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Good afternoon, good evening, good morning, good whatever time of the day it is.

You are listening to Mondays Down Under on the Talking Pool's podcast. It's great to have you with us.

My name's Lee Salisbury, I'm pool shop coach and today I am joined as always with my esteemed colleague in New Zealand.

Shane, how are you?

Very well, thank you for asking.

And I'm a little bit under the weather, but I'm okay now, or just last week.

Yeah, all good.

And of course we have our newbie, our new colleague in arms Nick from Queensland, Hey Nick, how are you?

Yeah, good, thank you. Hey Shane, how are you going? Glad you're feeling better.

Thank you very much.

It's the joys of kids at kindergarten, you know, as soon as you get a week of co-weather, everybody gets sick again.

That's not bad. Oh, here we go.

Just getting ready for the winter blues again. I love it.

It's the one thing kids love to share.

It's the ones.

So I'm starting that all over again with my grandson now at daycare.

He's nine months old and just started daycare and already I think he's had two days off daycare.

He's been sick and barely sick like just a little bit of a runny nose, but they will not have them at can be at daycare when they're like that.

And so of course, many daycare had to step in didn't you?

Sure you paid that. I'm sure you paid it.

Look, it definitely stops the workflow, but that's fine. It's only a small part of my week.

And I gladly give that up for the love and smiles and cuddles of a little one.

It's definitely worth it.

But today we have a big topic on the agenda.

I think we've all been seeing that emails going around and the whispers in the industry of course with fuel having like doubled in price here in Australia.

We don't know what the future holds and we're starting to see it reflected in the prices from suppliers.

So I was just jumped on LinkedIn before.

And I see that one of the major plumbing supplies in Australia has put a 30% price increase on all their PVC and it's expected to go up further again.

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I see that one of the major plumbing supplies in Australia has put a 30% price increase on all their PVC.

And it's expected to go up further again.

What are you guys seeing out in the market, Nick?

What do you, have you anything come across your desk today?

There's been a few phone calls from sales reps and a few emails and a few whispers through the industry asking questions.

Have you heard anything? Because yeah, it is a hot topic at the moment.

I think it is a good thing to see these things in general, because plastic is needed for everything, even down to pubs, boring tubs and things like that.

I think it's going to flow on through to just about every product we have.

Absolutely. What about you Shane, New Zealand feeling it yet?

Probably not so much for the price increase of products at the moment, luckily.

There has been emails sent out, but this is probably in the last four to eight weeks in regards to the price of sales.

Some cells increasing, but that seems to be a global thing.

You were given some numbers, just a minute ago, Lee, on the price of.

Roost and numbness.

Resinium.

I jumped on to have a look at the prices, because of course, we've seen prices in cells go up only earlier this year.

They went up huge amount, didn't they, Nicole, clarinators and cells?

It was definitely a shock to this.

I'm a shock to Optimus as well.

Yeah, yeah, so I actually jumped online and looked at the current.

You're in.

Roost in him.

I'm going to keep stumbling over that one.

Ruthenium price.

And today, I will actually on the 20th of March.

And we are filming this or recording this on the 23rd of March, 2026.

The price was 6780 a gram.

Now this is US dollars.

So if we look historically, the first of January 2026, it was 4868.

So that's a gram.

So that's nearly a 50% increase from January to March, a matter of 10 weeks.

Now, if we go back and we look at the price of.

Ruthenium last January, January last year, 2025, it was $18.54.

So in a matter of 12 months, it's gone up probably about 130%.

Maybe even a bit more.

I'm just doing the roughs in my head here.

So it's gone from 1854 to $48.68.

And then in the matter of 10 weeks, it's gone up another $20 a gram from 4868 to 6780.

So you can bet money on it.

Like literally we will be spending money on it.

That sell prices are going to go through the roof yet again.

So for a market like Australia, where so many pools are salt water chlorinated.

Like let's face it probably 90% of their market, a salt water chlorinated.

We are going to really feel the pain of this or our clients are going to really feel the pain of this.

I was thinking about this the other day actually because you know everything comes in cycles.

Whether it's basher, telephone, anything, whatever it may be.

I'm wondering if the swimming pool industry is coming in the cycle because

when salt chlorinated and automation was coming out, it was a premium product.

You know, only like the rich and famous would have it.

And then maybe after a decade or so, the prices were coming down.

You would see pretty much every household like as you said,

you know the majority of Australian swimming pools are salt water pools now.

They were the prices of everything starting to go back up again.

Is it going to become a lot more of a premium product again?

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Well, it's the orange looking only cheap isn't it?

And yeah, and then liquid chlorine at the price of chlorine,

how it was in the last two, three, four years.

That was constantly increasing in price as well.

You know, that was deemed as a, you know, almost like a premium product back then.

Yeah.

And no, it's, yeah.

How do tables turn?

Well, maybe we need to be stocking up on those little roller cam dial ups.

Like that.

Let's face it.

They're inexpensive.

Yeah.

They'll automatically liquid feed chlorine, maybe as a short term fix,

instead of somebody spending thousands of dollars on a salt water chlorinator.

And it will be thousands of plural.

It used to be a thousand.

Then it was 1500.

Now it's 2000.

Now it's like, is it two and a half thousand for a chlorinator now?

You're average domestic.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so a little dosing pump without a probe.

No probe.

Just the little dosing pouch.

You guys know the little dial ones.

We did still get them.

Yeah.

And hook it up to a liquid chlorine tub.

And that's what we need to be stocking up on.

Then the people who are on a budget, let's face it.

And need to still look after their pulls might be a short term fix.

Yeah.

I don't know.

But it's, um, it's pretty scary when you see that the fact that in just over 12 months,

prices tripled like it's more than tripled.

The price of ruthenium has more than tripled in just over 12 months.

That's pretty scary.

All right.

Let's say, yeah, it's a 300% price increase.

I hope in the strategies the mother of invention and someone can design a cell without using it.

I'm sure there's someone out there looking at it.

And I have heard from one of the supplies that it can be done.

I just don't know how well it can produce chlorine.

Well, it's certainly interesting.

It's, it's way above my pay grade.

Let's face it.

People smarter than me to be looking at that.

We need someone with a very good chemistry background.

So I'll put this shout out David from W.A.

If you're listening to this, maybe you need to get on to that.

We'll leave that at that.

Some of the, um, some of the emails that we have received in the last week,

though, is from our supplies.

Our main supplies.

They're changing their free charges.

Whereas it used to be.

You order at 500.

But at anything after 500 dollars.

So you would have free freight.

Now they've gone out to 600, 600, 700, 800 dollars.

Obviously, to cover the cost of their fuel consumption or the avenue.

If it wasn't whether this is going to change and go by down,

it's going to be interesting to see when things do normalize.

But I'd say that's probably the only other price increase that we've seen in the last few weeks.

Yeah.

It's, I don't think Nick, do you get much freight charges?

Like you're in Brisbane.

So most of it would come to you relatively cheaply or in free.

I would imagine.

We have minimums for free freight, which we tried to adhere to.

We did have one supplier recently.

And that's just implemented a flat-to-stained dollar fee.

No matter what you order.

No, like freight costs were always something that I dealt with as a regional retailer.

Freight was something that I constantly had to deal with with quite sizable minimum purchases to get free freight.

But more often not, yes, a freight charge was applied.

Look, that's understandable, especially in this current economy.

But we don't want to be all doom and gloom today.

We do want to be proactive for our listeners.

So we know we're all starting to feel the pinch.

And we're a bit worried or concerned about what is the next season's going to look like.

We really don't know.

But all we can do is control what we're in charge of or what is at our fingertips.

And Shane, this brought up a topic that you were discussing actually a couple of weeks ago.

And it becomes even more point now.

And that is quoting.

Yeah, a hundred percent.

I mean, knowing how and when to quote accurately.

So an example, there were a couple of really big jobs that I attended to about a month ago installations.

One of them was they changed from a cartridge filter to a media filter.

And New Zealand state.

If that's the case, then we need to run a waistline into the septic as part of the house.

You can't just go into the stormwater or into the garden.

So this pipe had to go underneath the house.

We could get under there is it was accessible.

But I didn't notice how tight it was getting in actually to the end of the house where the pipe had to go through the wall and into the train.

And it wasn't until I was actually there.

And it was on my back and the house was literally in my face, you know, the frame of the house.

And it was so difficult just to try and.

And I'm there by myself as well.

Obviously having to cut the pipe, measure it, join it.

Keep it as level as possible.

Go out to the outside of the house, make sure everything's lined up and they go back around.

So as you start manipulating the pipe and moves you think, you know, is it lined up with the train again?

So this this job just that particular part just took a lot longer than what he should have done.

That was one example of one job.

But I had quoted the job and in New Zealand, when you quote a job, it's very difficult to change that price.

So my mistake.

I should have intentionally just added a few hours, a few extra hours on potentially onto the labor or I should have provided an estimate to the client.

So with an estimate, you can take it variables, but that was a lesson learned.

I'm going to show up.

Yeah, there was two jobs like within the space of two weeks.

And I was like, but it helps.

We're looking at.

So yeah, I don't.

It's I guess a lot of it is always going to come down to experience every job is always going to be different.

I don't know what situation it is.

And I guess all the time with your experience, you are going to become better at quoting.

But I wanted your guys and youngs as well.

I mean, you both been in business very long times.

Be interesting to find out if you did.

If zero was back in the day when you started your business, how many quotes you've actually sent out.

That would be quite interesting to find out.

But you obviously send a quite a lot of quotes in the past and just wondering if you had any tips or tricks in order to if you see a job and you go,

it's going to be a little bit challenging.

How would you go over it?

You go Nick.

I think yeah, experience does play a big part in it and looking for those variables that are going to be outside your scope of works.

You know, when a lot of the quoting that we do, we would always sort of go work off the worst case scenario for for a lot of instances.

But you will as you get that little bit more experience realize, oh, you know, this could potentially happen.

But as you get more experience, you get better at what you do as well.

So there's certain things that we do that we look at with some, some jobs and some of the bigger commercial jobs putting in sort of like an allowance for let's say 30% on our labor or those incidentals that might pop up.

Because yeah, it's so hard to fall asleep with a lot of these jobs.

What's actually going to happen?

Install the chlorinator last week.

I went back today to replace a non-return valve at the front of the pump, which I didn't have.

And I could hear something rattling around in the front of the pump and long behold, there's a rock in it.

But every time in the suction line, every time I would turn the pump off, it would duck back down through the hole through the pipe.

And it was just very, very difficult to get turned it on, suck it up, trying to get it right in the right position that I could grab it.

And so yeah, I would never have foreseen something like that.

And that's the hard thing is planning for the unforeseeable.

So I would actually say one of my things that we'd like to do is quote for what we can control.

So if we know that we're replacing the filter and what the plumbing allowance is for that, obviously it's very easy to quote for that.

But if you're doing a job like you were doing, Shane, where you know that you've got to run a length of pipe and that it's going to take time, we would quote the things that we could control.

And then we would estimate the things that we couldn't. So that quote I would do by way of this is to supply and install the filter in the location of the plant, not included in this quote is the running of the pipe to the storm water pit or the sewer point, whatever you run it to.

We estimate that that's going to be X amount, however, this is not something that we can quote for quote accurately for.

And so that they sort of get a partial climate.

And then they get you, you've got some leeway there.

Look, let's face it.

Often I don't want to say pluck a figure out of there, but we do estimate and we assume that it's going to take us two hours or three hours.

We assume that it's going to be about $60 in fittings.

Some we win, some we lose, some we might have allowed three hours for, but it's only taking us two hours.

We have a win others, we allow three hours and it takes us for we lose.

So you hope that they even out in the wash as they say, but yes, I would say obviously estimate if you can't quote and give reasons to and be very direct as to what the quote includes.

And what it doesn't include so that you have some control there.

And you could even put in like builders do in theirs should the owner or should selections or options or location change.

Then additional costs will be incurred to be disgusted at that point in time.

Something like that because I know that I've done a quote on the relocation of equipment for a client to only have Scott arrive there and the client's gone, oh yeah, don't want it there anymore.

I've decided I want it over here because they've had someone come around for dinner and they've been talking about where they're going to move the equipment to and they've decided they want to move it into a completely different location than what it quoted or maybe it was a new heater and they're worried about the noise near a bedroom or something like that.

So things can change, but you need to make sure that it's very specific we used to do a lot of plummings full plummings full equipment installs and so we were very clear about where our responsibility started and stopped because it was the pool builders responsibility to supply the lines up to the location of the plant and equipment.

Bed and then that way we wouldn't be turning up and expected to run 15 or 20 meters of pipe because that could be a really big cost that we hadn't forcing does that help and all shape.

Yeah, yeah, I think it does actually definitely quote and yeah with everything you can see I mean equipment if you've locked a quote in for two weeks or weeks and you do have a price increase excuse me and you do have a price increase on the equipment.

The supplier is good it is the supplier will always hold that initial price that you've quoted so I mean in that sense you know you're not going to have any issues with price variations when it comes to equipment.

So yeah definitely applying a full quote on equipment but yeah that estimate with the labor maybe a few little parts yeah I think that's a very good idea.

We're just sending an estimate in general.

You can actually put in your quotes subject to price increase from supplier so that's my understanding might be different in New Zealand but if like it's that sort of like an exception or an exclusion.

So if you're making that very clear up front then and like you might need to put a limit on it or something like that maybe but most of the time suppliers give us.

Probably 30 days notice a price increase wouldn't you say guys yeah yeah and so if we're giving our clients and keep it to 30 days then that way we are a lot less likely to have issues because.

If the clients accepted it within the 30 days and we've ordered that stock within the 30 days we know that there hasn't been any pricing crisis.

You put a timeframe on your quoting at the moment Shane yeah we've always done two weeks since day one we've done two weeks we don't want to live any longer but here we feel that it gives the client a bit more of a kick up a bum if they are actually be in cereal.

Good point yeah yeah so yeah I think making sure that you have a and that's even more important at the moment with prices being so fluid like they're they're changing quite rapidly they're going up substantially we want to make sure that we're not going to be held to any quotes that we can't honor yeah making sure that you do.

Put that limited period and maybe at the moment a two week gap or allowance for a quote to be accepted.

Is is probably not a bad thing but I always did 30 days and as Nick does yeah yeah it's probably it's probably a good thing to do two weeks so I did a quick look on the business.gov.aid website and it's there's a list of what to include in a quote.

So a written quote should have include at least your business name Australian business number and contact details the customers name and contact details a clear description of the work or service itemized in total costs include goods and services tax if applicable any variations or revisions discussed so that's where I said like to put that in like about revisions.

Pay terms and conditions such as due date and like payment penalties preferred payment method work start and finish dates quote expiry date and space for the customers acceptance.

So obviously these days with email I think it's quite common to just accept an email back from the client that was something I was always very adamant about.

So somebody would ring me and say hey I'd like to accept a quote can you go ahead.

I'd say yep no worries whatsoever can you just flick me back and I return email like grab my email quote just return it to me and say thanks.

We accept please proceed in that way you've got their written permission or authority to go ahead with it the last thing you want to do is then I have a he said she said argument over.

Did or didn't accept the quote or I did we did or didn't negotiate a different price you don't want sort of headaches.

That's a good thing about zero as well if you're sending quotes from zero they are the option to actually click the accept so everything goes through the books I'm not sure if you said you've tried it yourself Nick but but for zone of just introduce a quilting tool as well.

Yeah so we've been using it for a while now and it allows you to create and play in there so you can have all your wording set out for all of your quotes so if you've got a standard quote for a coordinator and it can include all those little variations or you know your scope of works so it's a bit quicker but also yeah when you learn from your mistakes and this this customer did this and they didn't say this and we said that all then it's included for next time and it's just easy.

For the next quote you just slowly build it up yeah that's exactly it's it's about learning from previous mistakes or experiences I'd say as you've learned by rummaging around under somebody's house for far too long.

So you've learned from that mistake and you won't repeat it.

So how can we avoid it in the future and I would say don't try and reinvent the wheel each time having quoting templates is a really good way to go I even have a quoting spreadsheet and have all different products and all different parts and labor on that quoting spreadsheet and then basically I would just go through we would populate it obviously with that.

Now I was going to say each season but at the moment I would be increasing the prices everybody week putting our prices in the buy price the sell price and and then the quantities and it would actually calculate it for me so it would actually show us our margins straight away so we go okay we've got a little bit more wriggle room there I can sharpen the pencil on this one or there's not a lot of room on this one I need to make an allowance for.

Um some what he's sorry I was going to say or maybe an ID 10 T tax or was it when you just you just mentioned that the sharpen the pencil is not a saying that I heard before there was a quote that I sent out I think it was at the end of last year and the client accepted.

But at the bottom he said sharpen your pencil on this coach was like what the hell does he want me to write him a letter so I said oh that's what it means I never heard that never heard that saying before he does to sharpen your pencil on the quote after he'd accepted it he did yes well you're not going to sharpen it he's accepted it yeah I don't know I think I did not call for a little bit.

And it's important to also make sure that you include things like and I've been caught on this one believe me and you and you only get caught once when it's a powerful one I had a client who I did a quote for for a I think it was a heat pump it was $8,000 and at the bottom of his quote it said that there would be a 1.25% so charge for all.

Credit card payments so I put it in the quote always very clear about that but then what happened is his invoice was sent out to him and it didn't have the 1.2 because we didn't know whether he is going to pay by credit card owner.

And in those days because things weren't so automated with so charges and whatnot customers would ring up and we would process their credit card over the phone manually or they would come into the shop but their invoice was always invoiced for the actual amount of the invoice not for not including a so charge because we didn't know if they're going to bank transfer it or about they're going to pay it anyway he came into the shop and he paid it and not only did he pay it with his credit card he paid it with one of those premium credit cards.

That are about a 3% so charge so on $800 when you are counting all the bends and the hours and the meters of pipe that you're doing $140 in so charges is a lot to stomach.

No so you got to make sure that yes include things like so charges or credit card so charges on your on your quotes to.

Because yeah I went back to him and I said well I need to charge your credit card for the so charge and he said no I came in and paid it you accepted my payment one of your staff accepted you might my payment and I said well actually on your quote it states and he said.

Like with that and that's where the tax that's where the PIA tax comes in isn't that just can't you next time check it up to the memory banks that's for sure so I think in this day and age especially at the moment with the way the market is and pricing is just so uncontrollable let's face it we just really need to make sure that we're working smarter and.

That we are like ordering smarter all of those things as well but we were quoting making sure that we're leaving some allowance in there shortening our acceptance times I don't think there's much else we can do really.

We've got them as they're getting smarter as well so we need to make sure that yeah we're doing all the things by the book yeah yeah absolutely absolutely and having a good payments is done to so that we can try and get those payments in quickly.

So always helpful definitely take a deposit yes there is rules that though around how much of a deposit you can take.

Do you know what they are in New Zealand.

I don't we take 50% 50 or 15 15 5 0 okay yeah I think I don't know what the rule is then I think ours is a lot less do you recall Nick no I'm not sure I've never researched that smaller contracts in a half thousand to 20 thousand should not incur deposits more than 10% inclusive of laboring materials.

And projects over 20% require a 5% deposit so that's under the domestic building contracts active 20 of 2000 so that's yeah I knew it was I knew so yeah I'm not.

It was very low actually yeah it is it will probably very state to state so I would suggest having a look at at your local at your state but just having a look at QBC see Nick because I know that's your state yeah the maximum deposit for works valued at 3,300 or less is 20% at works valued at 3,000.

3,300 to 20,000 it's 10% of the contract price so it's actually very small and I think they really need to review that.

So actually when you're shelling out quite a bit of money in in plant equipment like if you're buying a thousand dollar heat pump for somebody and you're ordering it in that's a lot to to carry to carry for that client.

It actually says the contractor can't claim more than 50% of the contract price including the deposit until at least 50% of the work on site that's been made it.

So definitely worth finding out in your state let me do a quick look in New South Wales and see if I can see that.

I'm a well person to use to take me depended on the client and I say that because I live in a small country area where I probably know most of my clients for most of my time in business so some of them I didn't require a deposit at all to be quite honest but if I was doing a solar installation or a heat pump installation or a spa sale then they were they were large items and I generally was about 20 to 25%

and so yeah I'm looking at the New South Wales website but it doesn't actually give it to me as clearly as it did in Queensland but I would assume that it would be something very similar.

New South Wales Victoria and Queensland tend to be aligned on a few of these things.

You're aware of your state requirements anyway.

Well I think that brings us to a close for today's topic.

I hope we've given our listeners something proactive to go back and look in their businesses to see how they can maybe do things a little better.

Leave themselves as open to risk or exposure to being under a floor doing a lot of work and not being paid for it but no seriously it's an important time.

Money is tight prices are going up make sure you do your homework make sure you do research.

Get your prices right tighten your contract terms and also make sure that you leave an allowance for unforeseeables maybe like I said maybe.

And exclusions so this is what we're quoting for this is what's not quoted for this will be over and above so for the things that you can't estimate but thank you guys thank you Nick thank you Shane and listeners thank you very much for joining us we always appreciate you lending us your ears.

We hope you've got something beneficial out of today's episode remember if you have any topic suggestions or questions we would love to hear from you.

Drop us the line at talkingpools at gmail.com and really will serve that request out to the most applicable podcast post actually got that right this week normally over that.

But anyway until next week guys we hope you'll join us again on Mondays down under on the talking pools podcast thanks for listening.

Thank you.

I just want to take a minute to say thank you for listening today I'm hoping you enjoyed the episode as much as we enjoyed putting it together for you listen it's been a couple of wacky crazy screwed up years from pandemic to pool

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