Who Touched My Valves?! (And Why I’m Paying for It) - Steve & Wayne

This week on Talking Pools, Steve and Wayne deliver a brutally honest, real-world breakdown of what happens when subcontractors, miscommunication, and poor oversight collide on a job site. From a leak detection company altering valve positions and walking away, to costly chemical miscalculations by technicians, this episode dives into the operational chaos that pool professionals face—and how to protect your business from it.

The conversation also expands into liability, insurance strategy, and the hidden risks of stepping outside your normal scope of work, especially when dealing with commercial properties or unconventional client use cases like pool rentals and swim instruction.

🔧 Key Topics Covered

💥 Subcontractor Nightmares

•  Leak detection company alters system valves and leaves them incorrectly set 
•  Result: stagnant water, algae growth, and emergency return visits 
•  Lesson: Always supervise or verify subcontractor work before they leave 
•  The importance of being listed as additionally insured 

🧪 Chemical Mismanagement & Costly Mistakes

•  Technician adds 12 gallons of chlorine + 6 gallons of acid without testing 
•  Why “guess dosing” is financially reckless and chemically unsound 
•  Real-world example of saving $30,000 annually through precise dosing 
•  The overlooked value of acid demand testing (and why most pros ignore it) 

📊 The Business of Precision

•  Why “what worked last week” is not a strategy 
•  How small dosing errors scale into massive financial losses 
•  The discipline of testing before treating—every time 

⚖️ Insurance, Liability & Risk Exposure

•  When to call your insurance agent before taking on new work 
•  Commercial vs residential gray areas (multi-dwelling properties, Airbnb pools, etc.) 
•  The legal exposure of pools used for business purposes (e.g., swim lessons, rentals) 
•  “Hold harmless” agreements and their real-world limitations 

💼 Commercial Accounts: Bigger Money, Bigger Problems

•  Payment delays, “payment freezes,” and cash flow risks 
•  Understanding contract terms and insurance requirements before signing 
•  Evaluating whether the risk is worth the reward 

🧠 Key Takeaways

•  If you didn’t witness the work, assume it needs to be checked. 
•  Never add chemicals without testing—precision protects profit. 
•  Subcontractors can expose you to liability you didn’t create. 
•  Insurance isn’t optional—it’s your last line of defense. 
•  Every “small mistake” scales across a route—and drains your bottom line. 

🎧 Listen & Subscribe

Catch the full episode and stay ahead of the chaos:
 Listen now on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform.

📬 Have a Question or Topic Idea?

Email the show: TalkingPools@gmail.com

Your topic might be featured—and earn you a shoutout and a thank-you gift.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:53

Good Thursday afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Talking Pools podcast on Thursdays with Stephen Wayne. Hope everybody is not a really great meeting. I know weather wise over here these guys isn't really, really nice, but today it's pretty ranting. Um we're gonna hear from a little week on some updates and some uh things we can talk about in the past of information, news, and stuff. So Steve, take it take it away.

SPEAKER_04 1:22

Sure. So thanks, Wayne. Uh hey everybody. Uh happy Thursday. I hope everybody's had a good week. There was some things that we had talked about in other shows that I just wanted to give you guys an update on. So I and this just goes to show that like you, if you have somebody else come out to your pool to do like a subcontractor, do work or something like that. Number one, we've talked about this before with um during the insurance interludes with Pat. You always want to have them on your insurance as uh as an additionally insured, and you know, you want to be on their insurance as well, too, just in case something happens. But I hired this leak detection company because my awesome leak guy doesn't go out to Irvine where this fountain is. And there's this fountain that we have, and it was built by one of my friends. Okay. This guy was a general contractor, did really well for himself, and he actually cashed out super early. So he's like uh in his like late 50s, early 60s, and is retired. Yeah. So like the dream, right? So he was like, Steve, he's like, I have this client, and it's like he's got four fountains. There's like this one fountain in the front of his house, the one on the one in the back, there's a spray pad, and then on the side. And he was like, it's X amount of bucks per month, and you only have to go there two times. And I was like, I'll go do that shit myself. I was like, sign me up. So it was it was crazy, you know what I mean? Like the first couple years was great, you know, no issues. He actually went with me a few times to show me, and I what he was doing was like kind of crazy. He was like, he had like this weird vacuum system. It looked like a shop vac, but it actually was like a water vacuum. It was like a pond vacuum. And I was like, just sitting there the whole time. I'm like, Is this what you do every time? I'm like, oh my god, I'm like, I got vacuums that are way better than this, you know? And I've talked about these vacuums before. So I really like the the water tech, the the leaf demon. And it's just like a little propeller thing that has a bag on it and it's totally wireless. I have one that you can put batteries in, and then I have one that does um, it's like an LED that you can recharge. The only problem with the recharge one is that it has to be fully submerged on the wall under the water to work, so it doesn't work in the fountains because it's not deep enough. Right. So I keep one battery one where you just turn it on, the propellers just start to go, and now all the leaves that are in there go right into the bag, even though the bag is kind of like, you know, not fully upright, right? And then if there's sand in the vacuum, I use the water tech pool blaster max CGs, right? So those are super awesome sand vacuums. So I cut down the time of having to be there from like two hours to like less, you know, to like one hour more or less, just just by using the right tools. But the way that this main fountain is set up is it goes, you know, the butt there's a bottom trough that's like covered with like these bricks, like over it, and there's a couple main drains in the bottom of that, and it pulls into the pump, and then it goes through a uh filter, like a cartridge filter, and then it goes to all of these returns that are there's like 10 ball valves that are down the side of the fountain. But like the fountain is here, and like along the side of it is like 10 ball valves, but they're really small, they're like they're like an inch and a half or inch or something like that. They're not regular two-inch ball valves, and they're so tight that like you'd never be able to like change them out or cut one out and like redo them. It'd be very, very, very, very hard to do that. So this fountain's been leaking for a long time. And I had a leak, I I, you know, I hired another leak detection company to come out and take a look at it. And the first guy came out and he was like, I can't find any of the leaks. And I read his report, and I was just like, bro, I'm like, you didn't do what I asked you to. I'm like, did you take off all the bricks at the bottom and like uh look in the fountain, like in the like look in the structure in the bottom? Because I said to you, and I said to your boss, and I said to the office lady, because she's the one who set up the appointment, I had to tell this story three times. I was like, there's no need to pressure test the lines, it's in the bottom of the trough. Because whether the trough is on or it's off, the bottom is the only thing that leaks. Right. And like I understand that like if it could be the bottom one that's leaking and it's actually one of the other ones because it's always circulating the water or whatever, but I did a static test with it on, and then I did a I did a test with it off. So like I I'm like almost for certain that this thing is leaking in the bottom trough. And my buddy went there and he used like this uh this like weird rubber stuff that like coats the bottom of it and like tried to figure that out. That worked for a little while and then it wound up leaking again. So long story short, this guy basically tells me, like, hey, here's your bill. I didn't find the leak. So I called his boss and I was like, hey, I'm like, I specifically asked you guys to go out and do something, and then you went ahead and did three hours worth of work and didn't even like uh do what I asked. I was like, I'm not paying this. I was like, there's zero chance I'm paying this. So I was like, you either send somebody out who knows what they're doing, or I was like, I'll just get another company to come out and do it. And he was like, dude, he's like, I'm so sorry. He's like, I don't know why this guy did this. He kind of just went off on his own and whatever. And he was like, he actually kind of has a bad attitude about it. So he was like, uh, I'm gonna send out another guy. This guy's my best guy, and he will find the leak no matter what. I'm like, okay, perfect. So this guy waits like two weeks, you know, and I call and I'm like, hey, I was on my honeymoon at the time. I'm like, hey, I'm like, are you guys still coming to do this? And he was like, oh yeah, like I was supposed to have him come out this week, but I'm gonna have him come out next week. I'm like, okay, cool. I'm like, my guy's going before this weekend, so we'll get it all set up for you. So on and so forth. So that weekend, the guy texts me and he's like, hey, I'm coming on Monday. Please make sure that all the bricks are moved and it's filled up and it's running and it's clean and it's clear. And I'm like, okay, cool. I'm like, my guy went on Wednesday or whatever. Um, I'm like, I'll ask the homeowner to fill up the trough for you because it's definitely gonna be empty. And that I asked the client and he's like, hey, he's like, there's algae like all over the place. And I'm like, what? I'm like, there's never been algae. Like, I've had algae once in the middle of the summer. Like, there this should not have algae. So I had to call the guy from the leak detection company, and I'm like, hey, I apologize. Like, you can't come out because we're not ready for you. So I'm like, I'll I'll come out later this week and uh I'll check it out and then I'll let you know when we're ready. So I go out for my regular visit and I'm like super upset with my guy. I'm like, this pool, I'm like, what? Like, why, why does it look like this? Like it's it's a fountain. Like if you needed to add chlorine, you could have just added more chlorine than you needed to. Like, I've I wouldn't be mad if I showed up and it was at 20. I'm not saying it's good for the system, but like uh it's better than what it looks like now. Nobody's nobody's nobody's swimming in it. So I turn the fountain on because I'm like, oh, maybe I have to shop back out the trough or whatever. Like the trough just just, you know, just got algae inside of it. All the other basins have algae inside of it. So I turn it on and immediately I find out what the problem is. I'm like, there's no fucking water coming to the top two basins. So they're just sitting there stagnant. So my guy would not have touched any of these valves. Okay. So what happened? The leak detection guy, he fucking changed around a bunch of the valves to do his thing to pressure test or whatever, and then didn't put them back the way that they were supposed to be. So that's why we weren't ready for you. And like now, my whole attitude changed. Now I'm like, instead of being mad at my guy, I'm like annoyed at this leak detection company. So now I gotta go back there on Friday. I gotta go back there this week. Instead of going back in two weeks, I gotta go back this week again. Just to like, cause I couldn't even mess with the valves because I couldn't see the water moving because it was black, I'm not black, but green, you know? So, like the point of the story is that, you know, when somebody else goes out to your client, like if you if you don't do that type of work, like the best thing to do is meet them there, you know, and make sure that they don't mess something up like this. You know, this place is 40 minutes from my house and I wasn't here when that guy was there, or else I would have gone out and met him. But that's basically the moral of my story is like if you can get out there, you know, please go out there and at the very least just make sure that they're on your insurance. Because if something would have happened where he would have messed something up, my client would have been upset with me that I hired this company to come out there and he would have been looking at me to fix this for him. And I would have had no recourse of action to go back and ask these people to put in a claim or you know, use their insurance or whatever. So I would have been up Shits Creek. So just something to think about. Um, and like I said, I'm I'm still in the middle of it. So there's no there's no end to this story yet, but I just wanted to give you guys an update on that. And then my other, not issue, but like I had a pool and it's at one of my school systems, and it's a really old pool.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

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SPEAKER_00 11:59

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SPEAKER_04 12:25

Hey everybody, and welcome back to Talking Pools Podcast, Steve Sherwood, and then as always, our guest, Pat Rignon from California Pool Association. So, Pat, thanks so much for coming with us. I know that you you got a really busy schedule, man. You got a lot going on, and uh I just appreciate that you're able to hop on with me once a week because it's hard to uh hard to keep on this schedule, but I I like I like a lot what we're doing and the listeners gain a lot from it. And um, I just thank you for your partnership and and sponsorship. So we really appreciate you having you here. No, it's awesome, man. Thanks, thanks so much for inviting me.

SPEAKER_03 12:57

I always look forward to coming on the show and rapping with you. So my pleasure. Awesome.

SPEAKER_04 13:01

Doot doot doot doot doot into loot. Um, all right. So I wanted to talk today about because I do lean on you a lot and I I talk about that in the show a lot, like why I reach out to you or when I reach out to you. And I'm not gonna say it's like in high stress most of the time, but like most of the time I'm I'm reaching out to you because I have a problem that I don't know the answer to. I wanna flip the coin here today and talk a little bit about maybe some of the times maybe that I should have talked to you and I didn't. Like things, like certain jobs that you do, you know, certain types of work that you're taking on. Um, because we do do a bunch of different things, right? Like we do consulting, we do leak detection. I told you a couple shows ago we don't do acid washes anymore, right? But like uh people out there are doing acid washes. So is there like a certain time where we should be reaching out to you? Like, what are the questions that we should be asking? And what are some of the things that we need to be privy to? You know, I hate using, I say wary a lot, but wary.

SPEAKER_03 14:05

Yeah, yeah, no, I hear you. I hear you. Yeah, look, I think um, you know, hopefully, hopefully the folks out there have a good relationship with their insurance agent, and you know, you're able to just say, hey, hypothetically, here's here's what I'm thinking, and uh, or I've been presented with this opportunity, and you can have a conversation about, you know, yeah, does coverage work? Am I covered for it? Am I not? And um, that should help help you make a decision on you know whether or not to take on the different type of work than what you're you're used to doing. You know, look, I think what I hear a lot of is, you know, I I only do residential pools. You know, I've got a commercial contract. You know, obviously there's you know, different type and more frequent work that goes into that, but the the money's better and it's consistent and you know, they're bigger jobs. So that's normally appealing to someone who's coming just from doing residential pools. So that's something you should that you should talk to your insurance agent about. You and I would talk about like, all right, well, you know, what are their insurance requirements? And let me get an idea of are they gonna be asking for umbrella and workers' comp when you don't have any employees and commercial auto with millions of dollars of limits, you know, and I can at least ballpark like, hey, this is ish kind of what you would expect. I'm happy to go get full-on locked-in quotes, but if you're just trying to get an idea of kind of what it would cost, happy to give you some rough numbers if it's gonna make or break the job. So, yeah, looking over the insurance requirements, you know, I I haven't seen many policies like this, but like, am I covered for commercial type of work, or hey, this is gonna be equipment repair that I haven't really done much before. I normally only just you know, Ned and Kem and Chem. Um, you know, so anytime you're looking at something that's not your normal course, which is part of evolving as a business, and you know, you get opportunities, yeah, you should be able to make a phone call to your to your insurance agent and say, hey, do I have coverage for this? And if I don't, or it's murky waters, you know, roughly what should I expect so I can at least try to negotiate that increased cost into the contract. Sure.

SPEAKER_04 15:59

So for me, like I, you know, I I love doing commercial pools and I understand like both sides of the the sword really because they are a bit of a pain in the ass. And sometimes all of a sudden, like you're you're now owed like a lot of money. It's been months and they still haven't paid you, and you're kind of like, What what what what happens now? And that's something that like you can't help me navigate. Like, you're not gonna be able to help me get my paycheck, you know. So you have to work with commercial clients that you just have to understand that like sometimes that billing cycle, the big what I've found out is that the bigger the client you work with, the longer they're gonna owe you that money. I've also had something happen where like one of the bigger conglomerate hotel chains, you know, like the JW, Ritz Mol Ritz Carlton, something like that, they uh something happened and it was like the pandemic, and like all of a sudden, like they just weren't paying us like one bill. And I was like, What like why are we not why are we not paying this bill? You know, like what's going on? And they were like, Oh, we're in a we're in a freeze right now. And I was like, What the fuck did you just say? I was like, Did you just call this did you just call this a freeze? Like it wasn't a hiring freeze, it was a payment freeze. Yeah, right. And I didn't, I've never I never knew that like uh big companies did that before. And one of my buddies here is in LA, he's a celebrity chef, and his company is like getting it just got sold last year to another company, and that company isn't doing so well now. And he they actually came to him and they were like, Hey, you can't like pay this vendor, this vendor, and this vendor. And he was like, What? They were like, Yeah, they were like, Don't pay those bills. And he was like, I can't not pay my vendors, and they were like, No, we're like in a freeze right now. And he I like he just told me this a couple weeks ago, so that's why I thought it was really funny that because it happens not just in the pool world, it happens in the you know, the distribution world, and you know, like a bunch of different things that it could happen with, but a lot of people out there just don't like commercial pools and they just they just want to do residential pools, and that's that's totally fine. But like, what really constitutes a commercial pool? And like, cause here in California, anything over two dwellings is commercial. So I have a lot of residential clients with residential pools on residential properties that just so happen to have three one bedrooms in there, but like they have three addresses. So now it's a commercial pool. Do I need to have some sort of different insurance to do those, or are those just glorified residential pools?

SPEAKER_03 18:22

Yeah, it's it's it's certainly for our policy, that's fine. You there's no, there's no a kind of Mason Dixon line there between residential or commercial. It covers for for both. But yeah, I mean, there's some states. I thought I saw something about I don't know if I can't remember, I'm sure it's California, but there was uh Oh, I'm sure it's California. I'm sure it's California. That that they were trying to say if you Airbnb or Verbo your home, then yeah, that's then your property taxes should be considered commercial property taxes, which brings them up to two percent over the 0.5% for residential property taxes. Yeah. I think about that argument. And so if you Airbnb a home, you know, is is is that a commercial pool? I mean, you know, there's an argument that it is. Although most insurance isn't gonna nit isn't gonna nitpick that. It's definitely worth having a discussion because look, that's a different risk profile.

SPEAKER_04 19:08

If you're gonna be able to do that, I had rent I had one where I called you about it. And this had happened recently, and my residential pool, that this client, there it's a husband and a wife, and they have kids, and like they have a person that does swim lessons for their kids, and they kind of they're pretty business savvy. And the guy was like out of work for a while, and he was like, he called me and he was like, Hey, he was like, I'm thinking about using swimple for my pool in the backyard because my swim my daughter's swim instructor, she has a couple friends, and like uh they want to rent the pool from us, and like it wouldn't be like totally random people coming in, but like they want to do swim lessons at the pool, you know? And I was like, shit, man. I'm like, I don't know, I don't know anything about having kids come over to swim at your pool. Like, I'm just taking care of it, you know. Like, I don't want to be involved in it. I don't want to be involved with this shit.

SPEAKER_03 19:53

So good time to that's a great time to call your insurance.

SPEAKER_04 19:57

Yeah, so I called you, and like I don't even what did what was the what was the consensus for that?

SPEAKER_03 20:01

Because it happened a while ago, so I don't even remember. Yeah, look, I mean you you under our policy, you'd have coverage for that, right? Again, there's no there's no differentiator between uh public pool or you know, uh residential. So no coverage issues. And then yeah, I think we kicked around, you know, whether or not from a business perspective, it's something that you'd it's an increased risk for sure. Generally speaking, you've got a homeowner, if their kid slips and falls and breaks their arm on the pool, you know, they're gonna take responsibility for for themselves and their family. Whereas if it's you know a public pool, they're gonna look for ways to, you know, get whatever, get some money out of it, so to speak. Yeah, and that's middle ground there being an Airbnb and people you know and stuff, but like sure.

SPEAKER_04 20:42

So, but I mean, like now, if you're around now, like I'm the guy that has the kid there that is taking a swim lesson. I don't really know the homeowner. Like, I know that I'm taking swim lessons with this girl, you know, with this girl Jen. You know, I don't know, like, I don't know much else than that. Like, I found you guys on swimply. So, like, I have no real affinity to the homeowner. So if something were to happen to my kid at the pool, I definitely would be suing the homeowner, and then I probably be suing the the uh the service provider of the pool as well, right? So, like what's what sort of oblig and what sort of obligation do I have there, even though like I'm only there once a week, like they're having swim lessons there, like I'm you know, I'm basically there, you know, once once a week and they're there every day swimming every day.

SPEAKER_03 21:30

Yeah, yeah, and that was part of the discussion, right? It's like how much risk am I tolding for this? Yeah, like you know, ultimately there's not a great way to really protect yourself from that outside of I mean, because it ultimately you should if you tell them it's like, hey, this is this, I consider this a commercial type pool, then you know, then they would need to meet the commercial regulations of their local and and city and county jurisdictions.

SPEAKER_04 21:53

Well, now you're opening a whole another can of worms. Right, I think that maybe I think that maybe what you told me to do was to write an email and just say, like, or send a certified letter and say basically that uh like if you want to use your pool for swim lessons, like that's no skin off a barback, like that's your right, and you can do that. But if anything, if any accidents were to happen, you know, while Sherwood Pool Consulting is not there, yeah, you know, you are gonna take full responsibility for and you'll hold harmless pool consulting groups. Yeah, exactly. Which I mean, yeah, hold harmless could be, I mean, you could fucking write a hold harmless for anything, you know, like it doesn't you could just be like, hey, like anytime I come to your house, if uh, you know, if you got electrocuted and I'm not at your house, like it's your fault. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:35

Look, and it's nothing's a kill shot, right? But that's at least another bullet in the gun if you end up in litigation or something. Right.

SPEAKER_04 22:42

Well, I think the whole thing here is that like, um, this isn't like, oh, we had a party. This is like they made a decision to open another business of their own and like your Running your business. So, like, in my mind, like, that's your shit. And I would push super hard if I got named in that lawsuit. That I would be saying, like, these people owned a bit a for-profit business that they were running six days a week at their place. Like, uh, they hired me as their service provider to just do the chemicals and make sure that the water is a great swimming experience for the bathers. And that's not the problem. Like, little Johnny did a double backflip off of the side and misjudged and hit his head. And now, you know, like that. We have nothing to do with that shit. So that's kind of, you know, probably what would happen. But again, there's no saying that like they wouldn't be like, you are, you know, 11 involved here, right? Or at fault. And like, what's 11% of fucking uh you know hundreds of thousands of dollars of millions of dollars? Like that that becomes a big number.

SPEAKER_03 23:42

Big number, lots of zeros, you bet. Yeah, no. So even something as simple as shooting an email off. And then really, you know, if you got a real bad feeling about it, again, I mean Yeah, you just you just you just you just lose the account.

SPEAKER_04 23:53

You just write and you write them a letter and say, Hey, this is too much risk for us. Like we know that you're running simply swimply at your pool. Um, you know, and with with there being so much many moving parts and so many children at the pool, like we're not interested in taking on that type of liability. We're gonna, you know, relinquish service on the on the Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:12

Or or at a higher rate, you know, like everyone's got a risk tolerance at some point, right? If it's you know it's like, hey, look, this is I'm not willing to take on the additional risk with this without uh But I will for a bigger paycheck. Hell yeah. Amy more and it's okay.

SPEAKER_04 24:26

Fuck.

SPEAKER_03 24:27

Get your checkbook.

SPEAKER_04 24:30

Thanks for coming on and scaring the shit out of us today. We really appreciate it, man. Um, but no, like this is the type of stuff that like I didn't I didn't ask to be involved in this. Like I didn't I didn't make the decision to go on the swimple and like you know my clients did. So now I gotta make a decision of like, do I feel comfortable enough still servicing the pool or do I have to, you know, make some decisions here? So like I said, most of the time I'm usually pretty cool with as long as we're like straight up and honest and we're saying, like, hey, if anything were to happen, like you're understanding that this is gonna be your fault. I I usually feel like that would hold up pretty well in court, especially you know, if it's just between you and the client. But you know, crazy stuff happens and people get weird, you know, and all of a sudden, you know, now you're in this lawsuit where you're like, you know, some kid he was at the pool and he like walked outside and like slipped and fell, getting into the car. You know what I mean? And like all of a sudden, like this could be in New Jersey or in New York, you know what I mean? And the kid slipped on some ice and like it's like he wasn't even in the pool when it happened, you know. But like, yeah, pool company gets named in it. So it doesn't really matter if you guys do it or you don't do it, like it still could happen and always assume for the worst. And that's what you have insurance for. So if you guys need insurance, look to California Pool Association. And if you mention the Talking Pools podcast, they'll give you a hundred dollars off your general annual liability insurance. So, Pat, again, thank you so much for coming on and just talking the real real today with us. We really appreciate it. And that as always, if you guys have any questions, just reach out to us at talkingpools at gmail.com. And we'll be seeing you guys next week. Thank you so much for listening in. And Pat, thank you so much for coming on. Have a good one, guys. And I had the plump, something was like wrong with the gutters or something, but like they don't really tell me every single thing that they're doing. So like the custodians, they put in a um like a work order for the plumbers to come out and check what was going on. And the plumber comes out and he's like, he's like, I see the gutter drain, the gutter valve is uh it's closed, mostly closed. He's like, here, he's like, let me open it. So he opens it, and it, I mean, it's like all this brown, green, yellow water starts to just come into the pool. And within like two minutes, the whole pool is like this brownish, weirdish color. So they called me and they're like, hey, they're like, can you have one of your guys come and shock the pool? You know, um, and I was like, yeah, like we'll come do that today. So I call my guy and I'm like, hey, can we get there today? And he's like, actually, he's like, it's kind of late in the day because they're on the east coast and I'm on the west coast. So I was like, I get it. I'm like, let's just go there tomorrow. So first thing in the morning, I'm like, go there, shock it. I it's a 115,000 gallon pool. So I do the the math, you know, correction or calculation, and I come up with like 9.6 gallons to put in. So to shock it from zero to 10. And I'm like, hey, I'm like, let's just put in a little bit extra to make sure that we, you know, we get rid of any bacteria or viruses that are in there. I'm like, put in a dozen gallons. So he's like, okay, cool. So I'm like, I know that I'm gonna be sleeping tomorrow, but like, don't be afraid of bothering me. Send me some pictures so I can explain what was what was going on and what the pool looked like when you got there, what it looked like when you left. And uh, you know, make sure you brush the pool and do anything else that you need to do. He's like, okay, cool. So today goes by, and like we I had a bunch of stuff going on in the morning with work and whatever. So like I wasn't thinking about this. So I finally, right before we hopped on and you heard the tail end of the conversation, I was I called the kid and I was like, hey, I'm like, are you already went there today? And he was like, Yeah, yeah, I went. Everything was great, everything was fine. And I'm like, what the fuck does that mean? Like, what does that mean? It's fine. Yeah. So I'm like, what what what did you do? So he's like, I put in 12 gallons of liquid chlorine and six gallons of muriatic acid. And I was like, How did you how did you come up with the calculation that you were gonna put in six gallons of muriatic acid?

SPEAKER_02 28:36

You're gonna love this answer, guys.

SPEAKER_04 28:37

He goes, Oh, you can't. He goes, that's that's what I did, that's what I did in the past, and it's helped me balance out the pool later in the week. And I said to him, I was like, look, like I'm a pool professional and like I do teach other people how to do the calculations, and I have no idea how much to put into this pool, because if you don't test the water, you're never gonna know. And like, Wayne, you would have to, like, I would never say put in 12 gallons of liquid chlorine and then test the water. Like, if you were wanting to put, I would just tell you to put in 12 gallons and then let's let's come back another day. Like, I wouldn't put in the acid right away. Um, and if I was gonna put in the acid at the same visit, I would actually wait a half hour. I would brush the pool, I would wait 30 to 40 minutes. I would have told the kid to go get a bacon, a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich and come back and then, you know, do the pH and then do the acid demand test.

SPEAKER_02 29:36

Right.

SPEAKER_04 29:37

And this is something that I think that I didn't learn until later on in my career. And, you know, basically what it is is you do the pH test and then you do the color compare, and you're like, okay, cool. Obviously, we just threw in a dozen gallons of liquid chlorine. We're gonna have uh we're gonna have high pH, obviously. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:56

You're gonna have purple is what you're gonna have.

SPEAKER_04 29:59

But, you know, now you can do the acid demand test. And with the acid demand test, basically you put in one drop of the acid demand, you cap it, you shake it, and it will start to come down the color wheel, and it will go from purple to pink to red, and then it will turn into that weird orange color that you want in between seven, four and seven, six, right? And then if you're let's say you're using a Taylor test kit, you would go to page 50, 58 or 57 or whatever it is in the back of the book, and there's a flow chart, and it literally tells you, hey, if your pool is a 20,000 gallon pool, you put in this amount of muriatic acid or whatever. Um, and I just don't understand why we're not like using this when these tools are are there for us. And my whole point is I had to explain to this kid that like one gallon of muriatic acid, if you just went to this to the retail store to the Leslie's and picked it up, it's like sixteen dollars. So six times sixteen, ninety-six, correct me if I'm wrong, and then you add tax to that and all that other shit to that, like that's over a hundred dollars that we just poured into the pool. I'm not saying for no reason, but like uh without really figuring out how much to put into the pool.

SPEAKER_02 31:15

Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 31:16

So, my whole point for this story is like every time, like you can't just blindly throw in chemicals into the pool. Every time you put something in, you have to be exact on what you want to put in. Right, right. You know, and like when I was in New Jersey, we didn't do that at the beginning, and then we started to really pay attention to our chlorine usage. And in one full swimming season, Wayne, we had like 12 guys that worked for us and six trucks on the road. I swear to you that we saved over$30,000 in one season just in chlorine usage because, like, you know, that what was happening was the guys were going to their stops and they were looking at their notes from the last week and they were like, oh, put in a gallon and a half of liquid chlorine. Okay, cool. This week I'm gonna put in a gallon of liquid chlorine or gallon and a half of liquid chlorine, because that's what I did last week. But last week the chlorine was at two and it needed a gallon and a half. This week the chlorine was at 5.5 and it only needed a gallon. So like we just wasted a half gallon of liquid chlorine at that pool. And like once you get into 50 or more stops, like if you're putting in a quarter gallon too much, like that's that's just you're just pissing away money. So, you know, that that's a whole different episode in its own sense. But like uh, if we do this at every pool, like uh it's a lot of money that we're we're wasting in in this uh in this sense, right?

SPEAKER_02 32:40

So I do have to comment on the acid demand and the base demand tests in Test Kats. I can very confidently say that 95% of whole service people have never done an acid or base demand test, let alone know what it's supposed to be used for, which is an unfortunate thing because like usernet had to be done an acid demand test properly, you would have been able to figure out how much acid if anything at all. And the same goes in the other direction because you need a raise reading. And uh that always infuriated me that you know you've got all these resources in the test kit, and it doesn't matter who the manufacturer can matter, but you have all these resources in that testing kit to give you uh a scenario of of what's going on in the pool, and if there's anything you need to address, is there anything you need to I won't say ignore, but don't need to change? It's there for a reason. These tests are there for a reason. They acid again tests are the two tests that are uh like the uh the bad steps. Uh because people you still do it. Yeah, but but yet we still have them in there just in case.

SPEAKER_04 34:00

Yeah, no, I mean like it's and like I said, I I wasn't doing it at the beginning either because no one showed me how to do it. But now that I do it, it's like I would never not use that to tell me exactly what to put in. It would it's basically like just uh you know blindfolding yourself and crossing your fingers and just pouring it into the pool and just hoping for the best. Yeah, you know, and I'm not saying that, you know, putting in 12 gallons of liquid chlorine into a pool, like obviously it's gonna affect it. But like if we're trying to get rid of algae or if we're trying to, you know, get rid of all this shit that's in the pool, like it's not actually gonna go up to you know 12 parts per million or whatever it is. Like it's gonna be way less than that. So I wasn't too concerned. Like, I didn't, you know, I didn't ask this kid to put any muriatic acid into the pool. Not this visit, anyway. So it was just more of uh like a situation of like uh it's actually my fault. Like I should have just been more clear and just been like, hey, like don't put anything else into the pool. And we've had whole episodes where we've talked about you know what I do what I mean, not what I say. And this is one of those clear, you know, clear-cut examples of uh, you know, not doing what you're saying.

SPEAKER_02 35:07

So on the same on the same level, you would think there would be enough common sense floating around that he would have questioned something.

SPEAKER_04 35:14

Well, my that's not even my point, Ween. My point is if he had questions, like I my phone is available for this guy. Right, right, right. You know what I mean? Like uh his boss, like we have a quarterly contract that like I answer my phone for them all the time. Like he pays me to answer the phone. So like this is not like a oh, like I might get back to him later or whatever. Like when they call, I answer. Super simple, you know. So I was just really surprised, like when I heard that, and I was just like, uh it's just not the first time that something like this has happened where they've just gone off and just done what they've wanted. So, you know, the lesson for me is like I need to have better oversight with them, you know, because it's at the end of the day, like he's not paying for that. It's not his hundred dollars of muriatic acid that he put into the pool, you know, and like we're gonna get paid for it, so it's fine, like I understand. But like if someone comes back and they're like, Why did you throw fucking 18 gallons of anything into the pool at once? Like, what what were you doing? Like, no one's gonna question me in that aspect, but like if someone sent me a bill like that, I would be like, What what are you guys doing? Yeah, like what are you like why did why why did you do that? You know, it just brings up other questions that you can't really answer, and I can't confidently answer them, and I'm not gonna lie for the kid. Right. You know, if somebody asks me, I'm gonna be like, uh, we we messed up a little bit. Yeah, and not that we messed up, like it's just like uh I want to go back to the pool now tomorrow and see what the fucking peach is. I wonder if it's gonna be 5.8 or lower. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 36:34

Well, gang, this this was a little bit of a shorty today, but but full of fun information. As always, if you have any comments, questions, or ideas or topics that Steve and I can cover, uh please feel free to send that to talkingpools at gmail.com if we decide to use that. And we'll send you a nice little thank you. Yes, appreciate it as always. Mr. Steve, have fun out there in the West West Coast.

SPEAKER_04 36:57

Yeah, you as well on the East Coast there, Wing.

SPEAKER_02 36:59

And we'll see you guys next week. Take care. Bye bye.