Turning Winter into Profit

This episode covers essential winter preparation tips for pool service professionals, including equipment maintenance, marketing strategies, and safety regulations. Learn how to turn winter into a profitable season and ensure safety compliance.

Keywords

pool service, winter preparation, pool maintenance, safety regulations, marketing strategies, pool covers, leaf skimmers, pool cleaning

Key Topics

• Winter pool maintenance strategies
• Pool safety regulations and compliance
• Effective marketing for off-season pool services

Sound Bites

• "Heavy leaf litter can stain your pool."
• "Plan your winter marketing early."
• "Turn winter into a profitable season."

Chapters

00:00
Introduction to Seasonal Pool Maintenance

01:36
Equipment Spotlight: Robotic Pool Cleaners and Skimmies

03:22
Using Winter Covers and Debris Covers Effectively

06:56
Safety Regulations and Pool Fencing Requirements

11:04
Seasonal Business Planning and Marketing Strategies

18:00
Water Safety and Drowning Prevention Insights

23:42
Preparing Your Business for Winter Challenges

26:13
Promoting Safety and Compliance to Clients

28:41
Closing Remarks and Next Steps

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:53

Good afternoon, good evening, good morning, good whatever time of the day it is. It is time for Mondays Down Under on the Talking Pools podcast. Thanks for joining us. I'm Lee on the east coast of Australia, and I have with me, of course, my New Zealand colleague in arms, Shane. Hey Shane, how are you?

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Very good, Lee, thank you. On the far, far east, east side. Yes, we're good. The weather's uh the weather's okay today. So a bit windy, a bit chilly in the morning, but the sun's shining. People are still happy, people are still using the pool, so it's good.

SPEAKER_03 1:27

Yeah, well, we are officially in autumn, so those leads are about to start falling. So skimmer boxes will be full, cleaners will be chokers, and we need to start looking at what we can market to our clients at this time of the year. So on your hit list should be winter clean covers, robotic pool cleaners, extra skimmer baskets, checking that your clients' leaf nets and leaf rakes are intact. They're all the things that you can do a quick check on and hopefully make a few extra dollars and make your customers well, maybe not happy that they're spending money, but happy that they've got a clean pool and that it's easy and a is it a skimmy?

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Is that what they're called in Australia? Skimmies. I don't know what they're called in other parts of the world. Never actually seen one. But the the robotic I guess you could call it a cleaner, couldn't you? That floats on the surface, skimming the surface. Does that actually so does that push the leaves away so the skimmer sucks it in better into the basket? Or does that actually have a basket inside the skimmer at skimmy?

SPEAKER_03 2:30

It has a basket inside it. Yeah. So it's actually drawing it in and the water's going through it. So years ago there was, I think they were called Polaris. I'm gonna get my numbers wrong here, but it was like a Polaris 240 or 280, something like that. They weren't one that we sold a lot of, but they were a cleaner that actually worked off the returning water to the pool. And it would actually drag a bag a l around the floor of the pool. And I think they had one that pulled around on the surface as well and gathered the leaves. So this is just the I suppose the new updated version of that. But yeah, Skimmy. I have seen them around. Haven't tried one myself. They do look pretty good, and especially for pools that have got heavy leaf litter. I don't think their baskets are terribly big from what I have seen. I have seen one in the flesh, but the baskets aren't huge, so it would be something that you'd need to be really careful of with the very big deciduous trees. I did have one customer that had the tree from hell in their backyard, and it was right beside the pool with the biggest leaves you have ever seen, like bigger than your hand. And that pool would just get absolutely bombarded with leaf litter every autumn, and it went on for weeks and weeks on end. And unfortunately, that pool suffered with a lot of staining because of those leaves from that deciduous tree. But the owner just said, I just can't cut it down. It had been there for probably a couple of hundred years. They just could not cut that tree down. So completely understandable, but they had to put up with the headache of it. So they bought a robotic pool cleaner with the biggest basket they could get, and they still had to empty it probably twice a day on uh on the heavy leaf blowing days, that's for sure. Yeah, but I tell you what, we tried to convince them, and I don't know actually whether because obviously no longer a customer of ours anymore, but a winter clean cover was what we tried to convince them they needed, because of course that would keep all the leaf litter out of the pool completely. So money very well spent in that case. But not easy to be able to use your pool if you've got that on. So do you have many of those over in New Zealand that we want?

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Yeah, we could they they tend I personally I call them a debris cover. And that's the term that I've heard a lot of the other uh companies use them for. I was only speaking to one of our um Jamie from Atkinsake who we had on a couple of months ago actually, and they've started introducing covers into their business. And we were only talking about debris covers earlier, actually. But they're not, I would say in Auckland, I don't know about the rest of the country, they're not very popular. I've probably seen only a handful in my time. Um, yeah, we don't have any. We did have a client probably a month ago, actually, that was inquiring about one, but once I told him basically the pain you have to say, taking the pegs out every time you want to uh you know go for a swim or clean the pool or chemicals, uh maybe we'll just stick to a normal cover. But they're great for keeping the pool clean. Uh that was that was what he wanted. Um, but yeah, he he didn't go ahead with it. It's it they are I don't like them personally.

SPEAKER_03 5:47

They look like a trampoline over the pool, don't they?

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Yeah, but just taking them on and putting them back, taking them off and putting them back on again is quite time consuming. So if if there are companies out there which have or are thinking about taking clients on with these covers, do make sure you charge them per hour rather than on a set price on this one because this job is going to take a lot longer than any other job out there with a normal roller cover.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

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SPEAKER_01 6:39

So if if there are companies out there which have or are thinking about taking clients on with these covers, do you make sure you charge them per hour rather than on a set price on this one? Because this job is going to take a lot longer than any other job out there with a normal roller cover.

SPEAKER_03 6:57

Well, we had a few clients that had them because we had quite a few seasonal clients, let's say. They weren't seasonal to us, but seasonal to the area. So their house, they might only be in their house six months of the year, and the other six months there was nobody there. So they had these covers. And also we had a couple of elderly clients that only wanted to use their pool from sort of November to February. Other than that, they wanted the the leaf cover on and they didn't then have to worry about the pool. Yes, they still get fine dust and that comes through the through the pool cover, but on most accounts it actually keeps it quite clean. And so we actually had quite a few of them. The best thing you can do is use a cordless drill to put them on and off with the pegs. So ours were all had um screws that actually bit down into the the concrete, um, all the surround around the pool. And we always made it a two-man job. So that when the cover went on, it was a two-man job to go there, back the pool, test it, balance it, hibernate it basically, put the winter cover on, because of course that stops a lot of the sunlight getting through, which stops um a lot of the chlorine depletion and obviously leaf litter getting in the pool. So your headaches do get less. When we serviced the pool on a regular basis, because we still did go every month and and test and balance the pool, we would pull back one corner, never the whole pool. They had a robotic pool cleaner, we would put it in while we were there or maybe for the day and come back and pull it out on our way past again. So it the pool got well, it was still running, it was still circulating, it was still chlorinating and filtering, of course. But um, yeah, the leaf litter or the leaf cover cover did uh a great job. Winter clean cover is actually the name I think Daisy call it. But I did actually have a customer, they don't make them anymore. I really wish they did. Sunbather made them. Now Sunbather is now owned by Floridra. It's one of their brands. But Sunbather Heating or Solar Heating also used to do blankets. And these were a fantastic blanket that was made with the same material as the winter clean cover, so a very thick, durable mesh, I suppose. Um what do they call shade cloth is I think the material that we call it, but a very thick, durable one. And it was made out of the same stuff, but it actually had poles across it. So you would typically do a rectangular shape, and it would have poles at intervals across that would go across the pool, the full width of the pool. And you could actually quite easily fold the blanket up and put it at one end of the pool. You basically lift one pole up, drag it to the next pole, pick the two poles up, drag it to the next pole, pick the three poles up, drag it to the next one. And so they could actually get in and use and swim in the pool. I had a customer that had one of these and it was an absolute godsend for her. She was in a very leafy area, very big gum tree area. So very big branches that were actually falling in their pool caused all sorts of chaos with staining and cleaners and and all of that sort of thing. So for her, it was an absolute godsend. Unfortunately, one of the branches off the gum trees did actually pierce through the cover, but she ended up getting it repaired anyway. But they clipped down. So they actually had it's a hard thing to describe, but a bit like a seatbelt sort of clip that just clips in at the end of each end of the pool. There was two at one end and two at the other end. Um that's what actually held it down. They were fastened into the surround of the pool. And they worked. It worked really, really well. And they weren't as expensive as the winter clean covers. They weren't as hard to get on and off. I'll tell you who does do one very similar if anybody's looking for one like that is I think it's Remco. Actually do it. Did you see it at the last splash conference? I think we were looking at it.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

Yeah, that doesn't ring a bell actually.

SPEAKER_03 10:53

So yeah, Remco do one. Um, and they actually can have a contraption that hooks in to the blanket um poles that are cross it, and it joins onto a cordless drill, or uh, I think they've they sell a drill uh like a drill type attachment that goes with it, and it actually rolls itself up. So you pull the trigger and you walk along alongside the cover and it actually rolls up. So yeah, there's something out there. If you've got a problem, you can jump on and have a look at that. So that's Renco, R-E-M-C-O. Pretty sure I'm 99% sure they've got it. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

I find that uh I actually find an interesting fact in regards to covers today, Lee, since we're talking about covers. So in New Zealand, um, a lot of the covers that get sold, not just for us, but a lot of the other uh pool service companies out there, we usually sell it. The majority of them come with like a binding on the edge of the cover, so it stops it from basically t deteriorating on the edges, gives it extra strength, makes it float a little bit better. Um, and they're usually sewn all the way around. Um, that's quite a common one in New Zealand. Apparently, in Australia, not so much. In Australia, I think this was on the East Coast. A lot of the people over there, they just buy a um a lot of them would order a cover and they would cut it on site. So basically the cover itself was a little bit more, you know, overhanging the pool itself, and the the clients that would order it, they would just cut it. So there was no binding, nothing like that on the edge. But that seems to be a lot more popular from what I heard in Australia compared to New Zealand. So it's it's a little bit different there, which I didn't realise.

SPEAKER_03 12:47

It it is that's very common here. Um, the only blankets that are really edged and sewn are the thermal covers. So they're the ones that are the thin foam, and they are edged and sewn. The bubble blankets don't come edged and sewn. So and the I suppose the benefit of obviously cutting it on site, making it measured, make made to fit on site, really. But there are well, I know Daisy, for one, actually doing cut to fit for the templates of pools. So some of the major companies like Norellin and Leisure Pools and uh Barrier Reef pools, those sort of companies are actu have actually given their templates of their pools to Daisy. And Daisy now can cut the blankets to fit those exact shapes so that when you get it on site, you don't have to cut it at all. Look, there's some there's different ways of doing blankets. Everybody probably has their own preference. Some blankets obviously shrink. That's always something that I see on the information that comes from the manufacturers is place this blanket on the pool, give it a couple of weeks, and then cut it properly to shape, like trim it back, because they can expand and can contract. So it's something to be aware of. Some people actually like their blankets to go a little bit up the walls, and I know that's a pain in the ass to get on and off the pool because of the coping and rolling the blanket back up onto the roller. But if you actually put your blanket up the sides of the wall a little bit, the leaf litter doesn't go down the sides. And the other trick that I have seen over the years is when you actually cut it, cut it s with a flap going into the skimmer box. And that's so that when you're on site and you've got the blanket on the pool, you can actually grab the garden hose and hose the leaves that are on top of the cover towards the skimmer box with the pump running, and it'll draw it in, and then you can pick them all up out of the basket and empty the basket. So that's a couple of tips. Things from the years of experience. Whether they're there's something that you do or something that you don't do, that's your choice. But these have been tips and tricks that have been given to me over the over the years. So hopefully that helps somebody out there somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

I'm sure it will. We actually um we went to an interesting call last week, actually. It was one of our regular clients, and um our employee was there on site, and um he called me from site and he was having issues with the ORP reading. And he was saying it's just not it doesn't want to calibrate. So I just got in to add a little bit of chlorine into the pool. I went back a couple hours later just to check. And as I walked through their garden, kind of walked into the pool area, was like something, something seems different here. They had actually removed all of their glass fencing and their gates. Never seen this before. The owner of the house she came down, she works from home. She was like, Oh, you probably noticed something different. Yeah, what's going on? So we did we just you know, they have a child which is 12, 13 years old, said up, you know, we're not gonna have any any children training, like that. It's like you just can't, you cannot do that in New Zealand. You know, you have to have a barrier which is one point too high. The gate needs to be the glass fence, whatever it is, it needs to be self-closing. Um, and you will fail your compliance. And if you know, God forbid, if it was an accident, we're both going to be liable for this because we have a duty as well. I mean, we don't just come and clean pools and clean the filters and that chemicals, you know. When you come inside, you have you need to make sure that that pool is or that area is safe for everybody, and that's going in and out of that pool area. If you're missing a glass fence or any form of fence, it's not safe at all. So um I had to send them an email in the evening and uh basically suspend their service until they can actually get it put back. I haven't heard anything back yet. It's been about four days, which is quite interesting.

SPEAKER_03 17:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

So that was quite an interesting one.

SPEAKER_03 17:09

It's a hard one, isn't it? We did have a customer who did something very similar. They actually had they had a designer home, like architecturally designed home that was from a multi-award-winning designer. And the house was sort of slight U-shape, and the pool was in the middle of the U and it went straight out towards the ocean. So beautiful lap long lap pool with infinity, not a wet edge. The water would would go over the edge. And this pool was suspended like out of the ground, straight out towards the horizon. Now, they immediately had an issue because the council decided that the edge of the pool could be walked on because it was actually wide enough for someone to stand on. And so therefore it was a hazard because somebody could fall off it. So they actually had to put glass fencing right the along and across the end of their beautiful long. Yeah. Um, and then also uh they had no fencing between the pool and the house. So because they wanted it to look lovely from inside the house, and they admittedly had like doors that automatically closed and they had the latches up high, which were what the old fencing standards were. Your house could be part of the barrier providing the openings met the criteria. But the laws had changed, and by the time they'd finished building, and therefore they needed to comply with the new regulation.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_03 18:45

And so they had to put up a glass fence. So they put up a glass fence between the house and the pool, and the moment they got their compliance, that fence came down. But the fence that went around the edge of the pool did actually stay.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:58

And it's one of those things, like we don't have jurisdiction, like we can't find them. Like, I suppose we can help them.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

You can't force that me, though.

SPEAKER_03 19:07

And we can't force them. We can't force them. It's their pool, it's their choice. But we have an obligation, as you mentioned, and we have a choice of whether to attend or not. And at the very least, I would say to anybody, if you are well and truly aware that there is a substantial risk there, then I would remove myself from that situation. If it's a slight risk and it's something that you're prepared to continue to service that pool, at the very least, put it in writing and put it that all responsibility from here on in lays with the owner. So that you can't be responsible for their choices. Um, yeah, and that's I suppose that's all you really can do.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:51

As they say, there's dams and there's waterways and there's all of those sort of things that aren't fenced. And yet backyard pools, obviously, there's a greater risk. Totally get it. But out on an acreage property, you can have to fence the pool that's in the backyard, but don't have to fence the dam that's just down the Yeah, that doesn't make sense, does it? No. They actually do say, if I remember rightly, from the Australian standards, that they actually say don't don't fence the house, don't fence the pool, fence the house in those situations. And then that way the kids can't get out of the yard to get to either watercourse. We're we're the nanny state, aren't we?

SPEAKER_01 20:32

Yeah, yeah. But uh yeah. I mean it it could always be worse at the end of the day. Uh was it last year or the year before they were talking about some states in America which don't have any form of barrier, uh, no need for any form of barriers, it just needs to be a solid um cover for the swimming pool, and that's classed as their their safety. Yeah, personally I think they should all be barriered.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

We're not the rule makers here, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_03 21:02

No, I just done a quick Google um and it says that forty-three percent of drownings occurred in coastal locations. That was 154, 82 uh was it 82 drowning deaths, 34% in inland waterway locations, um, that was 122 of the um deaths, including 99 drowning deaths, and 10% occurred in backyard swimming pools. 35 deaths.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

So forty-five too many.

SPEAKER_03 21:39

It is, especially when it's when it's children. It's um yeah, 357 drowning deaths over the past 12 months. This was for 2025. 27% increase on the on the 10 years. The lowest rates of drowning were children 5 to 14, and it sharply rises for ages 15 to 24. It's probably because alcohol becomes involved at 8B.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Yeah, yeah, I can imagine.

SPEAKER_03 22:10

So, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

Um I noticed on the radio over here this summer. Actually, it was Auckland Council were putting adverts on. It's the first time I had heard it, but they were actually talking about water safety and the increase in number of pop-up swimming pools, you know, your insects, your best weights. And they were saying as well, you know, if it's over a certain height, 400 mil body of water, it needs to be fenced. Um and I thought that was really good of them to actually advertise that. Whether it sinks into a lot of people, I doubt it, but it's you can see that they're becoming a lot more aware of what's going on because there's a huge amount of those pop up holes.

SPEAKER_03 22:52

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well in Australia it's in in Australia it's anything over thirty centimetres deep. So just over a foot, I suppose. But yeah, and um thirty-three percent of drownings were actually from overseas. So that's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 23:08

Foreigners. And I think that comes really down to the fact that our oceans are quite dangerous. We're a country surrounded by ocean. I think ocean.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

And everything inside that ocean wants to eat you.

SPEAKER_03 23:21

Yes. I have heard that we have something like 10,000 beaches. So and they're all beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

An interesting um interesting thing I noticed when when I went to Australia the first time, it was in New Zealand it's swim between the flanks. You know, these are the safe areas. But in a lot of the beaches that we went to driving up towards Cairns, like the northeast part, there were a lot of beaches that had nets. It was like swim in the nets, do not swim outside of the nets. Um, because you'll probably get eaten, but inside the net, 95% chances.

SPEAKER_03 24:03

You do know what they're getting eaten by, though, don't you?

SPEAKER_01 24:06

No.

SPEAKER_03 24:07

Not sharks. Crocodiles.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

Really?

SPEAKER_03 24:09

And irrigandi. I think that's how they say it. They're the they're the um I was gonna say blue bottles, but the jellyfish that everything kills you here. Crocodiles, sharks, uragandi, snakes, spiders, swimming pools. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

Yeah. Gone to Australia, people, it's lovely.

SPEAKER_03 24:29

A friendly country. Yeah. Absolutely. But we've gone completely off today's topic.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

We have.

SPEAKER_03 24:35

Should we s should we save it for another day?

SPEAKER_01 24:38

I think so, Lee. Uh yeah, because this one's this one could get a bit hairy the topic.

SPEAKER_03 24:45

I think we'll leave that one for another another another while. But just tacking on to the talk about autumn, winter is knocking on our door. So I would say to all the pool and spiral service technicians and retail shops out there, if you haven't started thinking about winter, you need to. Winter is can be a season that many people dread, fear, stress about. We worry about whether we've got enough work on our schedule, enough work to keep our service techs employed and their wages paid and the and the overheads covered. So it's really important to plan. And as they say, if you don't fail to plan, you plan to fail. So definitely put your thinking caps on and think about how you're going to get your business and your team through the winter season. I have written a great article on LinkedIn today. So if anybody out there is listening is on LinkedIn, I am going to copy it to Facebook. Facebook wasn't being so friendly to me this afternoon, so I didn't get to do it, but I will. So jump on the pullshopcoach.com.au. You'll find the blog there, or the pull shop coach on Facebook or Instagram or LinkedIn is under my name. But I do have a six-week program that I'm putting a finishing touches on now, which is called Make Winter Work. So a bit of make winter work as in we're making work for winter, but we're also making winter work to our benefit. So take taking what I've learnt over the 27 years that I've been in business where I was able to turn my winters around from being a time that I dreaded that uh we're going backwards and and not making money into being a profitable and productive time of the year. That was a great time that I I really took the opportunity each winter to obviously plan for going into winter so that my winter ducks were all in a row, but also coming out of winter so that it actually put me in a good, really good place for the summer seasons. Check that check that out too. If you jump on um the LinkedIn or the Facebook post, you can actually click on the link that's in that post that will actually subscribe you to the early bird release of it. So it will be being launched on the 1st of April. So if you think you need a hand for it for winter, jump into that. I think it'll be something you'll get something out of and help you stress less and uh profit more for your winter ahead. Sounds excitingly. I'll have to send you a preview Shane.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

It does sound really good, actually. Yeah. Yeah, because um this will be our first full winter as well with an employee. So it has been in the back of my mind. We have got busier and we've taken on a lot more new clients, but at the same time, we wear clothes drops in half. It does for us. For the majority, our two-week leaves become four-weekly. So I guess you know, for the first couple of weeks, it's going to be a big, a big change to the system. You can still catch up on things would you make it, so you're still trying to catch up on things that you've been kind of putting off over the summer period. But I think there's a you know, after you've been in that quiet period for a couple of weeks, maybe even a month, you should have actually caught up with everything and then perfect time to jump onto yours lee.

SPEAKER_03 28:16

Yep, there's only so many times that you can get them to clean their service vehicle, isn't there?

SPEAKER_01 28:21

So there is, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:22

But it's important with these things to actually put them in place now. Like if with my plan we're kicking off on the first of April, which will basically give us six weeks, so it will take us until the middle of May. Actually, it's the first week in May by the time I worked it out, so six weeks. And basically by that stage, your marketing will be out, your lists will all be done, and you'll be really ramping down on your servicing by then and ready to start taking on the load of of what's coming through the door. But it's a matter of putting into place all the things that you need to have everything ready to go. Because most people don't start thinking about winter until their services have dropped off. And it's too late then. The horse has already bolted and you you're you're chasing your tail. So you've really got to um plan in advance.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:17

Yeah. I think it's something that um a lot of people will get benefit out of. So I will get Rudy to drop some links in the show notes too. So thank you all for listening. Um we appreciate you giving us the generosity of your time. We hope we've into your day and brought some benefit with our words of wisdom. If you've got any questions, any topic suggestions, please don't hesitate to reach out. We love to get them. Drop us a line at talkingpools at gmail.com and Rudy will dish that out to whoever is the most suitable podcast. But if you want us to answer it, of course you can request that. So until next week, we hope you have a great week ahead, that it is productive and profitable, and that it doesn't rain too much because I know it's been wet on the west co uh on the east coast anyway. And we look forward to having you join us again next week. Thanks for listening.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

Dearly.