Testing Water the Right Way, Hurricane Prep & Insurance Reality

How should you dispose of pool water after you've tested it?

It sounds like a simple question...until it isn't.

Wayne Ivusich and Steve Sherwood kick off this week's episode with a discussion sparked by a question from Que Hales regarding whether test samples should ever be poured back into the pool. The conversation quickly expands into proper testing technique, customer perception, reagent safety, expired chemicals, electronic testing, and why following the manufacturer's instructions matters more than most people realize.

Wayne shares stories from his years at Taylor Technologies, including why silver nitrate turns your skin black, how heat destroys reagents, and what really happens when test chemicals aren't stored correctly.

Later in the episode, Steve welcomes insurance expert Pat Grignon for another Insurance Interlude. Together they discuss hurricanes, floods, wildfires, mudslides, and what pool professionals should know before attempting to "secure" equipment ahead of an approaching storm. They also explain how insurance coverage changes depending on the type of natural disaster and why documentation matters.

Whether you're testing a backyard pool or preparing commercial facilities for hurricane season, this episode is packed with practical advice every pool professional can use.

In this episode

• Should you dump tested water back into the pool?
• Why customer perception matters during water testing
• Understanding reagent toxicity and proper disposal
• The truth about silver nitrate stains
• How heat and improper storage ruin test reagents
• Why expiration dates matter
• Electronic testing vs. traditional drop testing
• Testing Total Dissolved Solids (TDS)
• Phosphates, fill water, and hidden water chemistry issues
• Hurricane preparation for pool equipment
• Insurance considerations before and after natural disasters
• Flood, fire, mudslide, earthquake, and wind coverage explained
• Why documentation protects both homeowners and service companies

Featured Guests

• Wayne Ivusich
• Steve Sherwood
• Pat Grignon

Sponsors

• LaMotte Company
• WaterLink Spin Touch
• Council for the Model Aquatic Health Code (CMAHC)
• Talking Pools Podcast Mentor Award Sponsors

Mentioned During the Show

• Certified Pool Operators (CPO) Facebook Group
• Proper storage and handling of testing reagents
• Taylor Technologies testing procedures
• TDS testing
• Electronic water testing
• Hurricane preparedness for swimming pools
• Insurance considerations for pool professionals

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Transcript

SPEAKER_07 0:00

Happy Thursday, everybody, and welcome to the Talking Pools podcast. Thursdays with Steve and Wayne. Hope everybody's had a safe and healthy week. At the time of this particular taping, right now, at my home, and I'm about 30 miles northeast of Baltimore. It's 100 degrees and it's supposed to go up to 102. And then tomorrow's supposed to be even worse. So they're talking heat indexes of anywhere from 109 to 115 tomorrow. So basically, I'm living in an oven right now. It is miserable outside. Nobody's outside for obvious reasons. Oh boy. Gotta love weather. Anyhow, I've got something interesting to start our discussion off today. Got an email from a colleague in the industry. His name is Q Hale. Some of you might recognize that name. I've known Q for almost as long as I've been in the industry. Good guy. He's come out with a lot of good research on some things. Rudy knows him very well. But I got an odd email from him a couple days ago, and it pretty much was talking about he has a commercial customer that when they test their water, okay, for whatever, it really doesn't matter what it's for, pH, alkalinity, salt, whatever. And they dump the treated sample back in the pool. They get they got kind of their uh kind of a finger wagged at him by a health official that said they can't do that. It's against the law. And so Q wrote me and basically said, Is it? I've never heard of it. And and I I wrote back and I said, Well, I've never heard of it either. I don't think there's a single state that that regulates what you do with that water you've been adding reagents to. What do you do with it? And uh that prompted a further discussion uh with Q uh about you know what do you do? And um I thought I'd also post it in the certified pool operators-cpo Facebook website that both Steve and I are admins for. And uh, I posted that pretty much the same question. What what do you do with with the water after you if you test it for say pH? What do you do? Do you toss it back in the pool? Do you dump it someplace else? What do you do? Well, personally, I was always taught that you should never dump it back in the pool. Not that it's going to damage anything unless your aim is very, very bad. It's not going to damage anything because remember you're talking a few mils of uh milliliters of water versus you know hundreds and thousands of gallons of water, so it's not gonna be a big issue. But if you have a customer standing there watching your every move and you do that, that's just simply poor technique. So, so what do you do with the water? Well, what I always did was I carried an empty bucket with me and added some water to it, and then I would dump my treated samples into that bucket filled with water and then dump that product or not product, but dump dump that residue into a drain at another location or back in the office or or wherever. But it's it's a matter of technique and customer service and customer assumptions. You know, are you just simply lazy dumping it back in the pool? Do you, you know, do you treat the customer courteously and put it back in this bucket? What do you do? And so the the responses I got back on the Facebook page were a couple of them were kind of funny, but uh one was I must have a lot of time on my hands when I told the guy, well, I am retired, so there you go. And then I pointed out the fact, as did Rudy, that if you're using a Taylor test kit, I am the person who wrote those instructions back in '91 or '92. And uh specifically state on there, and one guy did take a picture of it and blew it up, drew a circle around it. Do not dump, you know, tested water back into the pool. Doesn't tell you what your options are, it just says don't do it. Right. So so I guess my question to you, Steve, is hello, yeah. You do this every day, and you're staying. What do you guys do?

SPEAKER_06 3:37

Holy shit, I'm gonna plead the fifth on this. Man, so I read that post, right? Because obviously, back to that group, I've been in that group forever, right? So I read the post and I I thought it was funny because the dude walked right in, like literally, like right into this, right? Because he was like, Yada yada yada, and Rudy was like, Well, he's the guy who wrote the fucking book, you know, like he wrote the literal instructions. So that's not what he's talking about. He's he's asking a serious question here. So for me, I I agree and I think that the taste from the post that I got was that it is just important taste to like read the room, and if there's people around, you know what I mean? Like, I I definitely would not dump it back in the pool if someone was sitting there talking to me. But here's the other question. So, are all of the reagents that people use, are they number one, are they environmentally friendly? And number two, are they friendly for are they toxic to to humans to like ingest? Right. Okay. And I I believe, and you're gonna you're gonna educate this on us, obviously, but you know, my thought process is that no, it's not biodegradable. And the reason that I say this is because let's forget about the you know, the K2005C or the you know, the Lamotte color cue where you have these reagents and these tablets and whatever. Like, let's forget about that. Let's talk about silver nitrate, you know, like let's talk about the the you know, when you're doing those tests where you know you get some of it on your finger and my fingernail was black for a fucking week. Right, okay, like that obviously is not biodegradable. I do not use that test kit because I just was like, this is crazy. I have nowhere to dump this, and for me, it was unacceptable to dump that back into the pool, right? So let's start there. Obviously, like you're not supposed to get rid of that, but where you would also put that into the the test bucket too?

SPEAKER_07 5:34

That that would be the common sense thing to do, but to kind of step back a few a little bit. Every reagent in that test kit, every reagent pretty much from anybody, you know, Taylor, Lamotte, whomever, has a toxicity level. Okay. And the only way you know what that level is is if you actually look at the uh data sheet, the the MSDS sheet or safety data sheet rather, and it will tell you, I forgot what number it is. There's 16 different things that it lists, but uh one of them is is called a rat level or a T, as in Yeah, rats. No big ugly mice, rats. What they do is so what they do is that they feed these reagents to these rats, and it will tell you how many rats can survive ingesting that reagent before it dies. And uh sometimes it's 50, sometimes it's 10, sometimes it's five. It really depends on the reagent. But the but the bottom line is that every reagent to a degree has the potential being very toxic. Okay. So, and we're I know we're talking about very, very small amounts as opposed to gallons and things like that, but still, you want to avoid getting it on your skin and you know all that other stuff. But let me talk about silver nitrate. Silver nitrate is also known as invisible ink. That's another way you might have played around with that when when you were a kid, but essentially it's it's a clear reagent that's once it is exposed to air, it will start to degrade. And how does it degrade?

SPEAKER_06 7:00

It goes brown or reddish brown if it touches skin, if it touches any kind of black, it turns your skin literally. And my my is brownish, blackish. I was like, oh my god.

SPEAKER_07 7:11

Yeah, yep, yeah. It's always fun not to tell a newbie that and watch what happens when they get it on their fingers. But I've got a cute story about silver nitrate for you that'll take a minute or two to talk about. But back when I first started with with uh Taylor, one of the things that I was assigned to do during my orientation, and my orientation was pretty long, it was lasted like six months, but one of them was to work in every department. And I thought that was a brilliant idea so that I know how everything worked together and didn't work together and things like that. Well, one of them was one of my little assignments was in an area they called Ken Make, where all the reagents were made or blended or and bottled.

SPEAKER_06 7:46

Like this is a town or a company or this is Taylor.

SPEAKER_07 7:49

We made all the reagents at Taylor.

SPEAKER_06 7:51

Okay, sorry. I thought you were saying that you made it out of play, okay, like out of it's made it at Taylor.

SPEAKER_07 7:56

For I'd say 95% of the reagents that we used in the test kits were were made at Taylor. There were some things they had to source out because of the nature of the beast, but pretty much everything was was there in half. Well, this chemic area was was pretty big. It had flow hoods, it had no lab equipment, things like that. But after they would finish creating a reagent, they would set it off to the side towards where the bottling department was so that they could bottle it. Okay. Well, silver nitrate is a clear reagent, and it's not made in very large amounts. I think it's I think this one particular one was made in a 10-liter vat with a cover. And so it and and the and the little vat thing was translucent, so air, air and light didn't get in it. There was a light on a lid on it, things like that. Well, there was a temp employee who I don't know how he did it or why he did it, but the lid was off of the silver nitrate. I think they were getting ready to start bottling it. And the guy didn't thought it was water, and he leaned over and his pen fell out of his of his pocket on his shirt. Well, he thought it was water. He rolled up his sleeve off to about mid-bicep, stuck his hand in there, pulled the pen out. Two hours later, from mid-bicep all the way down, his arm was black. And he thought that he was having some kind of a medical issue. And it's like, nope, yeah, of course. And uh he said, Well, how do I get this off? What do I use? And we all kind of said, Nope. You just gotta wait till your skin naturally sloughs off. And that it it took him about seven months to get it all away. I mean, he had his whole arm, Steve, from mid-bicep all the way down, and not just on the tips of your fingers like most pool people get when they when they do the salt test. Same thing can happen if you're using DPD number two. Uh, it's so any oxidizer will do that, but not to the degree that silver nitrate would do when you're doing a salt test. But uh yeah, anything from any test kit manufacturer that's in a brown bottle identifies that reagent as an oxidizer, which means once it's exposed to air, it's gonna start to go bad fairly quickly. And that's what always irritated me when I would visit these retail stores that had in-store labs, and whether it was our lab or somebody else's company's lab or whatever, every bot every uh cap off of every reagent was off. So everything was exposed to air, including DPD number two, silver nitrate, things like that. So the the the key that that tells you it's bad, it goes dark. It's no longer clear. And so I remember picking up a bottle of silver nitrate one time, and yep, the whole damn thing was brown already. And it's like, are you guys using this? Oh, yeah, it gives us the salt reading. I'm sure it does give you a salt reading, but it ain't the right reading.

SPEAKER_06 10:26

So yeah, so after after that, I started using the Lamotte tracer, Wayne. Yeah, because I I just it was too much. I just the silver nitrate, I after I did that one time, I was like, okay, cool. I think that was the only time that I sent something back to you. I think I literally was like, Wayne, I was because I called you and you were like, Yeah, this is the test kit for it, you know. And you sent, you know, I went and I grabbed it and I called you and I was like, Wayne, I don't think this is gonna work. I'm like, if I can't do it, I'm like, I'm not giving this to my guys. Like that, their whole arms would have been, you know, in this gap. Yeah, and 10 liters is like 338 fluid ounces 0.14 fluid ounces for for the Americans.

SPEAKER_07 11:03

No, a lot of a lot of techs I know will wear gloves. If they know they're gonna do assault tests with with liquid reagents, they'll put on they'll put on gloves.

SPEAKER_06 11:12

I would if I if that's what I had to use, I definitely would. So I wear gloves, I wear gloves a lot. Like if we're doing like especially like plumbing or like if I'm going to like work on something and I'm like taking a filter apart, like I'm always wearing these these double-walled steel venom gloves. I even am in a habit now, people laugh at me because I I do it when I fill up gas. Because Jen and I used to have a diesel and like all the old diesel, like uh, you know, the guns, the where the where the water, the the sorry not the water, the gasoline went through, right? Right like nozzle, it would leak all the time. So you would like I'd get like diesel on my hand, and my hand would just stink like diesel for the rest of the day. So we just got in the habit of like, okay, cool, I'm gonna wear a glove, and you know, I and I also not when I'm testing the water, but like pretty much doing anything else other than that. And I I you know I'll ri retract my taking the fifth, but I definitely don't throw the R0870 powder into into the water. No, it's like I have had it where like uh they have like a deck or something and you throw up, throw it in there, and then like the crystals are just like now it's pink on the bottom of the pool.

SPEAKER_07 12:18

So and I've silver nitrate too, right?

SPEAKER_06 12:21

And also like I've gotten that stuff on the deck, not silver nitrate, but I've gotten R004 on the on the deck or on the coping or whatever, and then I'm sitting there for five minutes scrubbing it and stuff. So that's more why I've gotten in the habit of of not doing it. And again, I don't test much water, and if I do, I'm usually at a commercial pool site. And if I do, there's usually drains that are on the floor right there. So it's super easy to just walk, you know, take four steps, go over to the drain, pour it into the drain. So I mean, I guess that that is the best way to go about it. And I I do I am in the habit of all of my techs like to help them carry stuff. I usually they have a bunch of buckets with them, and they usually will like throw some stuff in their net and then throw the rest of the stuff in the bucket and then bring both of those to the back because we want to minimize going back and forth with the amount of of trips that we have. And more so, I think the biggest issue that I've had with like testing is having the reagent R002, I guess, just like be pink already. So is that when it's already I mean, obviously it's bad when that happens, but but what is it because it got exposed to air for too long?

SPEAKER_07 13:28

Yeah, well, not necessarily air at all. Temperature could do that too. So, no, hot will do it. What happens is a lot of the distributors, the the big boys in their warehouses, and you've probably seen this too, they're not air conditioned at all. They got pallets of stuff in there, and and yeah, not and and that's where they keep their test kits, even though we tell them don't put it there, they do anyhow. So if if these reagents are exposed, like the deep like the number two, nothing nothing above, say, 90 degrees is fine. But once you hit 90 or higher, you're essentially cooking the reagents. And the heat will also cause an oxidizer to go bad very quickly and not just exposure to air. So you got to be careful of that. That's why a lot of times distributors will will very carefully order their supplies so that they know they don't they won't have them sit around on those shelves for a long time to and and something like this will happen to it. Some distributors don't do that, they don't care.

SPEAKER_06 14:21

Well now, now because they hold such a little stock, yeah. I I feel like uh you know, the chlorine that we get is always whatever it's supposed to be, 12%. And I know that they they randomly go around and test it, which I I think is actually bullshit, but because before COVID, there were times where we picked up chlorine, and there's you know, they have 11 pallets sitting there. And like, and the only reason I knew is because I was out doing pools and like I put enough chlorine in the pool, nothing was wrong with the pool. And I come back the next week and like it's got algae.

SPEAKER_04 14:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 14:54

Like there hasn't been chlorine in the pool, not just that day, there hasn't been chlorine in the pool for for a while at that point, you know. I think that's really more what how I figured it out. But like again, how do you go and test? And that's the biggest thing. Like, you're just kind of tell you're just kind of being like, okay, cool, like Hasa knows what they're doing.

SPEAKER_07 15:11

Well, guess what? There is a test kit for that. Taylor's part number is a K 1579. I don't know off the top of my head what Lamotte's part number is, but there is a way to test the strength of sodium hypochlorite, not tablets, though. Okay, just the liquid chlorine. So and that kit's been around forever.

SPEAKER_06 15:28

Then I'm gonna go back, then I'm gonna go back to my distributor and be like, hey, I these four here, I need these returned. These aren't these aren't the right strength. Yeah. You're gonna look at it.

SPEAKER_07 15:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 15:38

Seriously.

SPEAKER_07 15:39

Yeah. A lot of a lot of a lot of people are very surprised that we have that kit, but uh or that kit's available. Uh, but it's it's been a it's been a godsend for a lot of people over the years. The other thing too is sometimes the way you can avoid getting reagents that are potentially old or contaminated or whatnot is to order directly from the manufacturer. Now, I and I had to keep going back to Taylor because that's what I knew. I don't know if they even have it anymore, but there's something called drop shipping, which means that a distributor would send in an order for one of their customers, but they would use their customer shipping address from our location and we would ship it directly to the customer. So it doesn't go to the distributor and sit for however long it sits. It's it's technically fresh, it gets right to the customer. Now, I I know there are variations of that around in the industry. I don't, again, I don't know if it's still an effect. I would kind of think it would be because it was a really good, really good customer thing. But that's the way to get around that. Okay. The other way to get around things is regardless of whose test kit you use, always look at the expiration date of the reagent. And it should most liquid reagents are good for about two years. If it's if it's an oxidizer, if it's in a brown bottle, you're talking six to eight months. If it's a uh an acid, acids are pretty much good forever. They don't they you really have to work at making sulfuric acid go bad. And it happens, but rarely. Is that you shake the bottle and you turn it upside down, and then you look at the liquid in the bottle, and if it starts separating out in color, that means that the dyes are breaking down because organic, usually these indicators are are blends, organic blends of different things that cause you know the appropriate color to appear. But there's a there are ways to get around it. Test strips are good for a couple years, electronics are good for a long time, as long as you calibrate them and clean the probes on a fairly regular basis. And that's pretty much it. But generally speaking, I would say that most service people that I've that I've talked to over the decades will order a new testing system every year rather than every couple of years.

SPEAKER_06 17:44

I mean, that's what I was waiting to come in, waiting to come in on the hey everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Insurance Interlude with your host, Steve Sherwood. And as always, our guest, Pat Grignon, who I guess isn't really a guest. I guess this is your this is your I need to get on payroll. You're always here, man. So, Pat, so great to always have you here, man. Such great insight. And, you know, I wanted to I know that we've we have touched on this topic before a little bit because obviously everyone, no matter where you were in the country, you know, you know about the Palisades fires, right? And there's you know, there's some fires going on right now in Colorado. So it kind of brings up the topic of like uh, you know, fires are one thing because you can't predict a fire, you can't say, okay, like, you know, on Thursday of next week, like we're gonna have a wildfire. Like that shit happens, and it's like, oh my God, like let's let's get out. And you leave, you know, because the fire is getting close or whatever. So there's not really much that you can do as far as like preparing your, you know, house or pool or whatever. Like there was with the Palisades fire, you know, um, because it was roaring for days straight, like the people on the tail end of that were like taking their pool water and hoses and like, you know, you know, wetting their houses down and stuff. And that was like a last resort, right? But I want to touch base a little bit more, especially because it's you know, we're coming up to July 4th weekend, you know, with with when we're recording. So this is gonna come out sometime in in July. And that brings us right into hurricane season. So obviously, with global warming and everything, like every year it seems like it's getting worse and worse. And if we have a year where we don't get direct hits, it's like, wow, how lucky were were we this this this year, you know? So it is obviously getting worse and worse with the weather. So, number one, is there anything that like you can or can't do for insurance purposes? Because, like, you know, people throw their lawn furniture into the pool and people, you know, do a bunch of extra cleanup or what whatever it may be, like, what are some of the things that you need you need to do and what are some of the things that you need to watch out about, especially from an insurance standpoint?

SPEAKER_05 20:06

Yeah, no, it's an interesting topic. You know, the stuff that you kind of know is coming, you know, and I'm not sure if anybody out there that does this or advertises this, but you know, if you know a hurricane's coming and you know, it's supposed to touch, touch down, you know, Monday and it's you know Friday or Saturday, you know, does does any homeowners or any commercial properties call and say, hey, this is coming. Can you come like secure my equipment or or what can you do to you know make sure that uh that we don't we don't damage the equipment if this thing gets closed? So yeah, and there's you know, I I I'd imagine there's some certain things that you can do in that event, but uh, you know, so you if you you do get called out, you come and you, you know, you get things prepped, whatever the case might be, to where you feel like it's in good shape. And then the storm does wipe out the equipment pad, like, are you technically on the hook for that? And you know, the answer would be yes, unless you had something in in unless you had something in writing that said, yeah, I'm gonna do my best, but I can't control what happens to this.

SPEAKER_06 21:06

Wow, that's kind of interesting because everybody wants to do the right thing by the client. And I would, you know, beg to not differ, but say, like, uh, if you live in an area where you have hurricane, like there's fucking hurricane insurance. Yeah, you know, and insurance in that aspect is weird because like when I lived in New Jersey, there was an area where my parents lived, and there was like a marsh, like bay, and the bay had never flooded, but like it had come close a few different times, and basically everybody had flood insurance. But if this thing flooded one time, you got the insurance one time, and then fucking nobody gets insurance ever again. Yeah, so that was like, and if you know this was a big deal because basically you're saying, like, you know, we live here, if something happens, like, okay, we're we're covered this time, but basically they drop you immediately and you're you're gone and you're On your own. So, you know, how how does hurricane insurance work? Because I have no fucking idea. How does hurricane insurance work? And how would, as the pool a company owner, how do I go about finding out from the client like what coverage they have? And is that something that we really need to talk about? And like with the the homeowner and say, hey, like, you know, do you have coverage for this? And like, if you do have coverage for this, like I'm gonna do my best to secure this stuff down. But if we get a direct hit, like they're saying, and look, hurricanes, they don't just show up out of nowhere. Like hurricane, like I was in Hawaii when Hurricane Lane came, which is Hurricane Lane, right? We they the whole town shut down and like it was Monday and it was moving at like one mile an hour or two miles an hour. So like it was 90 miles out or 150 miles out, but like we've been tracking it since it was like 500 miles out. So like 100 miles out, it's still sunny out, and all the stores are closed, and it didn't show up at all, but it wasn't supposed to show up until like Thursday. So we had like four days on the island where it was just like panic buying.

SPEAKER_05 23:08

Yeah, no, it's unpredictable, right? And I think, you know, most most most clients would be, I don't know, and and really honestly, I don't I don't even know how you would like secure equip equipment to withstand something that's that bad or that gnarly. You know, I think ultimately, so it's it's really wind, it's wind slash hail hail coverage. And so, like, you know, it think about homeowners' policies in California, all of them exclude earthquake. Homeowners' policies in Colorado, all of them exclude hail. And Florida, as an example, all of them exclude wind. And so you have to buy a secondary policy outside of the homeowner's policy to make sure you've got coverage for that. So I think you'd probably be good if the customer said, Hey, a hurricane's coming, what should I do for my equipment and for the pool? Like, if you're just doing oh get insurance, yeah, like like if you hopefully you have insurance for it, but like I can't really secure it. Like, I wouldn't even offer to go there, right? Because if you go there and secure and say, like, I'm gonna do my best to secure it, you're on the hook. But if it's just part of normal service and a natural disaster happens and you didn't do something special, like you're not on the hook for that.

SPEAKER_06 24:15

Yeah, I think it's more like on the back end of like, hey, we got hurricane cleanup here for you, you know. Yeah, exactly. If that makes sense.

SPEAKER_05 24:24

No, no, for sure. And there's gonna be clean up, right? You know, look, I I'm hoping the best for everyone and for you. And hopefully you've got uh got the wind and hurricane insurance, you know, in addition to the homeowners, but there's really nothing I can do to secure the equipment.

SPEAKER_06 24:38

In California in California, is there you can get a separate earthquake policy? Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. How is that like what how much of percentage of the regular policy is it?

SPEAKER_05 24:50

That the look you just gave me means that it is not cheap. That's how insurance like insurance is big data, right? And so if there's something that's likely to happen, like you can get coverage for it, but they're gonna charge you, charge you extra for it. So I think this is like prior to the Northridge quake down in Southern California in '94, I think that was, where freeways got knocked down. It was, it was uh, it was nasty. I was living, you know, I was younger living in Lancaster at the time. So right on the San Andreas Fault, just down the way, I got knocked out of I like woke up and got knocked out of bed. It happened in the middle of the night. I woke up on the ground like, holy crap, what was that? It was it was a it was a big one. So like they they they will take that into consideration. So if you're on the fault line, you're gonna pay quite a bit more than someone who's, you know, in Long Beach as an example. Sure. But you know, they're they're I would say for an average policy, they're you know, 1500, 2,000 bucks. The thing is they've come down by a lot because we haven't had a bad earthquake in California in a long time. So you'll have a bad quake at some point, it's inevitable, and then they'll probably triple, you know, in cost at that point. But but yeah, it's it's those things that uh, you know, that are are likely to happen that are natural disasters, you know, and in those areas, you know, Gulf Texas, you know, every policy is gonna exclude wind and and and so hurricanes aren't flood. Flood is another one.

SPEAKER_06 26:11

Yeah, so that's what that was where I was actually headed. So, you know, I had a situation where a client called me out and it was uh, you know, not for regular service, but they were just like, hey, like I don't know what to do here. Can you come out here and like do consulting for me? Because like basically what happened is they lived underneath like a I wouldn't say it was like a mountain, but it was definitely like a large hill. And there was a huge fire, and the fire went over the hill and it loosened all of the all of the dirt. Then like right, I don't know if you remember four or five years ago, like in in San Fernando, there was, you know, the day after the fires, there was like this huge monsoon rain. Yep, yep, 100%.

SPEAKER_05 26:57

Yeah, that happened in Santa Barbara too.

SPEAKER_06 26:59

Yeah, there was a huge landslide. So now I come to this pool, and this pool literally, like I put the pool pole down there, and it's like two and a half feet of mud. So, you know, what happens in that instance of like uh for a homeowner in that aspect, like do they have to is their landslide insurance or like would would that be under does that just fall under like pools fall under secondary structure? And if you have that insurance, then yeah, they'll cover that. Or and if you don't, they won't? Or do they say, hey, this was a natural disaster, you know, not but you know, like how how does that because there's a million things that could happen, you know. So, like what what how would how do you navigate that with as the homeowner like coming in, like, okay, cool, we want to clean up the pool for you. Like, who pays for that?

SPEAKER_05 27:49

Yeah, so it's interesting. Yeah, I was just looking up. So, so flood insurance is technically it would encompass landslides, right? So it it's uh but flood insurance is is separate, yes, yep, yep, absolutely. So it it just depends. Like, if there's flood insurance wouldn't kick in, it's only for natural disaster flood insurance. So if your toilet breaks and floods the home, you know, that's covered under a normal homeowner's policy. Right, it's not it's not a natural disaster, exactly, right. So it but if there's like if there's a hole in your roof and rain gets in, that's not technically a national natural disaster, and so regular home home insurance would cover it. Flood insurance specifically would be natural disaster, and then it it needs to affect this, isn't like a set-in-stone rule, but the insurance companies like it, it needs to affect multiple properties, so it's got to be you and at least your neighbor in a natural disaster type of situation, in a flood, heavy rain type of thing.

SPEAKER_06 28:45

Well, does that does that change anything as far as the big picture of like, hey, it was a natural disaster, there was a state of emergency, you know, that many people. So now does that like kick in any of the insurance or do it?

SPEAKER_05 29:01

Yeah, that would kick in the flood insurance policy if it's declared a natural disaster, certainly.

SPEAKER_06 29:06

Like, you know, but again, it's really But if you didn't have flood insurance, because flood insurance is not part of your policy, then you're you're hung out to dry. Yes, yeah, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_05 29:15

It well, not depth, nothing's definite, but like it's funny, like damage from mud flow is covered under a flood policy, but what caused the mud flow? You know, that was a big thing back in the Santa Barbara one because there was that big fire that was whatever five years ago, like we were saying, and then heavy rains, a bunch of damage because of mudslide. And so, you know, the argument was like, well, what caused the mudslide? And the Department of Insurance actually held this up. They said, yes, there was heavy rain, yes, it was a mudslide, but and flood insurance would cover it for the people that purchased it. But the ones that don't, which was the majority, the argument was fire was the actual trigger that is what is why you know the brush wasn't there. And so then it rained, which caused the mudslide, which would fall under a flood policy, but fire was ultimately what caused it, and that would have been covered. So the state of California Department of Insurance actually upheld that and made the insurance companies pay the claims, and you basically said, yes, fire is covered, and fire was the cause of this. So I guess it it probably depends on some legislature and whatnot, you know. But uh, but yeah, ultimately, like that's a good example of you know having a secondary flood policy. And and you're right, like your New Jersey example, like they'd probably drop you if they had to pay a big claim out from a flood. You can always get it somewhere else, like in kind of the high risk market, but you'd be paying, you'd be paying for it. But yeah, it's interesting, you know, like and so that's kind of universally upheld as like what caused the mudslide, and you know, was it a state of emergency?

SPEAKER_06 30:49

You know, what actually if it's a fire that caused the mudslide, then it would be covered.

SPEAKER_05 30:55

Then it'd be covered. At least that's what the Department of Insurance for California determined, and they made them pay the claim under a standard homeowner policy. So there's there's a lot of what-ifs, I guess, that would go into you know which policy and what you have. I mean, like at the end of the day, if you live in the middle of the desert, right? Do you need flood insurance? I, you know, sure, whatever lets you sleep good at night. Like, do you need earthquake insurance in Arizona? Probably will never happen, but whatever makes you sleep good at night. So really it's just a matter of you know, risk tolerance, what what gives you peace of mind. But these secondary policies are, you know, like the the the wind and hurricane coverage in Florida is it's it's not gonna be cheap because probably you're gonna use it at some point. Of course.

SPEAKER_06 31:37

A lot to unpack with that. We might have to follow it up with another one from from sometime. Um, but Pat, thanks so much for you know shining some light on some of the natural disaster stuff that we've been happening throughout the country. And you know, insurance and big data says that this shit's gonna get worse as time goes on, not better. So make sure you guys are protected out there, not only with like your homes and your personal life and and all that stuff, but also with your business. So if you guys are looking for insurance needs, reach out to California Pool Association. And if you mention the Talking Pools podcast, they will give you $100 off your general liability annual policy. So, Pat, thanks so much for coming on and we'll talk at you next week. Thanks for listening, guys. Appreciate it, Steve.

SPEAKER_01 32:16

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SPEAKER_00 34:01

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SPEAKER_02 34:28

The future of our industry is shaped by those willing to invest in it. The following companies have stepped forward to support education, leadership, and mentorship across the swimming pool industry. These are the sponsors of the 2026 Talking Pools Podcast Mentor Award. Title Sponsor, Blu-ray, XL, Title Sponsor, United Chemical, Gold Sponsor, Lamotte Chemical, Silver Sponsor, Revved Up Apparel, Supporting Sponsor, Aqua Comfort Water Group. Thank you for helping us recognize and celebrate the mentors who continue to shape the future of the swimming pool industry. And God bless the pool pro.

SPEAKER_06 35:37

Probably even more than that if you're if you're out there doing a lot of pools.

SPEAKER_04 35:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 35:40

Um, I mean, you could have the the bigger bottles and you refill, you know, six, seven times a year. So we we are in the habit of, you know, with the some of the liquid reagents that we will refill them in like with like a quart bottle. But I always pull a full stop at the beginning of the year and just get everyone new new test kits because I I've had it happen so many times where you just are so busy that you you don't understand that like when you last did it. You're how long you've been using this test kit for, and every every pool is at 80 alkalinity for the last for the last you know five months, and like you're gonna eat, but like you're not that good, you know? So the the my other point too with with all this testing is you know, I really do want to promote the Lamotte tracer. Yeah, yeah, right, because that's one of the things that like when I first started doing pools, I didn't really pay attention to TDS, you know, like you're just doing what's what's on the test kit. Right. And the two tests that I've really brought into the fold since I've been and look in New Jersey, like when you open and close these pools, if you have a problem, like you figure it out right away, or you just blast it with chlorine. Like I'm sure that there was in New Jersey there was pools that we were having problems with phosphates, but like we just were like, okay, we're just gonna blast it with seven pounds of cow hypo, you know, and we got rid of the problem, or you know, but like even if it's a problem, like how long is it a problem for? Like a couple months?

SPEAKER_07 37:04

Band-aid, that's what you did.

SPEAKER_06 37:05

Right. So there was no, and I, you know, I don't think there was as much phosphorus in the in the fill water as there is now with the cities, you know, putting in putting in phosphates and orthophosphate and things like that. But my point here is that like coming out to California, we test for phosphates all the time, like once a week in our commercial pools, once every couple weeks in our commercial pools, and once a month for our residential pools. Like it is on the calendar, it is part of their job, that is what they are doing. And then also, you know, doing the TDS test is great too. And what I love about the Lamot Tracer is it does the salt, it does the TDS, and it also does the pH for you too. So and look, Lamotte, thank you for your sponsorship. You guys are great. We always appreciate you. I love the electronic testers. The spin touch might be a little out of out of reach for for some people. And that was one of the comments that someone came on on the group and said, like, oh, just get a spin touch, you know, and it's like, yeah, that's that's cool, but that gets expensive, you know. So if you are making a really good margin doing doing pools, then you know you can have that. But you know, it really started out not as something people were doing in the field, it started out as, hey, this is for our brick and mortar store here. This is what we're using, you know, an all-in-one tester to basically you have five people, seven people in line, and you're like, okay, cool. And then they finally were so many people were like, we could really use this in the field. And I would use a spin touch in that aspect, but it would be for like first-time clients when I first come out, you know, like uh different things like that to just kind of see what the what the baseline is. But I can't tell you like 90% of the new clients that we pick up. I go out there and I'm like, everything is all out of whack. Like, let's drain the pool, let's start over and let's figure it out from there. And the biggest thing is always to when you, you know, you fresh fill the pool to make sure that you're testing the the fill water with your TDS because sometimes it's coming out, seen it at like 450. I've seen it at like 550 coming out of the top. So it really makes a difference if you if you know what's coming out of the top. And like I've had it where we used one water source from this hose, and we used another water source for this hose, and we filled a pool and a spa, and the pool was you know 575 calcium and the spa was 70. I was like, I've never seen that before, and it's just one of them ran through the the building's water softening system.

SPEAKER_07 39:28

So you you mentioned TDS is that out out of the tap in my house, I tested it, it's about 400, 450 on any given moment, which is not technically bad when you're talking pools and spots, because the the the rule is you don't want your TDS to get more than 1,500 parts per million above your incoming TDS. So if my TDS was let's make math easy, 500, I could go up to a measurable amount of about 2,000 parts per million before I would have to start going, hmm, you might want to do some draining here and filling it up with a lesser amount of TDS water. Because again, uh this is turning into a chemistry class. High high TDS can cause issues. A lot of them have to do with chemical reactions. The potential for cloudy water or hazy water is there, but it has more to do with chemical reactions than anything else. But when you start adding high TDS and high calcium, and you just got a soup of problems that you have to deal with. The other thing interesting about phosphates that you were talking about out where you are, is that I remember talking with a service guy who was based up in uh San Fernando Valley. And this it was just after the fires in, I forgot what year, but it it it was like maybe 10, 15 years ago. Come to find and it kept selling them, I I've chroniced it, I've shocked it, I blasted it. I'm still getting algae all over the place. The pools look like crap. What's going on? Well, we come to find out is that the fire retardant material that the helicopters would use when they flew over a burning site were phosphorus-based.

SPEAKER_06 41:01

Yeah, it's called FOSCEC. I know all about that shit because of the fires here. And uh one of the clients had like she had a video of a helicopter coming over her house and dropping this red stuff. And part of what I submitted to the insurance company was my report, and then also like those pictures and a picture of the SDS sheet for Fosscheck. It's got all sorts of shit in there. That's no good. You know, like I don't even really know why they use it for I'm sure that's I'm sure it's great for fire retardant or whatever it is, but at the same time, like basically they're saying anything that it gets on is now garbage. Pretty much. Yeah, yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_07 41:43

Well, that's all I got for today, guys. Steve, you have anything you want to add to today's glass on testing?

SPEAKER_06 41:49

No, uh, I I just do want to say that like uh I always you know tell everyone the truth with like what we're we're doing for our testing and different things like that. So um, you know, there is a great entry-level TDS tester that you can get on Amazon as well, too. That's more in like the the $40 range, you know, $30 range. And that one is the one that we started with before we started using the Lamotte tracer because like at first I was like, am I gonna start using this? So if you're on the fence, like you know, you don't have to spend a ton of money to get into the testing TDS market. And what I love about it is with the pH, is I do the electronic pH test first. And if it has a really high pH, then I will do the the drop test. You know, I'll do the acid demand test or the base demand test or whatever it is, if it's really far out of range where it's really low or it's really high. But a lot of times you just you dip this little you know probe in the water and it says 7.6, and you're like, okay, cool, great. You know, so it does it does make, especially for me, if I'm at a place and I like there are some of my clients where they have uh nine bodies of water, you know, there's like an indoor spa for men's and women's with cold plunge and hot tub, and then there's outdoor pool and spa, and then there's like you know, other fountains and stuff. So you got to test nine times during this visit, right? So it does speed that up a a little bit, but I always do have a few different backup test kits with me. And whenever I get with my guys and I'm there and we have two test kits, I always test with them. And we both test the chlorine and we both test the alkalinity and we say, like, you know, if you got 110 and I got a hundred, like that's not way out of range, right? Because you're the one that said, like, if you had 13 people with 13 different test kits, you could theoretically get 13 different answers just by the way that you test the water, right? Well, you know, what we do practice no matter where we throw the the reagent at the end is we are, you know, trying to make sure that the, you know, that when we're holding the reagent, that it is straight up and down and that we are getting full drops and that we are, you know, sometimes I'll even do another drop at the end just to say, okay, it's not 110, it's 100. Right. Uh and also like there are different ways to test. Like, you know, you don't know what you don't know, right? But if you don't read the instruction manual and you don't look at like the different ways to test, like with the R0871 powder, like you can put in the Two scoops and then you put start putting in the 0871 liquid and you count drop wise, but every drop is 0.2. So like if your chlorine is five, that's a lot of fucking drops that you're putting in. Just that like you're I'm not saying you're wasting the reagent, but like I've ceased to do that test. Now, if I am gonna do that sort of test, instead of taking it to the middle line, I'm gonna take it to the the the bottom 10 line. And I'm just now every drop is 0.5. So if it's five, it's it's way less drops that you're putting in there.

SPEAKER_07 44:31

So you know, remember the instructions tell you to do that, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 44:35

But like I just most of these I wrote them, Steven. I know, I know, but I I've read them. I I have, but I I I know that most of you guys out there are just buying these test kits and not, you know, and I know because everyone that I tell about the acid demand test and the base demand test, they're kind of just like, what's that? And it's like what's been part of the you know, part of part of that test kit forever. It's just people don't know how to use it. And the same thing with the with the calcium test too, like you don't have to do it where every drop is is 10. You can do, you know, yeah, you can dilute it or use less, and now every drop is 25. And like where I'm at, like I'm not gonna do the the 10. Yeah, calcium here is like 400, 500 all the time. Just just make sure that you are, you know, this is your PSA to make sure that you know, if you've been testing water and you haven't read the manual and you're listening to the show, like this is the guy who wrote it. So read the manual and you know, do the testing the way it's supposed to be done.

SPEAKER_07 45:31

Yeah, but the other thing too is that if you ever have any questions about testing or reagents, call the manufacturer. They have people there that are dedicated to answering your your testing question. And now with social media, you know, Facebook's a great source for some information, not always correct, but for information. With that being said, I mentioned this earlier. Steve and I are both admins for a Facebook group called Certified Pool Operators-CPO. And I think we have what about seven or eight thousand people in this group or something ridiculously high. But it's comprised of nope uh anybody who's a CPO, so that like a homeowner can't get in or anybody like that, they have to show me their CPO certificate in order to get in. And it's a great source for sounding out questions, for for getting product recommendations, things like that. Um, every now and then Steve and I'll chime in. But pretty much it it runs by itself. So if you are a CPO and you're on Facebook and you're interested in the in this group, go to certified pool operators-cpo. You can search it, search it in Facebook for that, and you know, ask to join and and we can take it from there, but you know, it's it's always good to share information. You know, not everybody knows everything. I certainly don't know everything, and we learn from each other in the industry, and that's I think what's kind of important too.

SPEAKER_06 46:50

Not just that, Wayne, like honestly, the networking that we've made through that group, yeah, like I've had my longest standing client from that group. Oh, it was a guy, and he was just getting started, and he bought a swim school franchise, and he just was like, I used to work in the perfume industry. He was like, I have no idea what's going on. And you know, at the beginning, he lived across the country from me, and I used to he I used to fly in like just to do like sand changes and different things like that, because like you know, there was literally so much stuff that he had to do because their their business model is not where they own the building, they're leasing it. So they're leasing it from like maybe a gym or maybe like a school system or maybe you know some sort of a public township or something like that, where like they're they're they're doing you know swim lessons at their school. And that's something that like uh not only is he like one of my clients, like he's one of my really, really, really good friends. Like he came to my wedding, you know he's been a he's been a great, you know, great source for me, not only to just uh grow my business, but also to be able to help him grow his business. And it's it was it was literally like a one-for-one relationship. So there are a lot of people in the you know out there in different parts of the country that do things a little bit differently. And again, at the end of the day, you really don't know what you don't know. And I've learned so much from that group, not just by posting. I actually have taken a back seat to posting because I find that like you know, sometimes I get a little bit more frustrated with some of the answers that I'm getting, or like that people are, you know, but that's just that's not just in this Facebook group. This is just fucking the internet. You know what I mean? Like there's good and bad about everything, but especially when I can't find a product or I can't find a part, like I couldn't find like this posty flow filter. And these are like the old filters that look like a long grenade on the outside.

SPEAKER_07 48:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 48:37

Yeah, and but they don't really have more the markings were like etched into it, and it was really old, and like the sticker came off and stuff. So it's one of those where like we came and I was like, I don't know what the hell this is, you know. And I literally put it in the group, and someone was like, the posty flow filter guy's in here, and they like had him in there, and like he hit me up, and in 15 minutes it was ordered. So it doesn't hurt to ask, but also you don't have to post in the group too. You can actually just see, you know, and search the group because there's it's been growing since 2010. So there's hundreds of thousands of posts in there that you could look up and black algae or yellow algae or whatever. So it is a good source of, especially if you're just getting started in the industry. It's a great place to you know source some some new information if you're trying to learn.

SPEAKER_07 49:16

Yeah, and of course, if you're listening to us and you have any questions or topics you want us to cover, send an email to talkingpools at gmail.com. And uh, if if we decide to use your in for your question or your your whatever, uh, we'll send you a little thank you gift. We appreciate it as always. Uh that's again, that's talkingpools at gmail.com. Steven, have a great week. Have a safe week. Stay cool. I'm trying to out of here.

SPEAKER_06 49:39

It's way cooler here than it is by you.

SPEAKER_07 49:41

So okay, but guys, take care. Have a good one.