You’re Not Testing the Pool, You’re Testing a Lie - Rudy

This Friday episode blends industry culture, community engagement, and high-level water chemistry into one unapologetically direct conversation. Rudy challenges a foundational assumption in pool care—that water can be “captured” and tested as-is—and dismantles it by exposing the dominant role of temperature in every chemical interaction.

Along the way, he introduces new listener giveaways, reinforces the importance of mentorship in the industry, and delivers a mix of humor and hard truth that defines the Talking Pools voice.

🎁 Listener Giveaways Announcement

•  New recurring giveaway: Talking Pools Podcast shirts (by Revved Up Apparel) 
•  Format: 
  •  A hidden “buzzword” will be placed in select Friday episodes 
  •  Listeners must submit the buzzword when prompted on the podcast’s Facebook page 
  •  Winners selected at random 
•  Previous winners and prizes included: 
  •  Sunglasses 
  •  Blu-ray XL product packs 
  •  Jack’s Magic swag 

👉 Designed to reward loyal listeners and increase engagement within the community.

🏆 2026 Mentor of the Year Award

•  Nominations open now through May 15, 2026
•  Submit at: mentoraward.com
•  Focus: Recognizing individuals who have mentored and elevated others in the pool industry
•  Selection process: 
  •  Merit-based (not popularity-driven) 
  •  Top 10 finalists recognized 
  •  One winner receives a custom championship belt

Sponsors include:

• Blu-ray XL (Title Sponsor) 
• Revved Up Apparel (Sponsor) 

👉 Core message: The industry grows faster when knowledge is passed forward, not rediscovered.

🧠 Main Topic: The Temperature Illusion in Water Testing

Key Thesis:
You are not testing the pool—you are testing a changing sample removed from its original environment.

🌡️ Temperature: The Dominant Variable

•  Temperature doesn’t just influence chemistry—it redefines it
•  Every test result is condition-dependent
•  Once a sample is pulled: 
  •  Gas exchange begins immediately 
  •  Chemical equilibria shift 
  •  Results begin drifting 

👉 The number you read is not what the water is—it’s what the water became

⚗️ Core Chemical Impacts of Temperature

1. Gas Solubility & pH Shift

•  Higher temp → lower gas solubility 
•  CO₂ leaves water → carbonic acid drops → pH rises
•  This is not an error—it’s natural equilibrium behavior

2. Reaction Speed

•  Hot water: 
  •  Faster chlorine consumption 
  •  Faster oxidation 
•  Cold water: 
  •  Slower reactions 
  •  “False stability” 

👉 “Fast” doesn’t mean broken. “Slow” doesn’t mean stable.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Welcome to Friday. I'm Rudy Stenkowitz. This is the Talking Pools Podcast. It is weekend eve. You're either about to start your day in the middle of your day or at the end of your day. In either case, tomorrow, hopefully, Saturday, at least takes Sunday to do something with the fam. Get out on a boat, throw a pole in the water, cast from shore, go fishing, go bowling, go hunting, whatever it is you do, go to the range. I don't care. Just do something that isn't swimming pool related for a day. Just one day every week. Get away from the pool. Put down the pole. Just put it down. Step away from it. That said. I'm going to start to do something a little different, something we haven't done before. And I think we can do this a couple of times a month, and I think it might be fun. I've been running some different types of contests on Facebook, on the Talking Pools podcast page, also on my page, Rudy the Pool Man, that page. And I think it's been going fairly well. So far, we've given away a pair of wooden slick shades sunglasses that went out to Ron Pence. Just last night, we gave away a four-pack of Blu-ray XL, and that's going out to Clarice Ramirez. Then we also gave away a Jack's Magic Swag bag to Katie Settle. We love them all. We love all of you. We want a chance to give everybody some more stuff. So here's what I'm going to do. A couple of times a month, we're going to give away one of our Talking Pools podcast shirts. These are the badass shirts that are made by Revved Up Apparel. They make them for the podcast, but we're going to give them out. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to put a buzzword in each episode. And this isn't going to start today. It's going to be in the Friday episode when it occurs. And it'll be roughly every other week, but there'll be a buzzword. So you got to listen. Get the buzzword. Then when we ask for the buzzword on one of those pages, probably I think I'm going to keep it on the Talking Pools podcast Facebook page because that makes the most sense. When I ask for the buzzword, not before, but when I ask for it, I'm going to give everybody so much time to go ahead and get their buzzword in. Maybe it'll be an hour, maybe it'll be two hours. I don't know. Maybe I'll come down and I'll just announce what time we'll be putting that out there too. Maybe it's going to be five o'clock every Friday. I don't know. Maybe that's the number. More details to come. But those names that get it correct into a basket. We pull out the name. One person gets a shirt, contact Revved Up Apparel, have it made custom for them in their size, and then ship directly from Revved Up Apparel to you. And I want to do that a couple times a month. I don't know. I think it's cool. They're cool shirts. And you know what? Like I said, this podcast is about you. So why not? You should have a Talking Pools podcast shirt, I think. And you can use it for cleaning pools. You can use it when you go to the beach. You can use it for just lounging around. It goes well with a smoking jacket. You could use it during Zoom meetings. You don't even have to wear pants during those. We're not giving away pants, just the shirts. That, and you know what? We also have the Talking Pools Podcast Mentor of the Year Award for 2026 going on. One month left to get me the name of the person who helped you. That's who I want to recognize. Somebody out there did something that helped guide you on your way in this career of yours that helped you get past some stumbling block, some hurdle to where you are now, where you're doing better because of it. So in your head, think of who that person is. Then go to mentoraward.com. Mentoraward.com. It's going to take you to a page on my website. And there, I just want the name of the person and tell me what they did for you that helped. This is not up where somebody can nominate themselves. That will not be accepted. You cannot be nominated or recommended by a family member. No. You have to be nominated by the person who you mentored, the person you helped. What we're going to do is scrutinize that person. We're going to look at everything they've done for you, the impact they've had on you, the impact they've had on others. And we're going to dive really, really deep into that. We're going to come up with a top 10 list, and everyone on that top 10 list is a badass as they were in 2025, as they will be in 2026. Complete, total, water warrior, badass mentor, helping the industry move forward. People shouldn't have to start at the same point and hack their way through the same mistakes everybody's made time and time again. It should be more like a relay. Catch up to the mentor. Grab that baton and let me see how far you can take it. There's no reason why you have to start where I did. You can start where I leave off, which puts you so far ahead. And if I can get you to the point, that's probably the best thing anyone can do for the industry. So get us the name of that person that helped you. Top 10 total badasses. One person from that top 10 will receive the championship belt just like we did last year, customized. Blu-ray XL has already stepped up in the title sponsor role as they were last year. Their name will be on the belt. We have room for a couple of other title sponsors if any manufacturers are listening and they want in. Rev Up Apparel, they stepped up as well. Silver sponsor as they were last year. So who else thinks mentorship in the industry is important? I don't know. This is all I have to gauge it on. So manufacturers, vendors, distributors out there, if you think mentorship in this industry is important, hit me up. Let's get you a sponsor for this. Not even really an award, recognition. That's what it is. Because this isn't votes. This isn't who had the best helmet. This isn't who says the funniest shit. This is purely merit-based. So it is a recognition. So if you're men, if someone helped you get their name to me, mentor award.com. That said, that was a mouthful. I hope I didn't ramble or soap too much. Now that we've got that covered, I can tell you, I got Hattie the podcast dog sitting right here in her chair, right alongside of me, all curled up like normal, totally ignoring everything I say, giving me dirty side eye looks every now and then. She's really, really good at that whole side eye thing. Anyway, look at me blowing around like a fart in a hurricane. Listen, there is something we all do in this industry, even if you don't realize you're doing it. I've been getting Service Industry News since I first stepped into this business, and every time it landed, I did the same thing. Flip straight to the horror file. The weird installs, the absurd finds the stuff only pool pros ever see. Then I'd go back and read the articles. Service Industry News is a twice-monthly trade publication for pool and spa service text, 24 issues a year, emailed free to over 10,000 texts and available on their app. Every issue covers nationwide industry news and real technical content you actually will use. Get your free subscription at serviceindustry news.net. Again, that's serviceindustry news.net. Do it now. All right. Listen up. If you're serious about getting smarter, stronger, and actually winning in life, you need to be around the right people. And that's exactly why I built this. On my website, you're going to get the tools, the strategies, and the mindset shifts most people will never tell you about. And if you're ready to take it to the next level, the CPO program is where the real transformation happens. That's where the committed people go. So here's what I want you to do go to the website right now. It's www.cpoclass.com. Look around. And if you're serious about leveling up, I want you to register for a CPO class. Stop watching from the sidelines. Step into the arena. I'll see you inside. Anyway, look at me blown around like a fart in a hurricane. Listen, there is something we all do in this industry, even if you don't realize you're doing it, you pretend that water holds still. You act as if you test it, you've captured it. Like a snapshot. Frozen in time. You pinned it down, you figured it out, but you didn't. You never did. Because the moment you pulled that sample, it started changing. And what's driving that change? Not just chlorine, not bather load, not contaminants, temperature. Temperature. And temperature isn't just another variable. It's the variable. It doesn't sit inside the system. It rewrites the system. So you're not testing the pool. You're not testing the spa. You're not testing the cold plunge. You're testing a sample removed from its environment at a different temperature after it has already begun to change. Then you look at that number and say, well, this is what the water is. No, that's what the water became. Because if you pull water from a 104-degree spa and let it cool, CO2 behavior changes, gas solubility changes, pH shifts, chlorine speciation shifts. You didn't stabilize it, you altered it. Same thing in cold water. You pull a 55 degree sample, you warm it, CO2 leaves, pH rises, equilibrium shifts again. Now you've got a number, and it's consistent, and it's repeatable, and you call that accurate, but it's not. It's not accurate. It's standardized. And those are not the same thing. Let's talk about what temperature actually does, because this is where the illusion breaks. We've been taught that chemistry is about numbers. pH, alkalinity, calcium. And if those numbers are right, the water is right. But those numbers only exist within the conditions in which they were measured. Change the temperature, you change the meaning of every single one of them. Take calcium carbonate. At higher temperatures, it becomes less soluble. That means the same water, same calcium, same alkalinity still behave completely differently at 104 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 40 degrees Celsius, than it does at 55 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 12.75 Celsius. That's why spas scale. That's why cold plunges don't. Not because the chemistry changed, because the rules changed. And temperature is the one rewriting those rules. Now, talk about the thing that nobody sees, but everybody deals with gas exchange. As temperature increases, gas solubility decreases. That means CO2 leaves the water. When CO2 leaves the water, carbonic acid drops. When carbonic acid drops, pH rises. That's not drift, that's not a problem. That's the system behaving exactly as it should. And we fight it. We add acid, we try to correct it. But what we're really doing is fighting temperature-driven equilibrium. I know you've heard my friend Eric Knight talk a lot about Henry's law in the past. Well, guess what? Henry's Law still applies here. Never left. Didn't matter the temperature. Gas in the air wants to reach equilibrium with the gas in the water. But here's the part people miss. In pool water, those gases don't just dissolve, they react. CO2 becomes carbonic acid, carbonic acid becomes bicarbonate, bicarbonate becomes carbonate. So Henry's law controls how much gas moves, but chemistry controls what it becomes once it's there. And temperature controls both. So now you've got gas movement, chemical transformation, temperature dependence, all happening at the same time. And you're trying to manage that with a test kit. Let's add speed to the mix because this is where people get fooled. At higher temperatures, everything happens faster. Chlorine reacts faster, organics oxidize faster, chlorine gets consumed faster. So you go to a spa, it looks like it won't hold chlorine. It's not broken, it's just fast. You go to a cold plunge and it looks stable. It's not stable, it's just slow. And if you don't understand that, you start chasing problems that don't exist. You overchlorinate, you overcorrect, you create issues trying to fix something that isn't an issue. So let's go deeper because this is where real damage starts. When you add a chemical, you think it dissolved. But dissolution isn't just yes or no. It's how fast, how evenly, and into what environment? Cold water, slow dissolution. Chemicals can sit concentrated, acid can sit in one spot, calcium chloride can spike temperature locally before it fully mixes, damage can occur. Hot water, everything dissolves fast. But now you got a different problem. Everything reacts immediately. Overshoot happens faster, scaling happens faster, consumption happens faster. Cold water creates uneven chemistry. Hot water creates aggressive chemistry. Same chemical, different temperature, different outcome. Then there's winter. Some of us have winter. We had flurries this past year. One day for one hour, nothing accumulated on the ground. That was winter in my part of Florida. So it's important to understand that winter lies. You go months, everything looks fine, then spring hits, water warms, and suddenly you got problems. Calcium crystals, needles on plaster surface issues, and you think this just happened. No, it didn't. It was building the entire time. Cold water held everything in solution. CO2 stayed in, pH stayed lower, calcium stayed dissolved. The system was loaded but stable. Then the temperature went up. CO2 left the water. PH began to rise. Solubility began to drop. And now the system says, I can't hold this anymore. So it releases it. Not as scale sheets, as crystals. Structured growth. Needles. That's not a new problem. That's a delayed one. Float tanks at that level of salinity. You're not dealing with normal water anymore. Do any of you take care of float tanks? I know I've had some float tank people in my classes before. You are required to be a CPO to operate a float tank center. They're also regulated by the health department in the public pool code. Here you're dealing with a dense ionic system. Activity doesn't equal concentration. Light doesn't behave the same. Reactions don't behave the same. Your test kits, they're out of their depth. So now you're not measuring precisely. You're watching trends. And temperature? Still there. Still shifting equilibrium. Still driving reactions. Just inside a system that doesn't follow pool rules anymore. Either go see what it is or don't do that. My neighbors are putting up a privacy fence. That's why the dog's barking. I guess they're tired of me walking around my underwear. They just don't want to see it anymore. They're lost. Whatever. So two pool techs show up, same pool, same day. This is not the beginning of a joke.

SPEAKER_04 17:06

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SPEAKER_05 17:41

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SPEAKER_02 17:49

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SPEAKER_00 18:01

Super easy.

SPEAKER_05 18:06

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SPEAKER_00 18:36

Blu-ray all day. Honoring those who don't just have the answers, but teach others how to find them. If someone helped shape your path in this industry, now is the time to return the favor. Visit cpoclass.com. Click on the Talking Pools Podcast Mentor Award tab, and submit your mentor's name up until May 15th, 2026, because behind every great pool professional, there's someone who showed them how to think.

SPEAKER_03 19:22

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SPEAKER_01 19:58

A Catholic priest, a rabbi, and a pool pro all walk into a bar. The bartender says, What'll it be? The priest says, Something strong. I've been listening to confessions all day. At this point, I know more about people's bad decisions than their therapists, and I don't even get paid. The rabbi says, Make mine a double. I spent six hours explaining rules that nobody follows to people who think they understand them better than I do. The pool pro goes, Give me whatever makes me forget homeowners exist. The bartender pauses. Rough day. The pool pro goes, Lady calls me, says her pool turned green overnight. The priest nods, ah, sudden temptation. The rabbi adds, a mystery. The pool pro shakes his head. No mystery. I get there. This woman dumped chlorine, acid baking soda, and no joke, laundry detergent into the pool. The bartender blinks. Why? The pool pro says, Because she googled it. The priest makes the sign of the cross. That's not a sin, that's a cry for help. Rabbi leans in. Did it work? Pool pro takes a slow drink. Yeah, if her goal was to baptize a damn washing machine. Bartender laughs. So what did you tell her? Pool pro. I told her I could fix it, but first I had to neutralize whatever unholy chemical gangbang she created. Priest chokes on his drink. Rabbi goes, Are you sure that's not in one of my books somewhere? The pool pro shrugs. At this point, I'm not cleaning pools, I'm performing exorcisms on backyard science experiments. Two pool techs show up, same pool, same day. They test, they get different numbers. They argue. One says, You're wrong. The other says, No, you're wrong. Here's the truth. They might both be right because they tested at slightly different temperatures, slightly different times, slightly different conditions. And that's enough. That's enough to shift the equilibrium, enough to shift readings, enough to create disagreement. So now the question isn't who's right, it's what conditions were those results measured under. That's a different level of understanding. Now let's tie it all together. You test the water, the temperature affects the result. You add chemicals, temperature affects how they dissolve. Those chemicals react. Temperature affects how fast. You test again, the temperature affects that result too. That's the loop. Test, dose, react, test again. And temperature influences every step of it. If you don't understand temperature, you misread the entire loop. Temperature affects equilibrium, reaction speed, gas behavior, solubility, dissolution, testing accuracy, surface interaction, everything. And yet, it's the one thing you don't control. Now, here's where the conversation has to get a little bit more practical because it's one thing to say temperature changes the chemistry. It's another thing to answer the question everybody in the field is really asking what should I use? How do I accurately test it? And what method gives me the least wrong answer for the conditions I'm standing in? Because that's the truth. You're not getting perfection in the field. You're trying to get the most useful answer with the fewest avoidable errors. And that means the method has to match the environment, not your preference, not your habit, the environment. So let's walk through it. You got a spa hot water environment. When you're dealing with spa water over 100 degrees, again, 104 degrees was 40 degrees Celsius. So when you're dealing with spa water above that at that temperature, over 100 degrees, the problem isn't just that the water is hot. The problem is that the reactions in your test are hot too. They're happening faster. Gas exchange is happening faster. The sample starts changing the second you pull it. So if you test that water hot with ordinary color comparison thinking, you're also asking for trouble. This is where your best approach is to pull the sample correctly. Cap it. Let it normalize briefly. And then run the test with a method that reduces human error. Instructions emphasize collecting the sample below the surface, and that matters because surface water is the worst place to grab a representative sample. Lamotte spin touch is built to automate reagent handling and timing for pool and spa samples, which is exactly why it shines here once the sample is normalized. And for pH, a meter with automatic temperature compensation is the cleaner move because pH measurement is one of the places where temperature matters immediately and visibly. So for hot spa water, my ideal stack is this spin touch for fast, consistent panel testing, a good temperature compensated digital pH meter for pH, and an FASDPD kit as a confirmation tool when the chlorine story doesn't match what your eyes or experience tell you. Lamating, which is colorimetric tests from titrametric FASDPD, and from the separate turbidity-based cyanuric acid test, which is why you should be thinking in method categories, not just brand names. The method is simple. Pull the sample from beneath the surface, keep it out of the sun, cap it, let it settle toward a more controlled testing temperature, then test quickly because chlorine documentation is very clear that the chlorine sample needs immediate analysis and are not something you casually preserve for later. Cold plunge water has the opposite personality. It fools people because it looks calm, it looks stable, it looks easy. But the problem with cold water is sluggishness. The chemistry in the water is slow, and the chemistry in your test is slow. So now your issue is not overreaction, it's underdevelopment. Now I know you're thinking that pathogens in that body of water must be slow, also. They are. A lot of them in cold water, like cold plunge cold water, go dormant. So can somebody get sick? I don't know. If they go in and their bathing suit absorbs water and they get out and their suit is wet and it eventually comes to room temperature, is that pathogen still dormant? The one that clung to the suit? Which means if you test cold plunge water exactly as is, you end up trusting a result that hasn't finished telling you the truth yet. So in cold water, the move is not heroic. It's control. Warm the sample to a consistent test and range. Don't use a fucking microwave. That would be stupid. Keep it covered, then run the test with the same logic every time. That gives you repeatability. And repeatability matters because two people testing the same cold water under slightly different conditions can get absolutely different answers and both think the other one's screwed up. For cold plunge water, the tool stack is almost the same as for spa water. Spin touch is still a strong choice because it reduces operator variability. A temperature compensated pH meter is still smart. A LAMAT FAS DPD kit is still your manual backstop when you want to verify the sanitizer story yourself. LAMAT dilution and method guidance also make clear that different test families behave differently, which is why cold water testing should never be reduced to just run the kit. Cold plunges are becoming popular. If you don't have one on your route yet, you will. Standard pool water, right? Normal temps, 70 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit, which would be 21 to 27 degrees Celsius. This is where the spin touch is most naturally at home. Standard pool water with a more normal temperature range, with normal pool salinity, or even standard salt pool salinity is where automation gives you the clearest advantage. Because now you've reduced some of the biggest distortions. You're not fighting extreme heat, you're not fighting extreme cold, you're not fighting exotic ionic strength. You're mostly fighting people. Bad lighting, bad technique, bad timing, bad eyes. That's the kind of environment photometric testing is designed for. And Lamont's own materials position the spin touch as a full panel automated analyzer for pool and spa water in the field or at the store. So for standard pools, yeah, spin touch is one of the best answers. Not the only answer, not magic, but one of the best answers. And if you pair it with a solid digital pH meter and keep a Lamotte FAS DPD kit on hand for confirmation, you've got a serious testing program instead of just a machine, because the machine gives you consistency. The meter provides temperature aware pH readings, and the drop kit gives you manual confirmation when the chemistry starts acting weird. Float tanks have a problem with extreme TDS. This is where you stop pretending one tool does everything. Because once you move into float tank territory, the problem is no longer just about temperature. It's the ionic strength, it's density, it's the fact that the water no longer behaves like ordinary pool or spa water. And when that happens, standard color tests and assumptions start to get shaky real fast. That's where your primary tool becomes a properly maintained digital meter, especially for pH, and your mindset shifts from chasing beautiful absolute numbers to watching trends and controlling parameters that actually matter operationally. Hannah's pH meters are explicitly built around temperature compensated pH measurement. That kind of direct electrochemical approach is far more appropriate in unusual chemistry than pretending every optical or drop-based method still behaves the same. For float systems, the spin touch is not the hero. That is not a knock on the tool. That is respect for chemistry. The spin touch is a pool and spa analyzer. Lamotte says exactly that. When you move into extreme TDS, the right answer is not to force a pool tool into a non-pool system and then blame the tool when the chemistry stops cooperating. So what is the right tool by scenario? If I had to say it clean, for a standard pool, spin touch is one of the best primary choices. For a hot spa, spin touch is a very strong choice once the sample is handled correctly and paired with a good temperature compensated pH meter. For a cold plunge, spin touch is still a strong choice once the sample is normalized and handled consistently. For a float tank, no. That is not where I would lead with it. That is where digital meters and method discipline take over. And across all of them, that FAS DPD test, it still matters because manual confirmation is how you avoid overconfidence in an automated system. This is the point people miss. The best testing tool is not the one that promises the most. It's the one that matches the water in front of you. And if you use the right method in the right environment, now you're not just collecting numbers, you're building trust in your process. Because the goal was never to find one perfect test. The goal was always to find the method that gives you the most useful truth under the conditions you actually face. I never carried just one method of testing water. I carried several because there are so many different applications. And I know a lot of folks who do the same. The best test method is not the one with the most buttons, it's not the one with the most drops, and it's not the one with the biggest price tag. It's the one that matches the water you're standing in front of. And when the method matches the environment, that's when the numbers start meaning something. That's all I have for you today. I'm Rudy Stankwitz. This is the Talking Pools podcast. Until next time, be good. Be safe.