That time we talked about swimming pools

This is episode number 3 of The Homeowner's Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is my friend Craig Williams.

Hey everybody, I've got my, my very special show shirt on today.

That's a good one, man.

Thank you.

Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a bee. It's a bee holding a briefcase.

Yes.

With a, like, a fedora.

I think that is the correct term.

Fedora. Yeah, fedora.

It's very, it's very Cary Grant-ish bee.

Yeah, I like it.

Thank you.

I mean, I wouldn't wear it.

It's a special— well, you know, not everybody can pull it off. That's true.

That's true.

So no, man, we've got a, we've got a very special guest today. We're gonna be talking about pools.

Pools. Who doesn't like a good pool?

Well, you don't.

Well, I like them. I just don't want to own one.

You know, I'm gonna be a homeowner, not a pool owner.

That's exactly right.

All right. We're gonna, we're gonna combine them today.

Okay.

So we got a very special guest. Jason is in the studio from Endless Summer Pools to talk a little bit about maintenance and upkeep and repairs and everything you've ever wondered about pools. So.

Yes, sir. It's good to be here, guys. Thank you.

Thanks for being here.

Well, just curious, Craig. I mean, it's been a week since we talked to these fine folks that are listening on the podcast network.

Yeah. Are you, are you still sweating over there in the, the Hackett house?

And that's a good question. So last week, I referred to the problem that we had. Literally, Jason, we were, we were I was walking out of my house and we were going to be reviewing Wi-Fi thermostats. And so last week we reviewed an Ecobee 3 Lite Wi-Fi thermostat. And as I'm walking out of the house, my air conditioner goes out. No joke. And so—

That's good timing.

No, man. And, and what's even worse is, is we recorded on a Thursday, so it was Friday before we realized what the problem was. And so it was Monday before anybody could come out and really check it because I don't know anything about air conditioning systems. But it's a really good thing that we called because, um, first of all, it was freezing up. That was the problem. And, uh, I also mentioned that I had ACL reconstructive surgery, right?

Right.

And so a lot of things over the last couple of months have gone to the wayside. One of those things being my air filters on my air conditioning systems. So, uh, one of the reasons that they were freezing up is because I hadn't replaced my air And if you didn't know that not replacing your air filter could cause your system to freeze, now you know. You need to change those every 3 months, if not sooner. 3 months is kind of like the lifetime maximum on those things.

I'm assuming you got scolded by an elderly gentleman on this.

Yeah.

Okay. He was like—

Just like, how long has it been? Like, maybe 5 months this time.

So you straight up lied to him is what—

No, that was truthful. 5 months was truthful, but it was too long nevertheless, right? We did get that taken care of. There was another issue on the, on the unit itself, but the big problem was that— so, so we have a split unit. So upstairs where the furnace is in the attic, there's a pan. It's a drain pan, and that thing was about an 8th of an inch from overflowing. And so had we waited another couple of days, that thing could have started overflowing.

Wow.

You know, so you did have a pool.

You could have called Jason.

Yeah, I guess I called the wrong guy.

No, anyway. Yeah, sure.

Anything. Yeah. So we got it taken care of and, uh, we're good to go now, but that's, uh, that was kind of a crazy thing, but I'm glad it's taken care of.

So, but not sweating now.

Not sweating now. We're good to go. We're sleeping well again.

Cause you're looking pretty good. Look like you sweat off a little. I mean, you could be looking better, but maybe. Turn it off. I'm working more days.

Well, how you been? It's been a week, man. How you doing?

I actually don't remember the last week. It's, it's been that busy.

Wow.

Yeah. So we've just been— yeah, I mean, really, this— I've been waiting to do this show so I can have a break.

Well, here's your break.

I'm ready for it. Yeah.

Well, cool. Let's, let's get into it. Let's, let's bring Jason in and talk to him about pools.

Yeah, well, let's get started with you. So we talked a little bit before the show. You've been doing this for a while.

Yeah, over 25 years.

Yeah, so this is not like a new venture or anything.

No, no. Well, being in business for ourselves is relatively new, 8 years. But yeah, in the pool business for over 25 years in different levels, capacities, all that. But it's funny. Pool maintenance, a lot like what you said with just air filters.

Yeah.

You know, something as simple as that.

Oh, okay. So Jason, pools have filters? Again, I don't know anything about pools.

Yes, they do. They all have filters. If they don't have a filter, it's not a pool. Then you're talking about a pond or a lagoon or something like that. So yeah, you have to have a filter. Good place to start.

All right. I can build a good swamp. Yeah.

Yeah.

Hey, live in Houston long enough, you'll have a swamp.

Yeah, naturally occurring. I'm just good at it. I mean, there you go. Try the hose on.

Well, I'm curious, Jason. I, like I said, I've never owned a pool. Honestly don't have a huge desire to own a pool, but a lot of people do. So what types of things would someone who's looking to buy a new home It's got a pool with it. What types of things should they know going into that type of purchase?

You'd probably want to have it inspected to double-check all those things that could become problems and just see what you're buying. Like your home, you get your home inspected, same with the pool.

Is that a separate inspection?

It would be. people that do just that. They just pool inspections. They don't even so much as touch a— they won't pick up a tool to do a repair, but they will, and they refer to guys like me, and then we're happy to take those kind of calls because they usually come with a, hey, this is the guy you want. And so, but yeah, you'd want to check. Well, all you got to do really is look at it first. What are you walking into? Clean, clear, and blue. That's the way we describe it. That's what you want. So if it's not clean, clear, and blue already, you know something's not right.

So, right.

But yeah, filter is probably the single— what's the— it's your biggest piece of equipment usually, but that's the single most important thing for that thing to stay running.

So would it be worth it for like a homeowner to call someone like you and be like, look, how much is it going to cost me to maintain this thing? I mean, because I imagine different pools require different levels of maintenance.

People that have owned pools know that and they're already calling somebody like me. Hey, what do you charge? What does that include? What does that not include? That kind of thing. People that don't know may think, well, how, you know, okay, there's a Leslie's right down the street.

Sure.

You know, how hard can it be? It's really not that hard. One key thing is you just don't skip. You can't skip it. And that's why we're in business. It's a weekly service that we provide going over these basic steps. And if you skip it, well, now it's not just a step. Now it's an issue or a problem. And now we got to start doing different things. And that's when you start spending more money. And, uh, Occasionally I'll walk into a Leslie's and I look at the people's— I get the looks on people's faces. You see that they're struggling. They don't have to say anything. You just see, you know, they don't know what to do and they're just— And a place like that is great. You know, they're correct, but they're selling

product. They're— you're not out in the field. They're not— they can't see your pool. They can just tell you, here are the ABCs to water chemistry and what you need to do. It doesn't always work exactly like that.

So, uh, and so, so people bring you in basically because, I mean, you got to stay on top of it.

Yes.

And most people just don't have the time to like be out there with their pool every week cleaning. I mean, doing what—

That's it.

Yeah.

That's it. Uh, busy working, you know, traveling, whatever it is. Or if they do have the time. They don't want to hassle with that. They, they want— they had— they got it to enjoy it.

Yeah.

To play with the kids, to get out there and swim and volleyball, whatever, or just hang out by the pool in the evenings.

You know, they—

I don't, I don't want to take the 10 minutes a day, 30, 45 minutes a week, whatever it is that it requires to do. I want to enjoy it. I want to put my feet in it. I want to, you know, splat, lay on a float. You know, whatever. But, uh, and I think it's sort of a luxury industry, the pool maintenance. Yeah, I mean, it's, uh, yeah, it just occurred to me, go— you get up in the air in a plane in Houston here and look down and you can see, I mean, they're everywhere.

Yes.

They're everywhere.

Yeah, definitely. Well, and so, so you, you hit on a question that I had was how, if I were to do this myself, Which again, I don't really know what I'm doing, but if I were to do it myself, I figured it out. I mean, I'm a researcher, I can figure these things out. You're telling me it's going to take somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes a week of my time to maintain my pool to a healthy level. That is assuming that nothing breaks. That's just regular weekly maintenance.

Correct. That's right. That's a good average. And you get to know it, and you know its quirks. You even know what to listen for. You know when things are operating the way they should be, what it sounds like. Hey, that's not a normal sound. You know, what's that little— I hear it's humming a little bit louder than it normally does. Or what's that gurgling I hear? You know, begin to recognize things like that.

Kevin, you sound like pool equipment.

Thanks a lot.

I think Jason knows what's wrong with you, man.

Yeah, yeah, we can fix it.

I need to chat with them then.

Yeah. Clean my system.

Give you a backwash.

So do you need like a degree in chemistry in order to— I mean, because like, obviously, I mean, chemicals are a big deal now, right? You don't— there's things you don't want to touch, there's things you don't want to handle, there's, you know, all sorts of rules. And, you know, we talk about chlorine's like a big one, right? I mean, like, and that's, that's a dangerous chemical.

Yeah, it really is. And you always keep that in mind when you're working with the chemicals. And you don't need a degree or anything like that, but courses, there are different courses that you can take, certifications, things like that, to be familiar. You don't go mixing stuff, you know, and there's warning labels on all that stuff. But storing that stuff is pretty important.

Right.

You want to have it in a good, safe, dry place. You don't want kids getting at it. So with somebody like us, you don't have to worry about that.

You bring it with you?

We take— it's on our trucks. We don't leave it at your house. So that's a plus too, because it can be— if the stuff gets wet, the fumes alone could kill you, I guess, if you got a big enough whiff of that.

Sure.

It could really hurt you. So yeah, you want to be careful. But yeah, with a little bit of research, a little bit of Back when I got into this, they'd give you a little pamphlet that would— basic ABCs of water chemistry. Uh, and then so there's a lot of variables, but, uh, you know, it's, it's basic stuff, just learning how to use it.

Yeah, so, um, I mean, I'm— again, I'm hitting on this time thing. So 30-45 minutes to take care of it per week, but then I gotta go buy the stuff, and I'm probably gonna be the one standing in front of the, you know, the aisle looking at at the different things going, okay, I don't know which of these things I need. So, so that's going to take time out of my day and everything as well. Plus not having to store it. All of these things, it does convince me that I probably would need a routine maintenance person to come out. So on that, what are some basic services that you offer? Um, maybe some basic service, moderate services, more advanced services.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, do you fix problems or do you just do regular maintenance? So Kind of give me a rundown of what your company does.

We do it all when it comes to pool maintenance, repair. There's always something going to go wrong with the pool, with the equipment. There are things, little things that happen over time as they age, the pumps age, and little leaks that can turn into big leaks, things like that. Just about everything, anything you can do. Replacing pool lights in your pool, putting in a heater for your pool, all kinds of different things. But the basic, the bread and butter for us is the weekly maintenance, which is really as easy as this: brushing your pool with a nylon bristle brush.

Yeah.

Regularly brushing, just keeping the trash out of it. That's a big— that's what we do.

Mm-hmm.

Adjusting the chemicals, keeping the right amount of this or that, chlorine, muriatic acid, whatever. You try to keep that water as close to ideal balance as you can get. That's what we do. And that can be a challenge if it's something you're just doing from time to time. We do it all day, just about every day. And after 25+ years, I'm still not an expert. I'm as close to an expert as you can get.

Yeah.

But I'm still learning all the time about the different reactions to water. Because there's different things in different water. This pool may not have the stuff that's getting in over here. This one gets a lot of swimming, this one doesn't get that much swimming. So we handle a lot.

Well, I was going to ask, because there's even different kinds of pools now, right? I mean, you have traditional chlorine pool and then you have your saltwater pools. And aren't they doing hybrids now where they're—

Well, yeah, but even the salt pools occasionally require some of the regular chlorine. So I'd call that a hybrid, I guess. But yeah, it's usually one or the other.

And both come with like their own unique set of issues because you take care of both, right?

Sure. Yes. Yeah, we do. And it's, uh, as far as the, uh, the, the regular maintenance, keeping the track, that's all the same. But the water chemistry is going to be a little bit different. Salt, uh, well, things, things kind of— they're, they're different with salt. It's a more pleasant swim, they say.

A little bit more buoyant.

Yeah, it's nice on your skin. It's got a better feel. You feel, you don't feel maybe so itchy or, you know, tight.

Dried out.

Dried out, there you go, from the chlorine. So it's a little bit different, but that chemistry's gonna be different because of the way the salt is, What's the word I'm looking for? Transferred into chlorine.

Okay, yeah.

Yeah, so there's a— that process usually causes a spike in your pH level, so that requires other things that are added. So you're adding different things.

You're still having to balance the water.

Yeah, exactly. It's still balancing the water, but it's done in different ways with the salt pool as opposed to chlorine pools.

So it's a little bit of a misnomer then to say, I've got a saltwater pool, I don't use any chemicals.

Yes.

Because, well, first of all, salt is a chemical, right? Okay, that, that we understand that. However, um, there's a lot of instances where other chemicals have to be introduced.

Sure, yes, most definitely.

Okay.

Usually, uh, different types of acid for different things. pH levels running high require muriatic acid to, to try to keep that lower. To try to— you're trying to achieve the same pH level as the human eye is what you're trying to do. So that you— that's just what you try to achieve. That's what they call ideal level. So it doesn't, you know, you don't get the itchy, burning eyes.

Mm-hmm.

But anyway, that's where that ideal level came from. But yeah, you lose a lot with salt. And by lose a lot, I mean some of those chemicals can evaporate from the water and other things happen. have to be added to, to keep that in place. So it's different, uh, and just, you know, adding the salt, you know, big old bags of salt have to be added for that.

So, uh, might as well live up north where you got to salt the streets, right?

But, uh, no, we handle them both and they're both, uh, they can both be great and they can both have their different problems, you know.

Yeah, I found that people that have one or the other tend to feel pretty strongly about it.

I mean, Yeah, yeah, I, uh, I've kind of got my own opinions on that.

Uh, you feel like sharing any of those?

Well, you know, I— it's not my money I'm playing with out there. So those salt cells that, uh, that generate the salt into chlorine— I'm still looking for that word, but, uh—

Is it ionize? Is that what it does?

Well, that's another, uh, electrolysis, uh, I should have done some homework before I came in, get these terms down.

You've been done with homework for a long time.

Yeah, right.

You don't need to do that. But, uh, no, uh, yeah, those cells, that, that piece of equipment, that's a, that's an expensive piece of equipment. And when they're gone, they're gone. When they stop working, they stop working.

It's not like, it's not like it's not gonna wear out. I mean, like, it has a lifespan and it's just gonna go when it goes.

That's right. And, uh, at that point There's your hybrid pool. Until we get that thing fixed, we're a chlorine pool. So if you want to get that fixed, it's X amount of money and we got to start over with a new one. And here's the warranty for that and hopefully we'll get the life we're supposed to get out of it, but they don't last forever. So it's—

Have you had somebody convert to a chlorine pool because that piece of equipment went out?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it happens a lot. It happens a lot. Maybe after 2 or 3 salt cells. Yeah, no more. Let's just—

So like ballpark that for me. What is somebody looking at for like—

At least $1,000 on the cell itself.

So looking at $1,000, but at most—

$2,000 at most.

$2,000, okay.

I think for the different—

That's a good chunk of change for a homeowner.

Yeah, I mean, every few years, I don't— I mean, you're supposed to get get about 5 years out of the thing, supposed to, uh, and some will go longer than that. But, uh, you know, it's hard to tell. And that's part of what we do too. We keep those things clean so that you get as much life as you can.

So like, that's an additional piece of maintenance that you—

Well, you know, for some companies it is. We— that's part of our service, cleaning those things.

Sure.

And they tell you, a lot of them will— they'll have a little, uh, digital readout or something on your screen, or the different lights will change colors to tell you, hey, it's time to clean me.

Sure, yeah.

So, you know, so it's pretty simple. Some companies, you know, they're all different rates, and certain companies may include a filter service. We don't include that. That's an additional cost, but the salt cells, that's part of it. So little differences in the companies, but We're right there. We're comparable.

So, well, I guess kind of to change pace a little bit. So like, what, maybe what's something that you wish more potential customers knew about pools? I mean, what is something that you see that maybe like new customers get frustrated with that you wish more people were like aware of? Like what, like maybe like a piece of pool maintenance that like people are like, unexpectedly brought upon? I mean, I mean, I would imagine if I had a saltwater pool, I wouldn't know that like those cells have a lifespan. And like, if I got tagged with like $1,000, like, if you want to keep your saltwater pool, you got to replace the cell for $1,000. I mean, I can imagine that being something that's somewhat of a surprise.

So like, what's something that you wish more customers knew about your business?

Right off the top of my head, like water level. your normal water level in your pool. It's so important and it's something that can go overlooked, especially if you leave town or something like that. And if you start to pull air, if there's not enough water and those pumps start pulling air, you're doing some damage. You're already right away, you're starting to do some damage. They get heated up, the internals begin to warp, melt. So, and then your pump itself, it can cause— just not having your water at the right level can really cause some big problems. And that's a simple thing you can do. Some pools, a lot of the newer ones, are equipped with an autofill, kind of like your toilet bowl.

Yeah, like a float kind of thing.

Yeah, like a float that kind of levels your water on your own, which is nice. But otherwise, you have your fill line or your garden hose or whatever to keep your water level where it's supposed to be. So just knowing your your own pool, what your normal water level is for your pool is so important and something that goes overlooked and can cost you a lot of money.

Sure. Do you find that a lot of people want to try to maintain their own pool and then something breaks and then they're like, I want you to take this over for me?

I find a lot of people don't want to do it. There are some that do and I'm happy to help those people too, but it takes, it seems like it takes a A certain—

Personality?

Personality that wants to do it. You have to want to do it. There are certain people that find it very relaxing to go out there and scrub on it and, you know, add the chemical and backwash the filter and that kind of thing. And those are the people that are usually pretty good at it, that enjoy getting out there and spending time, you know, fine-tuning it and detailing it.

People that like mowing their own lawn.

Yeah, there you go.

Freaks.

But yeah, most people, especially people that have been around, have had pools or owned pools before, yeah, they don't usually want to do it. Or it becomes— I've heard so many people say, I'm ready to fill this thing in. Can you fill it in? We can fill them in too if you want to do that, but that's not cheap either.

I actually had a neighbor one time do that.

Yeah?

Yeah.

There's a right way and a wrong way to do that though.

That's what they're doing.

Absolutely. Yeah. I saw one that was done right and the other one was basically a mosquito marsh.

Yeah, that's it. So, wow. Wow.

Yeah, it can go really, really, really poorly.

Yeah. What else, um, what else have we not hit on that you think might be interesting? Maybe we've hit on everything, uh, but is there anything else that, that you'd like to talk about?

Well, um, yeah, uh, I'll tell you what, I got, I got a question.

Okay, let's go.

You can think about that.

Sure.

So, what for you? So like there's traditional pools, right? I mean, like you basically got your pump and your filter and circulates the water and all that.

That's right, yeah.

In your opinion, okay, best accessory to the pool, right? So there's, there's obviously like additional equipment and things like that. I've seen all kinds of different things. Yeah, chillers, heaters, waterfalls, circulators, robots. Yeah, I mean, all kinds of stuff.

Okay, there you go. You hit on it. And they've almost become a standard, but an automatic pool cleaner, our job would be twice as hard if it weren't for these automatic pool cleaners that are out there now. And most pools are, like I said, it's almost a standard. You don't have to get—

We're not taking a political position on AI here, right?

And those things require maintenance. A lot of our job is just keeping those things running right, working on those. We do all the repairs on those kind of things.

Stupid robots.

Yeah, yeah. But they do cover stuff because, you know, when I first got into this, oh, however, what was it? I guess it would've been—

You don't remember? You told us at the beginning it was 25 years ago.

Yeah, well, so you do the math. I'm not, you know, what year was that?

Back in the '70s.

That's funny.

Well, I did see a lot of the leftover equipment when I first got into this from the '70s and before that. They used to color those filters. I remember seeing some from the '60s that were blue, and then they went to green, and then it was brown, and that's how you could identify what decade they were installed. But there were some, and it's been 20 years since I've seen them, but the old kick valves where you'd use your foot to adjust that filter so that it could be backwashed. That's the way you clean. And a lot of the old brass parts— the reason I bring that up, the old equipment you used to have to haul around to clean pools, to service them, some of it was really heavy and bulky and

it even required tools just to get it together to hook up. And you'd spend 20 minutes just hooking your stuff up to get ready to clean your pool.

Yeah.

And I think it used to be an all-day thing to service pools. And as it's gone on—

You mean like all day to service like one pool?

Yeah, exactly.

Oh my gosh.

You almost had somebody there, you know, pools really used to be an exclusive high-end thing, you know, a long time ago. It was really the very, very wealthy that had pools and they might have somebody that, you know, lived on, you know, that took care of the pool, the yard and everything. And it was a big job, but— You can say the word pool boy. Pool boy, yeah, pool boy. Yeah, that's funny. I still get called that now and then. But yeah, the introduction of that, the Polaris, and there are different variations of that, but that auto pool cleaner, that was revolutionary in the pool industry.

Mm-hmm.

However, 40 years ago, whatever it was, I think it Something like that. But they really made a huge difference. And you still need— I mean, they don't do it all, but they, they make a big—

Are they, are they kind of like the number one? I mean, like, is— are they the only one that's—

Oh no, there's, there's a lot of them, but that, that's the one that I rely on the most, the Polaris. I'll go ahead, the Polaris 280 model, the workhorse. That's okay. The other ones, there's some fancy ones and some, you know, cool looking, fast, this or that, but that, that old 280 is still the The top of the line in my book.

Yeah, the Homeowner Show does not make any official endorsements, but Jason can do what he wants.

Right.

That's right.

Now, if Polaris wants to contact us, yeah, we'd be happy to endorse them, but that's different.

Yeah, yeah.

Great company.

The only Polaris I know has 4 wheels on it.

Yeah, yeah.

Goes up and down mountains really well.

No, these are the pool scooters, the ones that run— you've seen them. If you've been by anybody's backyard pool, you've seen those little things that scoot around.

Oh, I've seen them.

They got a long hose.

Yeah, yeah, I've seen them.

Yeah, they catch you up the backside when you're walking.

Yeah, so do you, do you also service like pool heaters and things like that?

Yes, yes we do, and, and a lot of times it ends up becoming a replacement. When you have problems with your heater, it's probably because you're not using it enough. Those things need to be run Periodically to stay in good shape.

Sure.

So usually you have a hot tub with a heater.

Okay.

And at first on these, some of the new pools or new homeowners to a new pool or a new homeowner to a pool, it's a new thing. It's neat at first. You're using that hot tub once a week. You look forward to it. And then after a year or two, you know, it kind of loses some of its appeal and you stop using it, and then the heater doesn't get turned on and things begin to corrode on the inside of that. And it becomes a process to find out the problems, and depending on how long it's been and how bad things get in there, you start to weigh the cost of the different parts inside of a heater against a new heater. And, you know, you want it— There's

another thing you want to take care of. Run that There's a tip for you. Run that heater.

Even if you're not using it.

Even if you're not gonna use it, turn that thing on once a month, you know, or let the kids sit in the, you know, do a hot tub. Get out there, enjoy it. That's what they're for.

You bought it.

Yeah, exactly.

You bought it.

That's like my kids' favorite thing, man. They don't wanna— it's not necessarily because of the heat. They just wanna make a giant whirlpool so they can suck the smallest one down in the middle.

Yeah, well, it's the kids are the ones that seem to enjoy them the most. They get all the fun out of it. I got a few customers that are regular swimmers. That's their exercise. It is great exercise too. There's another thing. Get out there. That's what I'm here to say. Get out there and enjoy your pool. That's what it's for.

Yeah, if you're going to have that luxury, enjoy it.

Exactly, exactly. There are some that— I remember when I first got into this, a pool that we serviced that The whole time I serviced that pool, nobody had ever— it was built for looks. They did a lot of entertaining in the big— I remember it may have been a congressman or something in the inner Houston area, but yeah, it never— it was never— nobody ever went into that pool ever the whole time we were there. And before, because it was brand new, so it was never used. I think the dogs would drink out of it.

So my taxes paid his pool cleaning.

I don't know that it was a congressman.

Oh, okay.

We're not naming names. Some hotshot. There you go.

Well, we'll look into that. We'll get our investigative team. Kevin, can you, uh, can you call the investigative team and get them done? We want to find out.

Absolutely not.

It's not in the budget?

No.

I'll pull up the records.

Just like someone needs to hire Jason, I would have to hire that out. Not gonna happen.

So, uh, so something I've seen that I think is probably pretty unique unique to the South or maybe even just Texas, but like pool chillers, right?

Have you seen these?

Yeah, I've seen a few.

Have you worked on any of those?

Uh, I have not. I've seen them and, uh, they honestly scare me a little. Yeah, they're like, they're big, they're huge, bulky. Uh, I, I've told people, you know, if, if the, the warm water is an issue, go buy you some ice bags and throw them in there and do it that way. I don't, you know, I know they work a lot like a heater, uh, But I just never, I don't have the experience on those. Now I have guys that work with us that do, that we, if something were to go wrong, but I've only seen 3 ever on pools that we've serviced.

Sure, yeah.

And the water does get warm. Yeah, I mean the water can get up to like 90 degrees.

Yeah, it can get towards— Or even hotter here.

Yeah.

That's unpleasant. I mean, essentially a shrimp at that point.

Yeah, the ones in direct sunlight. So yeah, they do make chillers and Yeah, you've motivated me now to learn more about them and get more familiar with them, do a little more research.

I don't think they're very common. No, they're not. I mean, they seem like they'd be pretty expensive.

Yeah, they are. A heater's expensive, so a lot of those things are expensive. So that's why, well, I don't know.

So on the heaters, like what different kinds are, I mean, 'cause like there's what?

Gas, natural gas, propane.

Okay.

The electric heaters are more for the, Small hot tubs, fiberglass hot tubs, things like that.

But, uh, you're talking about like the ones like not part of like an in-ground pool but like above ground?

Right, yeah, on the porch kind of thing. Most of the pools, the in-ground pools, they're going to have a gas heater.

The ones that have a hot tub, yeah, they're just more efficient and cost-effective, right?

Uh, you know, they do make solar heaters. That's something I think, uh, we were talking about. That's what I have, right?

Yeah.

And, uh, it's not great, but it— I mean, like, there's hot water Right.

Yeah, it can, it could take the chill off of it. Yeah. You gotta have a lot of room, you know, for those solar panels. And I guess, do those break? I don't know. Do the panels?

Yeah, I have had it break. I mean, it was, and I just basically had to replace it. I mean, but like, I mean, the one that we have, I think it cost us like $125. Okay. Not, not including like all the plumbing and things like that. But I mean, it's, I want to say it's like 20 feet long. Maybe 5 feet wide. And it's just like little tubes, black plastic that run the water through.

Right.

So I mean, I think the way it's supposed to work is you trap the water up there, let it get really hot, and then you dump it in the pool and repeat that several times and it heats it back up. So, but you know, as always, my house is weird.

But you have a pool.

That's right.

Yes, I do have a pool. Kind of.

Yeah, well, it's a pool.

It's a pool. I mean, you can swim in it.

Yeah, it's filtered.

It is. Yeah, it's got all the workings.

Nice.

It's not a pond or a swamp, as Jason said earlier. It's got a filter.

We could turn that corner real quick though.

Yeah, and that's any pool. It doesn't take long. A month. of not touching it, yeah, you, here in Houston, you can have a swamp on your hands.

So here's kind of a weird one. Have you ever been called into like an HOA situation where like house has been abandoned, there's a pool?

Oh yeah.

Hey Jason, we need you to come in.

That used to be my specialty.

That must be a fun ticket to write.

Well, it's a project. Yeah, you pack your lunch. You're gonna be there a while. But why I like them, well, they're fun. You get to see great before and afters.

Oh yeah.

Things like that. And sometimes they turn around quick and other times it takes a while. So you want to look at what you're working with and make sure it's operating. Hey, can we do this? I'm in the middle of one right now and it's going a little slower than we planned. But I'll tell you, the hurricane last year, Hurricane Harvey, we had a lot of those that got— these were pools that in one day were looking great. And the next day, you know, that was, it was such a hard time here.

It's tragic.

Yeah, it really, and now up, you know, South Carolina dealing with that stuff too, you know, just—

I mean, imagine that was tough on your business too, right?

Well, it was.

Yeah.

I mean, we, looking back, it doesn't even seem, we did not stop. It just, you know, there was, we had, It was a good handful of customers that were flooded out completely. And of course, the pool, that's just number 500 on the list.

Yeah, down at the bottom of the list.

But it's still something that has to be done. And so we felt like maybe we could give them a little bit of hope. Let's get your pool in shape. And because everybody was outside in the backyard, you got neighbors helping everybody, your family, everybody coming, friends coming to help everybody. So everybody's outside. And, you know, they're, well, how are you going to fix this? Well, we're going to try. We're going to shoot it with this and spray it with that and pump out this and see what we get. And, you know, I was a hero in a lot of these cases. You come out there and you get this thing turned around in a few days.

And, you know, people were so happy just for that little thing.

It's a piece of normalcy, right?

Yeah, I guess so.

Yeah.

Yeah. Uh, you got your pool back. You didn't have your house back. Your house is, you know, it was, it was really, it was sad. But it was, you know, y'all were around here, y'all saw that. It was so cool to see people, you know, coming and helping. And, uh, it was neat to be a part of that in just the pool side of it. Yeah, I didn't— I wasn't able to do a lot of the helping that, uh, you know, you'd have crews, teams of people like our church, for instance. They, you know, had groups that were going out to help. I wasn't able to be a part of that. We were so busy. It was a nonstop

thing. But I was there for that and got to help out. And this neighbor needed something. Well, here's what we're doing over here. You know, maybe we can try this.

Yeah.

We bought a lot of, it was called Revive. There's a product called Revive out there. There's another, somebody look for, but it's a, It's called a flocculant. Uh, like, I don't know if you've heard of alum. It's like, it's like alum. It, it grabs the suspended debris in that water, everything, and it just sinks it. So now you got clear water, you got a layer of sludge down at the bottom. And that's, that was our secret weapon, uh, during the—

So you sink it to the bottom so you can get it up with it?

Yeah, exactly.

Okay, I got you.

Then we figure out how to pump it out.

Yeah.

But, and in the hurricane thing, it was, you had so many, the homes were submerged, the pool equipment was submerged, so you couldn't even operate the pool equipment. So we were, we went into a different mode during that time. That was a unique time. A lot of the guys did, you know, seeing the different other pool companies out there at the supply, everybody's doing this. We're all in the same boat, you know. Hey, what'd you do here? What'd you try there? So we learned a lot. We learned on the fly on those kind of things, but I had some experience with the dirty pools. One of the pool companies I worked for way back when, that was— I handled the brand new construction pools and the

pools that had been neglected, like you said, for people would move out and the pool got left. They'd throw those on me.

Yeah.

So that was my area of expertise back then was the new ones, the brand new and the neglected. And so it gave you a good, you know, got a good balance.

I know what they're supposed to look like.

Yeah.

So when I get them like this, I know where I'm supposed to be.

But I enjoyed that part of it, seeing them turn around and, you know, the process.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

So what's like the, what's the coolest pool you've ever worked on?

Uh, you know, you don't have to name any names. No, I don't. Uh, yeah, I do. I wouldn't even remember the name, and there's been so many. I mean, there's been so many. Uh, but the one that stands out, and I believe that building is still there, it's Memorial and Westcott. I think the building is called something different now, but it, it was the second to top level of the high-rise, uh, And it was really a simple lap pool, but it was all tile. But just the fact that it was up there and overlooking the Houston skyline, downtown Houston skyline, it was just a neat experience to get to go up there once a week and take care and learn the little tricks of how to take care of that specific pool. Because they're

all, I tell people, they're all the same, but they're all different too. They all have their own little quirks and their own little, like your pool's gonna, you know, it requires this or that, whereas this pool over here doesn't need that, but it needs— you better do this, you know.

You can be honest, my pool's a jerk.

Well, I don't have— I only saw it tonight.

And that's all it took.

No, it wasn't that. Believe me, if that's as bad as it is—

He already said he'd work on any pool.

Did I say that? Did those words—

We need to call your wife. Amy, he said he can work on any pool.

That's right. No, I apologize. But, well, listen, I think we need to probably wrap up a little bit here. What— how can people contact you if they want to get in contact with you specifically to come and do some maintenance on their pool?

Yeah, well, we're on Facebook, Endless Summer Pools. We're out of Magnolia, Texas. And the website is in development. It's gonna be nice once we get it all finished and get that. So somebody—

It'll be a beautiful link up on Facebook.

Yes, that's right, that's right. And very soon, very soon. But it's Endless Summer Pools. Look on Facebook. We're out of Magnolia, Texas. And you can always call us, the old telephone, 832-643-2415. And my beautiful bride Amy will answer the phone. Sometimes I'm I'm answering the phone, but usually you get her. And, uh, yeah, that's cool.

We will, um, we'll make sure that we, that we include the Facebook page and your phone number in the show notes. So if you're looking for that, it'll be in the show notes. Great.

And even, I mean, like, people need to call with questions. I mean, like—

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah, yeah. A lot of times they can be answered over the phone, you know. We can, uh, I've talked people through a lot of things where we didn't have to go out. Save me a trip, save yourself some money. And, you know, a lot of times these things are very simple. It's, hey, did you check this?

Do you—

there's your problem. Oh, you know, you think you got a big problem and it's a— you got a stick stuck in your skimmer weir, then it's not allowing the water to flow. There's your— pull out the stick.

Yeah.

Something as simple as that. So anyway, but yeah, we're, we're out there.

Awesome. Yeah.

Fantastic.

Well, I think we know what time it is.

It is time for what is it?

The Final Four.

Final Four.

Is it March already?

I'm sure we're gonna get that a lot.

You know, I think I think our intention here is we're gonna be bigger than that.

So the the Final Four is gonna have nothing on us.

They can only hold on to that for so long before.

Right, right there with it. Yeah, yeah, that's good. It goes together. They go together. Yeah.

So these, these are the same 4 questions that we ask every guest. Uh, Kevin, you wanna, you wanna kick us off?

Yeah, so, uh, the first question here is, what is the must-have tool that you will not leave the shop without?

Hmm, that is an excellent question.

That's why we wrote it.

Yeah, yeah, we thought so too. You know, I could say Kevin had nothing to do with it.

That is, by the way.

All I said was a drill.

Well, it's so hard to say.

I—

there are two. I— it's just one, right?

Just one tool.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You get one.

If you get—

there's so many you don't want to be caught without, but the one that I am grabbing the most often is my good old blue handle channel locks.

Ooh.

Yeah, and I think that's the brand, Channel Lock. And, uh, I've had them forever and, uh, you know, you can—

they—

a lot of the work's done underwater and they hold these little WD-40, they hold up. But yeah, I'm— that's, you know, that's like a— that's like a part of my hand a lot of times. I almost keep it in my back pocket on some of those.

I would imagine you can't do a lot of stuff with what you do without those.

Yeah, yeah, uh, I use them quite a bit. But, uh, yeah, you know, that, that may not be the main, but that's the one I'm— I always seem to grab first. The go-to.

All right.

Like good old channel locks.

All right. So, so tell us a— this is question number 2, by the way. Tell us about a job that you walked away from.

A job that I walked away from.

Yeah. So this is the job that like you get there, or maybe you've agreed to do it. Maybe something even you get into it and you're like, I'm, I'm not dealing with this anymore. Or maybe it's just something that someone said, hey, I need you to do this. And you're going, I'm not doing that. Or maybe it's just something around your house that your wife asked you to do that you said, no, I'm calling someone else, calling in the professional.

A man's got to know his limitations.

That's right.

Yeah.

Um, first you have to be a man.

So, well, yeah.

Yeah.

Uh, I'm not saying anything about you. This is, this is more like, or women.

We're saying nothing about women there.

They've never walked away from a job.

Yeah.

Well, gosh, I've been in the pool business for so long. I've had other jobs. Gosh, it was instilled in me at a young age somehow, just complete the job till it's done, you know. So it's not something I've— I know when I can't handle a task, but I'm thinking back on a summer job in high school where I think I just got tired of getting yelled at by one of those guys that was— and it was a fun job because I was working with a lot of friends. It was a bunch of buddies. It was a friend of a friend's girlfriend's dad kind of thing. And so we're all— so you can imagine it's good, you

know, trouble's good. But, you know, monotonous kind of job, whatever. It was a summer job. And That was the one I walked. I said, you know, I'm done.

What were you doing in that job?

Gosh, it's good. Yeah, if anybody's listening, it was— I was converting the water coolers, like the old water cooler at the office, from the tank water coolers to a filtered water cooler that would hook directly to your water line. So, you were Eliminating the big bottle—

Big goofy tank.

Yeah, the big tank of water, which everyone stole anyways.

But we were—

we would— these things would come shipped to us, uh, with the top open, and then we'd pull this part out, put that part out, put this on top, cap that, plug it up. And so it was an assembly line, and it, it worked great, but it was, uh, you know, we took, uh, you know, Hey, you know, it was about, no, get the stuff out, let's move it. And we were having a lot of fun and that's probably what it was. I think we were having too much fun.

You can't work and have fun.

Yeah, he was interfering in my fun time at work. So it was his fault, it wasn't my fault.

One guy just had to ruin it.

No, but that's the only thing I can think of. But there are plenty. I know, you know, I'm not really a mechanical guy, but being in pools has helped me Become more, you have to, you know, you get, you know, you—

Figure it out, don't you?

But yeah, you know, I don't, I'm not gonna work on electrical stuff. You know, I hire air conditioning, even cars. I'm not really that good at working on cars. Used to be, you know, on the old cars you could kind of do stuff. Anyway, hopefully that answered your questions.

Yeah, well, we got another one.

Okay, what do you got?

Number 3, number 3. So how do you typically wind down at the end of the day? Come in a long day, What's your, what's your mode? What's your primary go-to?

Well, uh, I'm, I'm still trying to find it, but I, I, uh, I like baseball a lot and I, I enjoy listening to the games almost even more than, well, really more than watching. I do watch them on TV. I like the Astros and World Series champs, but, um—

You're not bragging or anything?

Yeah.

Yeah. Had to throw that in, didn't you? Yeah, sure.

Forget all you guys in Atlanta.

But no, I'm in the car a lot, in the truck, in and out of the truck and driving a lot. So I'm, the radio's always on and listening to the games, heading home, listening to the games. That's usually about the time I'm getting home, about the time the games are starting. And sometimes I have to sit on the driveway a little bit longer and, you know, listen to the game before I go in. So.

That's awesome.

That's it. You know, pool talk is another way to wind down. Back in the old days, we're working with the other crews and stuff like that. At the end of the day, we used to sit around there at the shop after, you know, locking the gate up by, you know, before we got in the car to leave to go home. And we'd sit out there and just talk about the day, you know. Hey, what'd you— how'd you deal with that? What happened here? Oh man, you wouldn't believe this. Or so just kind of recapping the day with somebody who knows, you know, what you're talking about, that can relate. Yeah.

Good.

Yeah.

Cool.

All right. So the, the 4th and final question of the final 4, what is the best piece of wisdom someone has given you? Or one of the best pieces of wisdom.

One of the best. Yeah.

If you've got a really good one, you don't have to share it.

I mean, yeah. Uh, well, uh, there have been A few, but I'm gonna go with my dad gave me a book, and it's kind of like a picture book, like sports pictures with different events and the challenges. But the name of the book, simple title, it was called Never Never Quit, and that's what he wrote in there too. You know, title of the book, he wrote Never Quit, Jace. And that's that was good advice. And for anything, you know, don't give up. And whatever it is. So I would say that's—

That is, that's what I tell all my smoker friends.

Well, yeah, maybe. Yeah. Well, I, you know, I don't know. I don't know. It might, it just might kill you.

It just might kill you.

Yeah. You've been going fine. I don't know, but, uh—

Hang in there, buddy.

Yeah. Yeah.

Rehab's for quitters, right? Well, Jason, listen, it's, uh, it's been a pleasure to have you, uh, come and hang out with us for a little bit.

Likewise, this has been great. Thank you, guys.

Yeah, I appreciate you coming in, man. This is awesome.

Well, uh, I think that just about wraps it up. Craig, how can people get a hold of us? How do they listen to this podcast regularly? Where, where all can you find us?

Yeah, so if you haven't yet subscribed to the show, you can find us on Apple's Podcast app. You can also find us on Stitcher and Google Play and any other podcast platform that you are on. You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram. We're we're checking those pretty regular, and you can always email us at the show at info at homeownershow dot com. Kevin, am I am I leaving anything?

We got a website. Yeah, yeah, websites. HomeownersShow.com. You can find a lot of information there.

And, um, you can go there and interact with our own AI.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

Uh, YouTube also. Uh, in fact, uh, we're videoing tonight for the first time. So, uh, we're gonna put that up on YouTube. So if you wanna see what we look like for some reason, then that— no, I wouldn't either. However, it's available on YouTube as well. So, uh, find us there. I think that's gonna do it for tonight's episode of The Homeowner's Show. If you have any questions, feel free to email us. Thanks for listening. We'll catch you next time. See you later. Bye-bye.