Rolling with the Changes
Pool service tech, Robert Foutz Jr., takes a look back over his 40 years in the service side of the pool industry, with an eye toward some of the many changes he has seen along the way—as well as some of the new things he had to learn in order to adapt.
By Bob Foutz Jr.
The changes I’ve seen throughout my long career in pool service have impacted both the pain and the pleasure of the job. Some have affected society at large, while others are far more industry-specific, but there is no question life on and off the route is very different than it was back when I started.
Yet, one thing that has not changed is how a clean, healthy and well-maintained pool remains the prime objective.
As a prime example, and I don’t know when it started exactly, but the trend to convert your old backyard and pools into a paradise has certainly added more than a few wrinkles to the job, and calluses on my hands. Nowadays, homeowners want landscaping, rocks, palm trees, lush plantings, waterfalls, swim outs, Baja shelves, an outdoor kitchen with a mini fridge, stovetop, and BBQ. The trend has been going on a long, long time and shows no sign of stopping.
It’s an evolution that redefined much of the pool and spa industry, and consumer experience, and has certainly has had a seismic impact on the service business. The problem with this changing outdoor scene for us the service techs is how to clean around all the rocks, waterfalls, and swim outs? Most of the time, it’s not a problem as some builders mercifully have the service tech in mind, and they leave room for us to get around all those outdoor amenities. But sometimes, much to our chagrin, the builders do not take into account the need to access all areas of the pool.
I have seen pools with waterfalls 12-feet high, with rocks all around it with no way to access the entire structure for cleaning. They must think the pool tech is half mountain goat who can climb on the rock and reach all the way around the pool. I assuredly am not.
I had one pool that had a 3-foot-wide by 7-foot-high dead space and no matter what I did, I could not reach this spot. The pool does have a cleaner and it will usually get into this unreachable spot, but I know algae appeared back there it would be impossible to brush it out.
Automation on the Rise
Along with all these elaborate outdoor designs, homeowners are also very focused on convenience. It seems like every time a homeowner updates their pool, they also add some kind of automation. Gone is the yellow dial 24-hour time clock. Now in its place is a computerized device that controls everything in the pool.
Before the automation, if the homeowner wanted to take a soak in the spa they had to go out in the dark, go to the equipment pad, and turn the valve to start the motor and turn on the heater. Go back inside and wait a while for the water to reach the desired temperature, which they would have to check with a thermometer. Now you just press one button and the system does everything for you. Just walk out and enjoy!
Now, I can guess what you might thinking, Bob is an old curmudgeon and probably hates automation. The answer is no; I like it. On most of my pools I service, I run the spa for half an hour because it helps keep the bottom clean, then if there is a waterfall I run it for half an hour to clean out the leaves and whatever else is in there. Then I run the pool on regular speed for a few hours.
The thing I find the most interesting and frustrating about automated pools is the fact that many people don’t know how to use them. The homeowner just spent thousands and thousands of dollars on their backyard remodel but they have no idea how to use what they just bought.
So, they turn to Bob for answers; I can usually get the system working for them with the help of the owner’s manual. But one time there was no owner’s manual and the customer needed to call the company that installed and programmed it to come back out and teach us both how to run it.
Chlorine Generators
Chemical automation is another advancement that has dramatically changed pool operation, and I admittedly have a love/hate relationship with saltwater chlorine generators. They require a different way of thinking about sanitizer when servicing the pool. It was something else I had to learn. Chlorine generators make sodium hypochlorite. Sodium hypochlorite is the liquid chlorine (or bleach) in the bottles it is not stabilized and will lose strength after a while, unlike chlorine tabs that will hold for years.
That means you have will have to check pH and total alkalinity weekly and cyanuric acid levels several times a year, unlike stabilized chlorine products, such as trichlor tabs.
Sodium hypochlorite has a high pH of about 13 so your pH and total alkalinity will increase. I had to learn not to be afraid to add muriatic acid to the pool, a lot of muriatic acid, more than I was comfortable with at first.
What I really hate about chlorine generators is the salesmen. Mr. and Mrs. Homeowner want to fix up the pool and backyard. The swimming pool remodel company sends out a salesperson who tells the homeowners that they will be swimming in saltwater, they will no longer be swimming in chlorinated water, which could not be further from the truth. If I had a dollar for every person who told me they were swimming in saltwater and not chorine, I could buy my wife and myself a steak dinner with a good bottle of wine and fancy dessert!
Again, these people spend thousands of dollars on new equipment and have no idea how use it or what it does. But the really sad thing about a paradise backyard is these people only use their beautiful pool and new backyard BBQ for a year or two, then they seem to forget about them, but they still need to be maintained.
Banking with Ease
Considering a broader societal advancement, the way we do our banking, has impacted just about everyone, and certainly changed an important aspect of the pool service business. Back in the paper-and-ink days, all my customers paid with paper checks. Twice each week I took a stack of checks to the bank and deposited them into my account. The checks would have a hold put on them for a few days until my bank made sure that my customer had enough money in their account to cover the amount of the check. That actually that still happens, but the time it takes is much faster.
Some of my customers still send me handwritten paper checks while others send me a bank-written check. And some transfer money right into my account, and I receive an email letting me know it’s there.
For the customers who send paper checks, I open my bank’s app on my cell phone, I tell the bank which account I want the payment to go into, and then send a picture to the bank and the money goes right into that account. Once I learned how, it became so simple and easy,
Debit cards! I love these things too. They have changed the way I buy almost everything: put the card in the slot and a few seconds later the money moves from my bank to the merchant.
Now the only time I go to the bank is when I need cash, I guess I am a little old fashioned because I still use cash. A friend was giving me some good-natured teasing because I paid with cash, he told me he almost never carries money, he reached into his pocket and pulled a five and a one-dollar bill, six dollars and wallet full of plastic. I never thought I’d see the day when people would use more plastic than paper money, but here we are.
Sweat Soldering
I was talking with a friend about these “OLD” articles I’m writing and I said sweat soldering was a lost art. He said no because when they re-piped his house a few years ago they used copper tubing and sweat soldered it. But we agreed it is a lost art in the swimming pool industry. A plumber may sweat solder ¾-inch tubing, but no one in the pool industry is sweat soldering 2-inch tubing like I did all those years ago.
Back when I started in 1985, pool plumbing was probability more copper tubing than PVC pipe; this time period should be called the “Heavy Metal Era.” All the plumbing underground was copper, the copper came up out of the ground and went into a brass pump, into the stainless-steel filter, then into the pool heater. Pool heaters needed five feet of copper tubing going onto the heater and five feet coming out, (because PVC pipe would melt from the hot water). So, learning how to sweat solder copper tubing was a must.
Sweat soldering is how you connect two pieces of copper tubing together. First you took an emery cloth and cleaned the two pieces you wanted to join, then you applied a liberal amount of flux. Flux is kind of like jelly you; used a brush and painted the two parts that were to be joined.
Flux is the secret in soldering; it cleans metal surfaces by removing oxidation, preventing new oxidation from forming, it also helps the melted solder flow smoothly and make a strong joint.
Now the fun part: You aim a butane or propane torch to the bottom of the joint and heat it to 600 degrees, when all the flux melts and drips away apply the solder the top of the joint. The heat melts the solder and pulls it to and fills the gap between the two pieces. I usually put a wet towel on the joint to cool it. You needed to be extra careful not to touch the soldered pieces until they were completely cool. If done right it makes a watertight seal, if not heat it up and try again.
My Music Machine
In my last article on discussing getting old on the service route, I talked about changes in communication technology. One thing I did not mention was how the miniaturization of devices altered and improved the way us service techs entertain ourselves while netting and sweeping.
The 80’s was a perfect time to get into the swimming pool industry, and one reason was because one of the biggest changes to the world of music had transformed the joy of rocking out, it was the era of the Walkman. The first Walkman was released in Japan on July 1, 1979. It was later introduced in the United States in June 1980 under the name “Sound-About,” before the “Walkman” name was used globally.
The Walkman was revolutionary; it was a portable AM/FM radio and cassette player that allowed me to listen to my music or my favorite radio stations wherever I was going. It gave me something to listen to while servicing a pool instead on the noise inside my head. Nothing could be better than this!
But there was also a revolution going on in the radio business, talk radio was taking over the airwaves. I could listen to my favorite band on a cassette tape, my favorite radio stations, rock, country, or jazz. Talk radio brought me news, politics, current events, and sports talk and baseball day games. It was a constant companion and pool service suddenly didn’t feel like such a lonely job.
But then something changed and I had to learn new things again. The MP3 player came out—now I could load my entire music library in a little box. But first I had to learn how to download all that music to my computer, then to download it from my computer to my MP3. Fortunately my daughters gave me an hour of free tech support every year for Father’s Day.
And now we have USB ports. My new truck doesn’t have slot for a CD, just a USB port. And now there are thousands of podcasts you can listen to. Stuff like this makes the day go by faster, even if it does remind me of how old I am now.
A Final Lament
I don’t want to end these articles on downward note, but this something I care about. When I entered the pool industry there were two groups you could join to provide sick route coverage, gain education, and buy liability insurance: the Independent Poolman Service Association (IPSA), or CAL Independent Poolman Service Association. (Cal IPSA).
They had been one group originally but spilt up long before my time. In 1988, the two groups worked out their differences and formed the Independent Pool and Spa Service Association (IPSSA). You noticed they removed the “man” from the name and they also removed all gendered langue from the bylaws and standing rules. They hoped that women might join one day and feel welcome.
But for some reason we cannot seem to remove the “man” from pool man, I still see it all over the place. In my 60 plus years, I have seen the policeman become a police officer, fireman to fire fighter, mailman to letter carrier, and many more. How about calling a “poolman” a service tech?
My father started out business in 1985, and since that time my mother, my wife and all three of my daughters have worked the business with me. When I had Covid in 2021, my daughters covered my commercial pools for six weeks while IPSSA covered my residential pools. Because as nice and knowledgeable about pools as the IPSSA friends are, none of them knew how to take care of a 50,000-gallon pool with a hot spa in August like my girls did. Yes, I am proud of them, very proud.
It’s been quite a journey that has been heavily influenced by advancing technology, as well consumer expectations, but through it all, one thing hasn’t changed, a dirty pool waits for no one and still needs to be cleaned.
Opening image by Bastian Weltjen | Shutterstock