1099 vs W-2, Water Balance, and Pool Industry Realities

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Yeah, it just kind of depends.

If I were to someone whose aspirations are to, in 18 months, go start their own thing,

you know, like, so are they...

Now, I'm making you sign something that you're not going to mean.

Because then I would feel like I just laid out tens of thousands of dollars for you,

you know, over the course of two years and you're going to leave.

I want some more time than that.

But like, even, I mean, to be honest, like, if you come on with me, like, at a year and a half,

like, you're still going to classes and stuff.

Right.

So, like, you're still not even really, you know, but I...

That's what I want to know, because it's like, you know, we $10.99 here and it's hard to $10.99 and we really do $10.99,

but like, at what point do you think about going to this W2?

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Hey everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Insurance Interlude with your host Steve Sherwood from Talking Pool's podcast and our guest, Pat Grignone, from California Pool Association.

So Pat, thanks so much for coming on, we always love having you here and the topics they keep rolling, man.

I thought after doing this for a while that we would actually be running out of topics and like I said, like a snowball rolls downhill.

I just get bigger and bigger and there's just more and more stuff that we can talk about, right?

Yeah, never a dull moment. Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate you.

Yep, no problems.

We talk a lot about the difference between 1099 and W2 and we've had whole shows dedicated to like the difference between the two, right?

So I wanted to talk a little bit about, because I 1099 my guys and I 1099 them and they have their own pools and they have their own liability insurance with you were named as additionally on shirt on each other's policies and stuff.

But you know, and I, it's the age old argument, like I see people going back and forth on the Facebook groups that like, no, like you have to W2 and like W2 is the way to go.

So some people like make me feel bad about following the law the way that I'm supposed to because like I feel like the government, of course they're going to want me to W2, you know, your employees if you could and do payroll taxes, right?

But if you're legitimately 1099 people, you know, there's no issue with that.

But is there a point like, I don't have that many employees, you know, like it's Jen and I and then we have a few guys doing pools and they also do pools on their own.

But like at what point does it become kind of like you got 15 employees that you're 1099 and I know guys in LA that 1099, 15 different guys or 30 guys, you know, but like at what point, you know, with the state of California or whatever state you're in, kind of be like, what are you doing?

And like, why are you doing this? Like this isn't the, this isn't what this is actually supposed to be like or before.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we actually we worked with a company out in the valley in the LA area.

This is years ago that ended up, I think there was 35 or 40 1099 independent contractors, but they like literally they didn't have any other jobs.

They only work for this company.

They didn't care.

He's got like three service managers doing 40 hours a week.

Yeah, yeah, so that was really like that was pretty easy for the state to come in.

I think they dropped a $750 fine on.

I mean, he ended up, we ended up ensuring all of them and they all got, you know, their own either sole proprietorship or corporate or whatever established.

And you know, we didn't have getting them insured, you know, individually, they find him $750,000.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it did.

I can't remember if it totally bankrupted him or like got him really close, but it was it was.

And most of them go and see you later.

Sure. Hello.

Hello, Steve.

Hello, Steve's pool service.

Yeah.

Yeah.

750 came in.

Like I just I just shit a brick.

He gave him like he gave him like wrapped trucks and my company phones and stuff like.

He's running like a full drug operation.

Like it was the 60s, man.

Like yeah, they're hit to that scene these days.

Yeah, no, they were very blatantly like he was only doing that to avoid paying payroll to act as and whatnot.

But listen, you've got your business structure, you got a structure at the right way.

They're not just doing pools for you.

They're doing, you know, they're doing pools, you know, on their own and they've got their own insurance and their own business entity and the whole ball of wax.

You know, out of all the states, certainly, you know, California is up there with the most stringent, you know, regulations for what qualifies for 1099 versus the W2 and what you have to do.

But, you know, you can structure your business, whatever makes it fit the best.

Now, I think ultimately if you have what's nice is if you have W2, you know, you can structure a company benefits plan that maybe, you know, whatever your employees maybe you got one just one or maybe you have two and you don't offer it to them.

But then you can elect for.

Yeah.

Of course.

And if it's for the company.

Does the does the does the health insurance suck less for W2's than it does for 1099?

For the business for sure.

Yeah.

1099, 10 for 1099 is tough.

And you guys are the ones that get it for me, you know, I mean, it's not coming through you.

You're the ones that are looking for it.

Yeah.

But like, you'll come back and I just, you know, your agents who are great, they'll come back sometimes and be like, uh, here's what you can choose from and I'm like, where's the rest?

The second one.

You know, yeah, like literally like, where's where's the third one?

Because there's only two here.

And they're like, oh, yeah, no, in California, like, that's your choice.

And I'm like, this doesn't feel like a choice.

If this feels, this feels like a stick up.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

And that's, that's honestly what it feels like.

So with W2, would that open up the range more to for more policies to it would.

Okay.

You'd be able to qualify for, you know, for group versus individual health.

And if it's just a group of one or two employees and so there's a component there, it's worth having a discussion.

Obviously, there's an additional cost.

You know, of course.

And then I guess as a W2, what we understand as a 1099, what constitutes an employee.

Because I am literally like beholden to that to make sure that I'm following the laws in California.

And like you said, it's one of the most stringent ones in all of the country.

If you're going to 1099, I'm like, I want your guys to have their own liability insurance and have their own name and their own DBA and all that stuff.

But what constitutes an employee on the other end as a W2?

And the reason I say this is, my dad, God bless his soul.

He's going to be retiring this year at 81, right?

So he was doing bus driving, you know, for the last couple of years.

And he finally is going to retire.

And like, he does some light work, you know, for like, for other stuff.

You know, like what, like what if like he, like when does that become a thing?

You know what I mean?

Like when can you say, oh, he works for me or, you know, like, you know, I don't employ my dad.

But like what if I wanted to get my dad health insurance?

Like what, what becomes, and I'm just, I'm doing this theoretically.

It's just because like there's a lot of people out there where like maybe your, maybe your mom has a job, but she doesn't have health insurance.

And you guys have W2, your whole company.

And it makes sense for you to give your mom insurance, right?

Like that's a pretty common, that's I would think that's a pretty common thing that a family member needs insurance.

And you can cover them.

So what do they actually have to do for the company to be a W2?

And like what, what does that all look like?

So, you know, that would be the main play.

I'm normally, you know, anyone who's going to be up over 65 is going to get, you know, Medicare for their primary.

But, but all, but the supplemental's and dental and vision and yadda yadda yadda like that.

Those are, but there's a lot of other stuff.

Yeah, let's forget about parents.

Let's talk about kids.

So your kid, he graduated college.

He doesn't fall under your divorced.

He doesn't fall under your wife's policy anymore or whatever.

Like, you know, he's not getting child support.

He's an adult.

And I, you want a company and you have this kid and he comes and he's not working for you.

You know, he's doing something else, but he doesn't get health insurance, you know.

Yep.

So I, can I ensure this kid or what, what happens?

Yeah.

And so it's going to depend on what your group benefits program allows for.

So it mainly boils down to part time or full time work, right?

Some people, these are going to have like only full time 35 hours or more or more are going to be eligible for your plan.

Now, you normally have some flexibility on how you want to set it up.

Like ours, ours allows for a version of coverage for like part time employees.

And that could be five hours a week or five hours a month.

You know, like, so our plan for as an example has flexibility there.

So you can create one that you can have a W a 2 on a part time basis.

And you can get, get coverage for them and add them on.

That's a, that's a really good example.

You know, I think, you know, when you look at, because I always have,

when I had these conversations and again, I'm an insurance guy.

Not a, not a business guy, but generally, you know, if you look at the cost, like,

all right, I'm paying this person 50 grand a year is 1099.

All right. Well, you know, we call it the load, right?

So you're load your payroll taxes, you know, Social Security Medicare.

That's normally 10% of your annual wages.

You know, for pull service companies, your work comp costs is normally

somewhere between four and six percent of your annual payroll, right?

So, you know, if you're looking at.

For any gross or gross payroll.

Yes.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And so if you, if you look, if you're like, hey, I'm in a spot where I'm thinking

about doing this, you know, you take your 50,000 and let's just call it 16%.

You're going to be paying 8,000 on top of the 50,000 for that person.

And then their paying taxes and making less take on the whole ball of wax.

So, and a lot of guys too, you know, if, you know, if I'm thinking about,

maybe I want to do side work and maybe a 1099.

And that's okay with you is the business owner, right?

You own the service company, you know, you have a 1099 that does work on the side,

but they aren't using your truck and your equipment, because you wouldn't be cool with like

hit moon lighting with your own stuff if it was a W2, right?

No.

So, the ultimate goal for me with my guys is that they would come with me for a few years

and that they would go do their own thing.

Yeah, exactly.

It just so happens that like the partnership has worked out so well with most of them

that they just, they stay.

You know what I mean?

Like they're like, we know, like we like these commercial pools in the morning.

Like this gives us something to do.

You know, like a lot of what we do is that like, you know, I'm doing the training

for a lot of these commercial facilities, these commercial facilities come on.

And then, you know, my guys do the commercials in the morning

and then they go do their residentials.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm looking at you said your business up that, you know,

really from what I've seen over all the years, like if it can be meeting the kind of the goals

of everyone involved, you know, then that's awesome.

You're going to have a team that sticks around with the long term.

They can do their thing.

They work hard for, for, for, and ultimately, you know, like everyone's happy

because of it.

So, ideally, if you can structure the business to meet everyone's goals,

then you're going to have a pretty successful business and folks that are really

rowing the boat together.

So, you know, hey, just kind of depends.

Because if I w2 someone who's aspirations are to, you know, in 18 months go start their own thing.

You know, like, so are they that now?

I'm, you know, now I'm making you sign something that you're not going to, you know what I mean?

Like, because then I would feel like I just, I laid out tens of thousands of dollars

for you, you know, over the course of two years and you're going to leave.

Like, I, I want some more, I want some more time than that.

But like, even, I mean, to be honest, like if you come on with me, like,

at a year and a half, like, you're still, you're still going to classes and stuff.

So, like, you're still not even really, you know, so, but I, that's why I want to know

because it's like, you know, we 1099 here and it's hard to 1099 and we really do 1099.

But like, at what point do you think about going to this w2?

And in some of the states, it's easy.

Man, like in some of the states, it's a, it's a no-brainer.

Like, you want to be at 1099 or they don't charge you that much for w2.

So, like, just make everybody w2.

In California, it's expensive.

And we've crossed this bridge a few times where we've, we've come to it and I'm like,

how much is the w2 and you give it back to me?

And I'm like, okay, like, well, we'll check in later about this.

You know what I mean?

Like, we're not trying to throw away money either here.

Like, I'm running a business.

So, I want to run my business as efficient as I can.

So, as long as you're running it within the rules and regulations, you know,

because there are a lot of them in California, you know, it makes for a happy,

like you said, like everybody's rowing the boat and a, you know, a happy partnership.

So, Pat, thanks so much for shedding some weight on the difference between 1099

and w2 and when to move, you know, when to move back and forth with both of those.

And I think that those are some questions that like people have,

but you don't want to ask and like, nobody wants to ask about, you know,

putting their steps on insurance.

You know what I mean?

When he doesn't really work for the company and is that, is that legal?

Is it not legal?

So, I like where all these insurance interludes go because we talk about the black and white

and we talk about the gray.

And, you know, we're really just hoping that we can shine some light on what you guys

are doing out there and making your jobs and lives a little bit easier in this pool industry

that's kind of hard to navigate.

So, Pat, thank you for being here for me and also thank you for being here for the listeners,

because I think it helps out a lot.

So, thanks for having me.

If you guys want to look into insurance, California pool association will give you

one month off if you do an annual subscription with them for your liability insurance.

So, you get one month free, which is amazing.

And, as always, if you have any questions, reach out to us at TalkingPools at gmail.com.

And, I will answer all your questions live on the show.

So, guys, thanks for tuning in and we will be chatting out you next week.

Thanks, Pat.

Make your voice heard.

Join the council for the Model Aquatic Health Code.

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That's cmahc.org.

Happy Thursday, everybody.

And welcome to the TalkingPools podcast.

Thursdays with Steve and Wayne.

I hope everybody has had a good and a safe week.

Sorry for our friends up in the New England area.

New York and Boston, particularly Boston got blasted.

I have a friend who lives in Rhode Island and they showed me some pictures of like almost two feet of snow

that they're trying to dig through.

Yeah, it was real bad up there.

So, they're probably still digging through.

I wouldn't be surprised.

But down here in the middle of the Atlantic area, it's bright and sunny and like right now, 44 degrees.

Steven, you're in California, so it's always sunny in California.

It's a little early in the day.

So, it's still 65, but it'll go up.

It'll go up to probably 75.

But yeah, my parents are in New Jersey and they, and this show is probably coming out a few weeks after this has happened already.

But they definitely had like over two feet.

And that's just like ringing a few young common nowadays.

Yeah.

In that area and like the New York City area.

I mean, if they get like one, two, if they had like four snowstorms throughout a winter, that would be pretty a lot.

So, I think like right now we're at like two or three where, you know, my dad's had like off school and different things like that.

So, yeah, it's, it's, it is rare, a very rare and of late, I remember the lead.

God, how many years ago the kids were young sometime in the in the late 90s.

We had what we, what we call back-to-back blizzards.

We had a blizzard that dropped about 94.

94 could be right.

Yeah.

What they need three feet of snow.

And then a week later, another three feet is something, something ridiculous like that.

That was not a happy time.

I still have the.

The town.

The town that I grew up in in New Jersey is called the Cliffside Park.

And it's only a square.

And for some reason, like our DPW was just awesome.

And I probably had growing up less than like four or five days off of school.

Where if you drove outside of town, it would, you would go from like zero snow on the street to like four feet of snow on the street.

Wow.

So I, you know, and I grew up in an era where now you, now you can just see it right online, right?

You don't have to look and see, you know, before you had to like get a call in the morning and you had to like wait.

So it was always like this waiting game of like, oh, we're gonna, you know, we're gonna have school tomorrow.

And then you find out later on that you don't.

That's right.

Yeah.

Well, same way with the back of the 60s and that kind of thing.

But yeah, it's, it gets a little, gets a little wonky sometimes.

We, we locked out the really bad part of the blizzard that hit New York and Boston and all.

We didn't get, we only got about maybe two and a half inches here.

That, that, that was it.

That's, I mean, we didn't even have to shovel the sidewalks.

They were pretty much melting because it was 50 of the day before.

So go figure.

Right.

I'm gonna start off today with a friendly little conversation I had with one of our listeners.

And I'm picking up his info here so we can give him appropriate.

Appropriate of kudos.

His name is Sean Lane and Sean actually called me yesterday morning left a message.

He said, I got a problem down here in Florida.

Can you help me?

And so I gave him a call back.

First of all, he thought I was still working for, for the test kit company that begins with a tea.

Shout out to Lamont.

Thank you.

But he lives in Port Orange, Florida.

And Port Orange is not, it's inland from Daytona Beach, but a little south.

So Southwest is Daytona Beach on the Atlantic side.

And what he had was something odd.

He's got two customers that he's had for a long, long time.

Both of the customers have a stainless steel shell pool of which is not terribly common in and of itself.

But that's what he's got.

They've been around for like I said, 30 years.

But they've been operating fine.

Both pools are on salt to generate their chlorine.

But he said that recently the brass fittings around the lights were beginning to corrode.

And he wanted to know what could be the possible reasons.

And his first question was to me, is it high TDS?

Because they have high TDS even though they, they drain the water frequently.

I won't say, you know, monthly or anything like that.

But, but every couple of years or so, they drain partially during a refill.

And the water must have high TDS.

And so I said, well.

Before we move on, I want to circle back to something from last week's episode,

when we talked about calculating pool galonage chemically.

Steve mentioned that he learned that formula from one of Bob Lowry's books.

And that's absolutely true.

People in this industry have learned an incredible amount from Bob over the years.

But we also want to make sure the proper credit gets mentioned here.

The chemical galonage formula itself was actually developed by the team over at On Balance Diet.

Specifically, Q-hails, Kim Skinner, and Doug Lada.

Bob did what Bob does so well, which has helped bring important information to the broader industry through his books and teaching.

But the original work on that method came from the On Balance group.

And if you're not familiar with On Balance, you really should be.

Their organization has spent years focusing on three major things.

Research into swimming pool water chemistry and plaster behavior.

Teaching the industry about that research at trade shows and association meetings

and providing consulting and expert witness services when complicated plaster or water chemistry issues arise.

These folks have contributed a tremendous amount to the understanding of pool chemistry and plaster science in our industry.

So we just wanted to make sure we gave credit where credit is due.

Is it high TDS?

Because they have high TDS.

Their source mortar must have high TDS.

And so I said, well, high TDS could contribute to the conversion.

I said, it's not the cause.

But it's not helping the situation.

And then he said, well, because they're on salt, you know, pH tends to rise.

That tends to rise does rise when you're dealing with salt systems.

So it's a constant struggle for them to control their pH.

I asked him, well, how do you do that?

And he said, well, we add acid.

Well, that's appropriate.

He said, yeah, we add acid to bring the pH down to 6.8.

Ding, ding, ding, ding.

6.8.

So that's really, really low.

That is real.

And I told him that I said, you don't want to have your, you know,

if you're doing a pH adjustment and your, your own salt system,

you never want to take it below 72 if you can help.

And I told him I said, seven would be stretching it, but six point eight.

Remember, everything's exponential too.

So even at seven.

Yeah, even at seven point two, it's not, it's not the people that are in the pool

are not going to have an enjoyable swimming experience at that point.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And because of that, the alkalinity is low.

He said they hardly have.

I hope he's not, I hope he's not, I hope he's in.

I hope he doesn't include the chemicals.

Yeah, I don't know.

That would be an issue.

That's a whole nother, a whole nother broke podcast.

But he said, is alkalinity is always low?

I said, well, yeah, because you're adding acid.

You're adding some how low when he said like 40 to 50.

And I said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Ideal alkalinity 80 to 120 acceptable 60 to 180.

He said, you got to bring that up.

And then asked him, well, what about calcium hardness?

And he said, calcium hardness is really low.

It's a soul shell.

And I said, okay.

Well, yeah, I get it.

You don't have terribly high levels.

I said, but still the whole key here is water bounce.

And he said, water balance.

He said, I know what that is.

But we really don't do anything about it down there.

And I said, well, maybe you need to.

Because when you start plugging in numbers into the LSI,

I mean, they've got horribly corrosive water.

And I said, has this ever happened before in these pools?

And he said, yeah, it happened a couple of years ago.

But I don't remember what we did to correct it.

And I said, well, let's go over what you do.

Okay.

So, you know, what do we always tell people when you're dealing

with water balance, always look at alkalinity first,

because alkalinity kind of controls the situation.

It's a buffer.

Yeah.

It's a buffer, right?

So alkalinity and pH work together hand in hand.

I always call pH the little puppy following alkalinity

all over the place.

So if you're raising up your alkalinity,

your pH is going to follow to a degree.

So that's why you always retest the other when you're testing.

When you're treating pH, you retest alkalinity.

When you're treating alkalinity, you retest for pH.

Okay.

Calcy point, you got to get it to at least 150 to 200 in his situation.

A normally idea hardness is 200 to 400.

I remember he's got his stainless steel pool.

Yeah.

But even though, I mean, I get that it doesn't matter.

But at the same time, like if you're looking at,

of course it matters.

And if you're taking it down to one number, of course.

Yeah.

So, so, you know, on the low end of that is probably okay for him.

So I told him 150, 200 to 400 is ideal 150.

Up is acceptable.

Because, you know, miss the time you don't have any control

over your hardness rating.

Temperature really doesn't play into this.

We know it's going to be, they're both warm poles, he said.

But they don't have heaters.

Not either of them have heaters.

I said, okay.

And TDS, I said, you know, have you ever tested your source water TDS?

And he told me, no.

And I said, oh, that's one of the first things you do is test your source water TDS.

So you know what you're working with.

You got to know where you're starting.

You're going to know where your baseline is first, right?

Where you're going to start up.

And I'm thinking to myself also, this guy's an instructor.

He gave you to know these things.

Name, I'm just refreshing his memory.

And I said with TDS, remember, you don't want to keep it much above 1500 parts per million above your incoming TDS.

So your incoming TDS is 500 plus 1500 to 2000.

Anything about 2000.

You need to consider partially draining things like that.

So, you know, I talked him through a couple different scenarios.

And you're going to give me a call back in a couple days.

But that just brought into the into my muddled mind and the whole water balance issue.

And I know we've talked about water balance on the LSI before.

And I'm not going to beat it to death right now.

But an example that that Sean gave a perfect scenario of why calculating water balance is critical.

Why water balance is so important.

And I know that that Rudy's talked about it.

You know, a couple of the other hosts on talking fools.

We've talked about it too.

Even Shane over in Australia and all of them.

Now they talk about it too.

So it's important.

Each member, each pool is completely different.

You could have two pools, same source water, you know, neighboring homes.

And the chemistry and water balance be completely different, completely different.

That's why it's critical.

New bills.

Hey, look who's here.

We got a visitor.

We got a third co-host.

Hi, sweetie.

It's just critical and critical.

And here's the other thing.

What somebody is reminding me of this is that we're, you know, I'm part of the CPO task force, a manual task force.

And we're charged with, you know, looking at the manual and things like that and making any changes.

And somebody wants to add some, one of our people want to add a section about having animals and pools.

Things like dogs and, and, and whatnot.

Mostly dogs, obviously, and how that affects overall chemistry.

Well, that affects the animal more than chemistry most of the time because with, with dogs.

Remember, one average size dog is equal to about five people, five humans.

That's it.

I thought I was like 20 or something like that.

No, no, no.

Am I mixing up my numbers?

Yeah, no, it's 25.

I'm sorry, you're right.

It's 25.

25 people organic, load wise.

And, and, you know, you got, you know, a whole bunch like I see these dogs jump into these golden retrievers with a long hair, jumping into a pool.

You know, like the end of the season kind of deal.

I'm going out to use all that organic load in there.

But it affects the animals skin mostly.

People forget they have to rinse off the dog if they're going to let them go in the pool because that chlorine can actually dry out their skin, cause itching,

cause rashes, skin deterioration, that kind of things.

You got to be really careful with dogs.

I'm going to be honest when, like, I don't like swimming and pools.

And, and I've owned a swimming pool company for 10 years and I've been in the pool industry for 20 years.

And, and I'm not a huge fan of swimming and pools.

I mean, number one for the obvious of, you know, they're, you know, if you have a small body of water, like a spa or something like that.

Yeah.

We have as much.

Right.

That's knowing too much.

But, you know, a big pool is fine.

But I've, I've always felt like my skin was really dry when it came out.

And I actually, while you were talking, I just looked up the organic load and it says anywhere from three to 50 people,

depending on the size of the dog, the fur type and the client and how clean you keep the dog, right?

So it could be up to 50, they're saying, which is, that's crazy.

And I've always had clients that I could tell when their dog was in the pool because when I went to go clean the filter,

the filter would just be absolutely mangled with dog hair.

And of course, I would ask the client, I would be like, you know, are you letting your dog swim in the pool?

And they're like, oh, no, like he never goes in the pool.

Yeah, sure.

Right.

Yeah.

So it's kind of one of those things where, you know, your clients aren't always going to tell you.

They're not always going to tell you the full story, right?

So sometimes you've got to kind of figure this out on your own.

So that's why it's so important to have the readings.

And what we've gotten in the habit of doing is at the beginning, especially if we're renovating a pool

and we're, we're going to be the ones that are starting up the pool and then we're going to be the ones that are taking care of the pool.

I've, I've been in situations before where we started up the pool and we took care of the pool, but we didn't renovate.

And then it becomes a problem because like I've went back later on and said like, hey, there's a problem with the plaster.

It's like modeling here or there's like, you know, calcium coming through the cement that you could see.

And it's, it's pretty obvious that it's a botched, you know, resurfaced job.

And I've had them come back and be like, okay, like show us the LSI.

So if you are renovating pools and if you are starting up pools and if you are taking care of pools,

this is super, super important that for the first six months, every time that you're at this pool,

that you are doing a full panel test, including TDS and temperature.

So you can figure out the LSI.

Now Wayne, honestly, I, we don't do LSI much.

The reason being is because most of our pools don't have their heaters on.

So it's not like we're 100 degrees. We have commercial pools that are, but they're a, they're in a different category.

So it's always anywhere between 55 degrees and 75, 80 degrees, you know, depending on the time of the year.

So really what it comes down to is we just have to make sure that we're covering our ass.

So if we have to go back to this builder and say, hey, there's a problem, it will actually be willing to help.

Because I don't, I assume that they do this on purpose, but like the reason that they say is because, oh, we, we only build pools.

So we don't start up pools or take care of the pool. So my guy here, my guy here, Mr. Joe Shmo pool company is going to start up the pool for you.

And then, oh, it's another going to be, it's going to be, you know, Joe Blow pool company that's going to service you pool.

And I always feel like they've done that on purpose a little bit just to kind of like distance themselves to kind of come back and say,

oh, there's something wrong with the chemistry, but the number one thing is if they come back, like they're going to want to,

they're going to do a full panel test. And if all of those read, even if it was just for the day, you know, if they came and they found that your pH was 6.8,

are you fucking kidding me? They would, they would laugh at you and be like, dude, there's no way that we're fixing this for you.

But if you come back and you can show them that you have skimmer or pool brain or pay the pool man and you have all of this stuff recorded, you could be like, no, no, no.

Like we, we did all this already and we've been taking care of the pool because I've gotten blamed before and we were the service company.

And, you know, they're sitting here telling me, well, like, you know, you're not here every day, you're only here once a week.

So like, and I'm like, of course, I'm only here once a week, but every time we're here that one day, we're bringing everything back into the ideal ranges.

So that means seven, four to seven, six for the pH, which is, I mean, people don't understand how small it's point seven point or seven point five or seven point six.

That's it. Like there is no, you know, it's, and I always tell everybody if you need to be on either side, I would rather you be a little bit on the higher side rather than on the lower side.

Just for the simple fact that the people that are in the pool aren't going to not enjoy it.

And that's the worst thing that you could have happened is that a bunch of people come to your pool and they leave feeling like their skin isn't good and that their eyes are burning and stuff.

So it's, it's a ruthless business out there and, you know, in this blame game.

I always have had so many clients over the years that were either my clients or they weren't my client and they called and they were like, hey, you know, you're a pool expert.

I looked you up. I want you to come out and something's wrong with my pool. They messed up the plaster. They did it a few months ago and it's not looking right and I'm brutally honest with them.

I tell them, look, like I would love to take your money and I would love to come up there and get this job.

But honestly, like, have you, who's taking care of the pool and do they have the readings for the last three months or four months because if you can't go back to them with the raw data of this is what the pool was on these certain days.

There is zero chance that they're going to, to, to resurface this pool for you and we're not talking about $1,000 job.

Usually we're not even talking about a $5,000 job. Usually even if you get the smallest pools renovated and you're getting like a mini pebble surface, it's at least $10,000.

So I used to have something earlier that, that kind of, I do in the classes I teach said that, you know, you don't always do LSI.

No, I do it in class, but I actually, I tell them in class, like there's certain things like chemical adjustment. If you are putting, are you the ones testing the water and you're the one putting chemicals, you might do this every day for the rest of your life.

Right. Exactly.

Where you call me in the office and you say, hey, we're having a problem. You just asked that guy, Sean, right?

So I have five different questions before you said, let's do the LSI. The LSI is like kind of further down the list. And that was just my point that like it's not right.

You're not doing it every, every single time you're out the pool.

Right. And, and I tell, I tell the people in my classes, you know, if you don't do LSI calculations every time, that's okay because as long as you're individual parameters, and this is Wayne talking.

Here's your individual parameters are within the ideal range and even the acceptable ranges.

So generally speaking, your waters and bounce, it might lean a little towards being aggressive or lean a little towards being scaling, but it's going to be in bounce.

Now, if you keep your pH between 7476 alkalinity between 81 20 hardness 200 400 temperature, you don't have any control over TDS, no more than 1500 over your startup TDS, you're good to go.

Okay. You created a water balance situation, but like we talked about, if one of those parameters are completely out of whack, then I'd go ahead and say, do your water balance calculation, do your LSI.

But, you know, if you're within ideal ranges, there's, you're already there.

Right. And that's exactly what I, that's exactly what I tell people.

The example that I use is that LSI is literally your God, like looking, you're the universe, looking at a snow globe, and that snow globe is the pool, and you shake it up, and you take all the readings, and you bring it down to one number.

And that one number is telling you, we're good, we're corrosive, or we're scale forming. And that's really what I, that's really all it comes down to is you're breaking down all of these parameters into one number.

But I do, it is something that we do do. It's just not something that like, it's like we're going into fourth, fifth level stuff where we can't figure everything seems to be okay, but, but it's not, you know, and I have had weird situations where like I have some clients here in Los Angeles,

they keep their pool at 95 all the time. And I actually got fired from one of my clients because we, he had a pool. And if I had a pool, it would be this pool.

It was, it was 6,500 gallons. It was like 11 by 8, and it was a, it was a glorified big spa is really what it was. And he heated it to 95 degrees. And I didn't care because we cleaned his salt cell every other week for, you know, X amount of dollars or whatever it is.

There was no problem like we went through a few different heaters, but we were getting him like ASME heaters and he's a residential client.

We're getting him like commercial brass, Cooper Nichol header ones and stuff, you know, so he moved to a proper and he was kind of like not near the beach, but it was cooler there where he was.

And then he moved to the valley. He moved up in like an inland like more above Beverly Hills and like the canyons there and stuff. And now his pool was a 25,000 gallon pool that had a lot of surface area.

And not only did it have a big surface area, it also had like not a vanishing edge, but it had like an overflow that it went into. And there was a trough at the bottom. And that trough actually was where the level or was and would say, hey, is there enough water in here.

So what was happening is because he kept you like, I'll just keep this at 95 all the time. Just like I did with my other one. And what was happening is he would start to lose massive amounts of water at night through evaporation.

Just because convection, the heat was just coming off, but you're steaming hot cup of coffee and the wind just number one whisks the heat away.

And now it's just evaporating the shit ton of water. So the level or would go on. And it would continue to stay on for 45 minutes. And if anybody that works with level or is knows that after 45 minutes, it actually says to itself like, hey, something's wrong that I've been on for 45 minutes.

And it actually overrides itself and cut itself off. And it won't, it won't like fix itself or reset itself until you go and like turn the power off and turn it back on.

So we were running into this constant thing where he would like, I'd wake up in the morning to videos and like, he was the type of client that would like send me a video and be like, look at this fucking water.

I mean, it's like, like, I'd be like, oh, my God. But what was crazy is like, he also had a wife that he had lived with. They got divorced. And she was also our client now.

She lived in a different house. She was also our client. So like, it just became so much that actually I at one point was kind of just like, let's just, let's just break here. Let's just break it amicably. And I said one of the not worst things.

It was just I just wasn't thinking and it's kind of funny because it's like an ongoing running joke now. But he had asked me like why this was happening.

And I had my leak guy come out and he pressure tested all the lines and did a bucket test and was like, bro, like this is just crazy evaporation because this guy has his pool on at 95 degrees all the time. Like nobody does that.

So I like went to him and I said what I meant to say is like, no one really does this. And how it came out of my mouth was like normal people don't heat their pool like this. And it was the worst thing that I ever.

Because he then proceeded for the next like few months to sign off on all of his emails, hashtag normal people heat their pools.

So like he shoved it in my face so fucking hard that like I was just like, oh my god, I can't believe I said that. But I didn't mean like I wasn't trying to be an asshole.

Just on I was saying honestly, like this is not normally what people do. And it came out as like this is what normal people do. And I he took that ones at the grave, which was pretty funny.

It was it was a serious learning lesson for me, but like this he was actually a guy that like at the beginning, like we would hang out, like not hang out.

But he would be like, hey, like I'm having a party. Stay over for like a drink, you know, and you'd like make me a tequila shot. And I'm like, oh cool.

I'm like, I'd have a shot at tequila before I went to my next pool. Like he was that he was a cool dude, you know what I mean? And he ran a company where he made like a boat load of money.

So he was one of those guys where he was a big Trump guy. So he was just like, you know, energy baby, like just keep the gasket. I think you just kept the gasket on all the time.

If you're going to do that, I have another client who's like a movie producer or he and he lives in Australia half the year and then here half the year.

And like he, this is the funniest thing about all of your clients. And this is why I always say like it doesn't matter if you have like doctors or you have lawyers or, you know, if you have somebody on disability.

Like usually they don't know how to work the pool unless they really want to figure out how to use the pool.

So my client loves to swim in the mornings. So we were putting on his pool every night from like midnight to like 6 a.m.

And he was like, my bill is so expensive, you know, for and I'm like, I'm like, we're putting on the heater every night in the middle of the night.

Like we're losing all of that heat like right away. Like what? Of course. And then he'll be like, can you turn the pool off? We're leaving.

You know, can you turn the heater off? We're leaving for a few weeks. And then he would be like, hey, we're back on Tuesday.

Like, can you put the heater back on? So we, you know, we come on Monday or whatever and we put the heater on.

And every Tuesday he texted me on the first Tuesday he gets back and he's like, pool's cold. Like what's wrong here?

And I had to actually call him and explain to him that like the pool is not 78 degrees anymore. It's not 82 degrees anymore.

I can't went back down to 54 degrees. So the heater running for five hours overnight is only going to take it from 55 to 62 or 65.

It's not going to bring it up to what you want it to like you. So I had to actually explain to him like when you go home, you need to go on the handheld and turn the pump on and turn the heater on.

It will override itself and it will go on the whole first day. And then that next day when you want to swim, it might be up to temperature for you.

And I told them the ultimate thing that you should do is do this. He already has an automation system. He just doesn't want to do the upgrade for a couple thousand dollars.

And the upgrade would get you the app on your phone. And now when he's in Australia, he could be like, I'm coming home on Tuesday and fucking turn the heater on.

But like, and I don't mind doing it because literally this is my job for my company. Like that's the stuff that I take care of.

But it just makes me giggle a little bit inside that like this guy is like a really, really successful movie producer. And he just I don't think he ever like did much for on his own.

So like he's literally asking us every week to like do something with the heater for him. And I just want to be like, just go fucking just go turn it on.

You know, and like again, like I don't mind talking to people on the phone and helping them out. But it's also in like in the way that you deliver it to. And I had a, I have a new rep for Hayward.

This guy's Sergio and he's great. I'm so want to shout out him because he's done a really good job and he's really responsive. And I had a situation we don't install.

We install a ton of Hayward sand filters, but we don't install a lot of Hayward automation systems. And it's just kind of the way that things work out here.

Hayward is a New Jersey company. So Pentea and and Luigi are kind of king out here for the whole equipment pad usually, right.

So Hayward, they just a few years ago started making everything communicate where if you put in a Pentea pump, it'll communicate to the automation system.

Like before, you couldn't do everything had to be Hayward or they didn't talk to each other.

And I had a situation where I told you this before where I had someone that changed their pool over to spa mode.

And because they had a jandy aqua link system and a Hayward salt cell, the salt cell didn't kick back down to 5% or 10%. It just stayed at 100%.

So now it was putting 100% full time into the spa. And I went and the spa was at 60 parts per million.

Wow. Okay. Like this lady, this client was like, I'm getting boils. She's like, I need you to come out here.

And I'm like, just don't touch anything. I'm like, let me call. I'll be right there 45 minutes. I'll be right there.

And I get there and it was so yellow that I was like, there's either no chlorine in here. And this is algae or copper or the chlorine is just through the roof.

So that's why like I've kind of shied away from the Hayward stuff because I don't, I don't want to have to always, you know, I don't want to be locked into having to buy by this or that.

Right. I want to be able to choose and especially like, you know, with Penta with their pricing going crazy, like I would opt to get a different pump because it's cheaper.

You know what I mean? Like, I'm still in business. I'm trying to make money, but I want to do the right thing for the client.

Anyway, Carlos went out. My service manager wired up the whole thing. It took us like four days. We had to do three lights. We did like a salt cell.

We did an automation system. So we had to do the actuator valves and all that stuff. And then we put in a sand filter too.

So like reworking all of those manifolds takes a long time. Right. And then we had to actually change all the breakers for.

And this is something that guys like you should be checking this all the time. And it's not something that I really learned until later in my career.

All of anything inside the panel, all of those breakers need to be GFCI rated breakers. And they will literally say on them GFCI.

And if they don't, they are not up to code. And like if something were to happen where like someone got electrocuted or something.

It's like on par with you not having your, your, you know, number eight copper bonding and grounding wire on there.

You know, they're going to be like, this is like a waterproofing issue. It didn't kick itself off here. You know.

So anyway, back to Sergio, I call Hayward tech support. And they are like, you should call like a scent.

You know, you should have a company for warranty come out. It sounds like something as well. So we have a company come out.

And they were pretty good in that they got came out the next day. But the guy calls me in. He's like, hey, like you guys didn't wire it up proper.

And I'm like, okay, I'm like, we're really good at that. So I'm like, it's just because we probably don't, don't deal with these that often.

So I was like, can I loop in my service manager on the phone? You know, basically, can you tell him like how we can wire it up properly next time?

Like he's really good and he'll understand this over the phone. And then the guy proceeded to tell us basically like not that we didn't know what we were doing.

But like that next time we should call out Hayward and have a sales guy come out and meet us because he could talk to us till he's blew in the face on the phone.

But it's really better to see it in person. And I was like, that's not what I fucking asked you.

Like I asked you to walk me through this on the phone of what you did. And he was like, and he did step by step.

But like he was making it seem to sound like these steps are like really easy and they're and they're not, you know, like all of the systems when you go to.

So, you know, to put it in, it's all kind of like DOS like computer systems where like you got to like hit it.

And then you got to hit like edit and you got to hit save and you got to hit it. I'm not like a you know, I love the automation.

But I think that like obviously the pool industry is like 10 or 15 years behind in technology and from like some of like the tech industries and different things like that.

So it is kind of funny when you open up these brand new, you know, $4,000 things.

And it's like got a computer from like the 1980s in it.

Anyway, I just, you know, just the way that the guy kind of talked to us on the phone.

And I didn't mind it. I just I understood where he was coming from.

But he actually did say to us, he was like, guys, like in the future, like these aren't the ones he calls that we want to come out to.

Like we want to come out when it's an actual warranty thing.

And then I had asked him as a favor. I was like, I this this client isn't my regular client. It's actually one of my buddy's brothers.

So I was like, I was doing him a favor. And I was like, he lives in La Habra and I live in Long Beach, which is like a 45 minute drive.

So I was like, we weren't planning on coming back out there. But can you walk him through just the app because he like he's pretty tacky and he knows how to do that.

He just wants to know how to use the app and like get it on the phone.

I was like, I was like, we didn't get a chance to do that because we got stuck on the, you know, on our end, you know.

And he was like, yeah, he's like, I'll do that. But that isn't warranty. So I'm going to charge you for that.

And I was like, okay, I'm like, I would never want someone to come out and not get compensated for their for their time.

Right.

You know, but it was just like the whole way that he kind of went about it because he was up, he was like agitated that he had to come out and kind of like program it.

And it was like it was programmable. Does that make sense? Yeah.

So I went back to my to my Hayward rep and I said to him, I was like, to be honest with you, I'm like, we didn't want you guys to come out.

I'm like, we called tech support and tech support went through it with us and said, hey, we think something is wrong. Have somebody come out.

So that's what I, and I, in one of our, in one of our other past episodes, I had just talked about the warranty and how it's different for every company now.

And they want you to go through the proper channels. So I really want to always make sure that we are, that they would never come back to us and be like, oh, you're doing something that you're not supposed to be doing.

We're not going to warranty this for you. So just kind of one of those situations where Carlos was kind of like irritated a little bit.

I didn't mind it, but like, you know, I, I cleared it up and it was fine and everything was okay.

But it was just one of those weird situations where it's like, you're working for Hayward.

Like you're getting paid, you're getting paid from Hayward, no matter what.

Like, I don't know what we're complaining about.

We got to get Carlos on this podcast one time.

I mean, you talk about him just about everyone and I feel like he's my new best friend.

Someday, we'll do it. We'll do it someday. Yeah.

I also want to get Jen your wife on one time because you're, you're the dynamic duo out there. So we'll, we'll, we'll deal with that too down the road.

Ladies and gentlemen, I think that's probably it for today. We appreciate you listening as always.

And again, I like Sean has discovered if you send us an idea for something we could talk about on the podcast or have a question or whatever a comment.

Send it to talkingpools at gmail.com and it will be directed to the appropriate person.

And again, if your idea is used, I will send you a little thank you present.

So we appreciate everybody who listens, shout out to all of our sponsors.

And Mr. Steve, take care, sir. I have fun in your travels and I will see you in a few weeks.

Yeah, have a good one, guys. Thanks.

Bye. Take care. Bye. Okay. All right.

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