Like my eyes are burning and my kids are like, oh, look at this really fun pool. have slides. There's, know, there's a splash pad over there. And I'm like,

That's great. I love that you love the outline of the pool and the layout. But unfortunately, mommy's eyes are now burning. And the second you get in that water, your eyes are going to burn. And I don't want them to walk away from swim lessons remembering that. I want it to be a fun experience where they get out. You know, they do their shower. They do their routine. They get dinner on the way home. But at the same time, you know, it's like it needs to be a good experience. It needs to be memorable.

I want them to grow up remembering, yeah, I did some lessons, but I don't want them to remember how bad their eyes burned.

Speaker 1 (04:24)
Yeah.

That's another good point, right? Because it goes back to the clean water is a clear water is not clean water, right? If you walk into an auditorium indoor pool, right? And you're hitting the face with chlorine stench and your eyes start watering and your nose burns, the best thing you can do is turn around and walk away. Yeah. Because I don't care how clear that water is, right? That tells me ⁓

that there are systematic problems with that pool. either one of two things are true, if not both. Either the operator has no idea what the heck they're right? Or the facility is not putting the money in it to maintain it appropriately. either one of those is a health issue.

Speaker 2 (05:18)
Well, and I think too, so many facilities will just have one operator on staff. Well, what happens when that operator's sick? That operator needs to take vacation. They have a family emergency. What are you gonna do? Have someone, the lead manager, the manager on site during those eight to 10 whatever hours they're working oversee the chemicals? Like that's even scarier. Are you gonna drop chemicals that could potentially hurt my children and myself? Cause you just don't know.

So, yep, I think that one's, I think it's busted. I do.

Speaker 1 (05:54)
Absolutely.

And I do want to look back around, right? Because you mentioned earlier about testing frequency and the HOA that tested once a week, right? Yep. So what, you know, we've got to bring up what are, what's a good testing frequency, right? So, you know, from a residential homeowner standpoint, you should be testing it once a day. If you got a guy coming once a week or a company coming once a week to do service, test it once a day.

Speaker 2 (06:15)
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:22)
Now you don't have to be as ticky with the parameters, right? 7.8 pH is fine. We won't go into that chemistry, but 7.8 is fine. One part per million is fine, but you wanna make sure something's there, right? Now, when we look at the data that came out tying pseudonomas to swimmers here in residential pools, that data screams, well, maybe 7.8 isn't fine. Maybe one.

per million isn't fine. But if you stay consistent with it, it's probably going to be okay. So definitely walk out there, and if you got to strip it as a residential homeowner, do it. Pool pros, when you're visiting that pool and you're on a once a week service residential route, do a full panel. Do a full test. Something I've seen, and it drives me batty.

Speaker 2 (07:12)
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:19)
⁓ And I'm going to probably step on a bunch of toes. ⁓ I have personally seen through direct experience, pool techs take a water sample, poolside, put it in their truck, go back to the pool store at the end of the day, run the water sample, notate what they have to add and take it the next week.

Pull pros. No words. you're doing that, stop it. Stop it. When you're there, do a full panel on site, dose on site, because guess what? If you get two inches of rain between visits, your water temperature is gonna change. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:05)
Well, then why wouldn't you just test it there? Log it, move on, dump it out, clean it up, move on.

Speaker 1 (08:11)
Yeah, and we won't get into the dynamics of, know, because I don't want to go all big corporation or eat the rich like crap. You know, no offense to those that believe that I don't, ⁓ you know, but, ⁓ you know,

sometimes slowing down, charge $5 more a week. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:33)
Make sure it's right. sure that I mean especially too if you're doing a service route Do not only the patrons that you're servicing but do yourself a service do it the right way. There's no reason to skip corners

Speaker 1 (08:48)
The absolute

best marketing in the world for a pro pro pro is to be good and be thorough. You're good and you're thorough. You may charge 10 % more than everybody else. Guess what? You're going to have a full route every week because you have the reputation of excellence.

Speaker 2 (08:58)
Yeah.

And you're trusted that you know, you're going to go that extra mile to make sure if they're going to have their daughters, you know, pull party that weekend, there's going to be a ton of bathers in that they're going to be safe and that you're going to be there after that party, the next day or what have you. Really should be that, you know, the next day to test, but you're going to take care of that water in case, you know, the parents want to take a dip or what have you. that's actually, that's interesting too, because, you know, my kids swim, they've been swimming for years.

I've worked with them in the bathtub when they were very little. We've done mommy and me classes and then when it got to the point where we were like, okay, mom can't teach them lessons anymore. Fine. But my kids go once a week. This week they're not going to go because of Halloween. We're going to pick them up early. We're going to go trick or treating, but they'll be right back next week. And you know, they're working on fully submerging their head and making sure they use their arms and legs. And I will say my oldest daughter who is known for ear infections, she had tubes for a long time.

⁓ She was just complaining about a lot of pressure and I was like, let's go, you know, let's take you in. She had swimmers ear and I've got, I got some res here quite a bit. You know, when I grew up swimming in California, I was constantly swimming for hours and I always would put like a little bit of alcohol in my ear, tip it over and tip it back. And so I've had to start doing that with her. But since then, ⁓

I've definitely dived deeper into those daily logs at the YMCA. Now, granted, I love the YMCA. They're fantastic. But again, Tennessee is not required state. And so you just have to be careful.

Speaker 1 (10:49)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, real quick just on testing frequency, right? So commercially, residentially, right? Homeowners need to test it, even if you strip it once a day. You know, when it gets cold, fine, do it less frequently because you're not swimming in it, right? ⁓ Service pros and residential routes, do a full test once a week. It's. It doesn't hurt anything exactly better for everybody. Immersively.

Speaker 2 (11:12)
What's it gonna hurt?

Speaker 1 (11:19)
Here's where it gets interesting, right? I mean, A, you've got to defer to the regulatory requirements. But keep in mind the regulatory requirements are a minimum. They're a minimum. So think about what type of venue you have, right? Maybe your spa, if it's a high use spa, maybe that needs to be checked every hour or two. Maybe your, you know,

Speaker 2 (11:43)
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:49)
One of the facilities we run with Williamson County is a 50 meter comp pool, 750,000 gallons, right? We test it four times a day.

Speaker 2 (11:59)
Well, I feel like you'd have to because how many bathers are you having get in and out of that water?

Speaker 1 (12:03)
Our average bather load is five to 700 daily. That's a lot. Yeah, when the splash pad that we have on site, we tested our.

Speaker 2 (12:17)
You have to. Those flash pads are like Petri dishes.

Speaker 1 (12:20)
Yeah, and they change so quick. So operators, you need to think about for commercial pools, what's your risk profile of the body of water? What's your operational needs? And so many things change so quickly, especially in smaller bodies of water. I'm not going to necessarily say, hey, you need to do every hour.

Speaker 2 (12:42)
Yes.

Speaker 1 (12:49)
because that's not always called for, but take a look at your risk, take a at your users, take a look at the volume of water. you know the best way to know how often you need to test?

Speaker 2 (13:03)
Yeah. Easy as

Speaker 1 (13:04)
test frequently.

If

you start off testing every hour and you see that, I'm stable hour over hour over hour, the next week drop it down to every two.

Speaker 2 (13:18)
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:20)
And then the following weight, drop it down to three. Drop it down to the point where you realize, okay, I'm starting to get behind the eight ball, make your corrections and go up.

Speaker 2 (13:32)
something that's interesting about that. we've talked about commercial residential HOAs and we might only be debunking a few myths today because you and I, yeah, we've kind of gone down this rabbit hole, right? But something else that I want to bring up is Airbnb's.

Yeah, Airbnbs. I have, you know, we went away to St. Thomas early this year with my family. It was supposed to be our wedding anniversary. And then, you know, I was like, well, we have to the kids. This is, you know, going to be an unforgettable experience. And then my parents are going to be coming. And then my husband's parents were coming. And my brother was like, well, I want to go. I was like, all right, that's cool. You're cool. You can come. But we looked at all these different Airbnbs and a lot of them

did have hot tubs, they had pools. And my husband's like, let's get one of those. My mom was like, yeah, let's get one of those. Come on, I want to sit in the hot tub after a long day of listening to my lovely grandchildren, know, bicker back and forth. And I have to tell you, I opted to not get an Airbnb with a pool or spa in the backyard because I just don't have the confidence that they're going to actually test their water. Are they going to test it before we come in? would, God, I'd hope so.

But that was my biggest fear is I know if we're going to have that in that backyard, my kids are going to want to go into it. You my mom's going to be in it constantly. I'm going to want to go into it. But here I'm going to come in with this test strip. I'm going to test it. And nine times out of 10, I feel like in that, my situation, it wasn't going to be up to par. I wasn't going to feel safe.

So here we've paid this additional amount of money per night to stay, you know, with an Airbnb that isn't properly taking care.

of the water. And I feel like that's another big thing. And I feel like it's a big part of the industry that's really not touched on enough.

Speaker 1 (15:27)
I can't hold my beer, Natalie.

Speaker 2 (15:59)
So here we've paid this additional amount of money per night to stay, you know, with an Airbnb that isn't properly taking care.

of the water. And I feel like that's another big thing. And I feel like it's a big part of the industry that's really not touched on enough.

Speaker 1 (16:15)
I can't hold my beer, Natalie.

I've got one that's better than that. ⁓ there are I won't name names. Yeah. But there is a model out there where you can rent your pool by the hour, basically.

Speaker 2 (16:29)
What? Like an above ground pool or in ground?

Speaker 1 (16:32)
whatever pool you have in your backyard, you can rent it out. for birthday parties, for to take your dog to go swimming, for you to go lay out in. Talking with a health official from North Carolina. I believe it was North Carolina, maybe South Carolina, one of the Carolinas. And they went to a birthday party at one of these things. Backyard pool, 20,000 gallons.

Speaker 2 (16:36)
party. ⁓

wait so.

Speaker 1 (17:02)
That was the third birthday party of the day.

The estimate, the, the estimated bather load for a 20,000 gallon backyard pool was 150 for that day, which it's an eight hour turnover, right? It's running a residential, you know, it's running, for example, a residential chlorine generator, which doesn't make that much chlorine, right? Right. So the time the health official got there, the water's cloudy, water was murky.

horribly unsafe.

Speaker 2 (17:38)
Well, I guess too, they're running it out. You said 150 people?

Speaker 1 (17:44)
Yeah, that was what the health official estimated had been there that day.

Speaker 2 (17:48)
Well, and my first question, especially with someone that has small kids is, didn't anyone have any loose stool? You know, you could have a swim diaper, but I mean, that's scary. there, did anyone, you know, choke on some water and have an incident? It happens, especially with young kids. But also, I mean,

how many people are gonna not want to get out of that pool to go use the restroom? They're just like, well, I'm already in the pool. My kids are here. I'm just, no one's gonna know. You know, it's not gonna be, what is that movie with Adam Sandler where he's like, oh yeah, if you pee in the pool, turns blue. I think it's grownups or what have you. I think it was like the first grownups movie. And then all of a sudden, like there started to be like blue spots everywhere from the adults, not the kids. And you just see the kids running. But I mean, that's scary and disgusting.

Speaker 1 (18:36)
Yeah.

Yeah, it is. I worry about those more than Airbnb. And the scary thing is health officials are struggling on how to deal with it. ⁓ Some health officials recognize it's a problem, want to ban it. Other health officials, they're throwing their hands up because they're overworked, they're under... They can't get to their public pools more than once a month.

Speaker 2 (18:59)
They're so overworked.

Speaker 1 (19:05)
and they can't get to it, right? So it is definitely a major health concern. ⁓

Speaker 2 (19:14)
Yeah, well, we'll have to dive into that more later. I think we've actually run out of time. You and I have had so much fun. talked about, I know, I know we've talked about debunking all of this. So it sounds like we're going to have to have another episode of debunking myths.

Speaker 1 (19:35)
Yes.

I'm up for that. Up for that. Because there's so much still to talk about,

Speaker 2 (19:41)
God, we

have still so much we haven't touched on. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:45)
shock

shock versus cow hyper whole whole list of stuff there ⁓ i do want to i do want to say one thing very quickly while i have a captive audience one of my big things is we recognize the differences between residential and commercial pools i'm a car guy so i tend to talk in car guy terms right a ⁓

Speaker 2 (19:48)
down.

Speaker 1 (20:12)
Ford Taurus, and a Ferrari LaFerrari are both cars. They have tires, they have engines, they have transmissions, they have seats, they have blinkers, they have windshield wipers. Superficially, they're the same thing. The level of complexity on the Ferrari is so much higher than on the Taurus. Yeah, definitely. Well, and that's true with residential versus commercial, right?

Speaker 2 (20:19)
Yes.

So is the price tag.

Speaker 1 (20:42)
If you're a residential pool pro and you're going commercial, you have to understand commercial pools. They are not just overgrown backyard pools.

Speaker 2 (20:58)
Yes, so, so different.

Speaker 1 (21:01)
You can pull the torus up in the front yard and change your oil in it. I don't recommend doing that to the Ferrari.

Speaker 2 (21:10)
And you probably shouldn't have me change the oil on either.

Speaker 1 (21:13)
No, your average guy at the drive-through Jiffy Lube that over-tightens the oil pan every time, the drain plug, they have zero business working on a Ferrari. Yeah. So that's my big thing. If you're a residential guy working on commercial pools, up your game, dude, and do that. Up your game. It is a different creature.

Speaker 2 (21:40)
It is such a different creature. you know, too, when you go to take an operator class, you know, whether it's through PHTA, AFO, WU, you know, there's, there's a ton of classes out there. Learning doesn't stop once you get that grade on the exam, whether you passed or failed, you need to continue on with your education. Again, you and I've gone back and forth, you know, for years and just in this conversation today.

that there's always new things coming up in the industry. And granted, I've been this industry for a while, you've been in this industry for a long time. And there are still things that I'm constantly learning and having to constantly research because it's changing. It's always changing. There's a new car model every single year. mean, what, I think they released the new car models. what was, is it now in like August or September for the next two?

Speaker 1 (22:32)
Yeah, somewhere off in there.

Speaker 2 (22:34)
Yeah, and so the same thing applies to education. You have to stay on your game. And if you're doing residential and you're going to expand into commercial, the education. Just get educated. It's not going to do you any harm.

Speaker 1 (22:49)
Your operator course that you take is your driver's license. That does not mean you're ready to drive on the perimeter of Atlanta at rush hour. You've got to know more. And you're right, everything's evolving, right? We're ozone units on residential pools for the first time ever, right? We're putting AOP units on ozone. I saw one at a high-end pool the other day. They have a...

an AOP unit on a backyard pool. Nuts.

Nuts, we didn't talk about that 20 years ago.

Speaker 2 (23:26)
No, we didn't. mean, there's apps that you can use that you can download to help you along your service route. And that's another thing too. I think there's a lot of people that wake up and they're like, I want to get in the pool industry. I want to make a quick buck. I'm going to get certified. I'm going to work this upcoming summer. It is not that easy. Just because you took a course doesn't mean you walk away with the understanding of branding, of marketing your services, of managing.

your clientele of managing that service route. There, there's so much to learn. And I think that's one of the biggest frustrations I've had is that people just, you know, they get their operator certification or, know, they get their, their, their AA, their, their, their bachelors and like, all right, I'm done. No, you need to constantly learn and do the research and reach out to

you know, those trusted educators and industry experts and pros and go, Hey, I just read through this, you know, get, get accompanied with, you know, another group out there. You know, there's tons of Facebook groups, there's Instagram groups, there's things on LinkedIn. There, I feel like there are so many resources that people just don't tap into because, Hey, I got my certification. I'm going to go service these pools. And then a lot of those homeowners.

are affected because they're just not doing their due diligence.

Speaker 1 (24:52)
100%. You know, it's interesting you talk about make a quick buck. Yeah, you can make a quick buck, right? But look at lottery statistics. Cool. Lottery is the ultimate quick buck. can be a multi-millionaire overnight, right? Yeah. What are the stats on lottery winners who are broke within four years?

Speaker 2 (25:11)
yeah, I know. mean, people are always like, if I win the lottery, there'll be signs. And then it's always like these massive extravagant things. Yeah. I mean,

Speaker 1 (25:19)
And then they're broke.

Go for the quick buck, go for the long buck.

Speaker 2 (25:24)
yeah, I mean my husband and I will joke about it. He's like, I'd love to win the lottery, maybe buy out my military contract, which he would never do because he's almost at 20 years. So he's going to do that. But I mean, for us, we were like, man, we would invest. would, of course, probably pay off a lot of our loan, our mortgages, pay off my parents' mortgage, do something for my brother or his immediate family. But a lot of that would be investing.

And the biggest thing that we've done and are continuing to do is invest in our children's education. They have plans set up. Whether or not they choose to use them, they want to go to college, if they want to take a year off and go explore, what have you, and then go back, we're going to fully support them as long as they're doing their due diligence and educating themselves. So.

Speaker 1 (26:13)
Yep.

Yep.

Speaker 2 (26:17)
Well Dewey, thank you. We've had fun today and for those listening, we hope that you've enjoyed. And you know, we have a ton of other myths that we want to bust wide open. We only got to a few today, but you know, if there's a myth that you want us to tackle next, drop us a message or Talking Pools podcast on the Talking Pools podcast online. And you know, don't forget every Wednesday, I'm going to be here bringing hands on education, learning real industry insights.

myth-busting and of course always with a splash of truth. So Dewey, thank you so much for being here with us today. Do you have anything that you want to say to our listeners before we bug out?

Speaker 1 (26:53)
No, just Natalie, thank you for being here and folks out there listening, be better. Be better. Earn more.

Speaker 2 (26:59)
Yes.

Yes, 100%. And so guys, again, if you have, if you want to bring anything up with, you know, myth, you'd like us to bust and talk through, let us know. I will be here next week. I will be sitting down with grit game sales manager, Jared Medeiros and our JD positive vibes director. And we are going to discuss leak detection. So with that, thank you guys for listening and we will see you soon.