 Hey, good afternoon. I'm so glad you guys have joined me today I am here today with Austin Gardner and it is really interesting because he's with GL pools This is a second-generation business. He's been in business for a very long time But one of the things I'm going to have him explain to us is how do we clean our Swimming pools and spas and this is something we've never talked about on this show before Because it's not something that as professional house cleaners. We typically do now We get asked a lot of times by customers if we can like just clean out their pool or if they can show us how to do it Can we do it or can we clean out the hot tubs and things like that and Oftentimes house cleaners wanting to please the customer will say well sure we can do that and the answer is Let's stop and pause for just a second and find out the rest of the story So today we have Austin Gardner here with us today And I'm hoping he's going to explain to us the realities of how to clean out a swimming pool and a spa So please help me welcome Austin Gardner. How are you today? I'm doing fantastic. Thank you very much. How about yourself? I'm very good. Thank you I want to highlight and I'm going to bring you big here on the screen here for a second because I want to Highlight this amazing swimming pool that you have behind your head I think that's one of the coolest pieces of artwork that I've ever seen and for those of you that are listening to the podcast It's a five-piece canvas painting of a swimming pool that is crystal clear And it's right behind Austin's head on the wall and it looks amazing There you go. That is so cool So I'm curious if you will tell us a little bit about GL pools And how did you get into the pool cleaning business because that's a really important business for people with swimming pools Definitely. Yeah, be happy to share that I am second-generation like you mentioned my father. His name is Phil Gardner. He's owned a pool service company here in San Diego for Soon as I could basically walk and had a day off from school. I'd be tagging along with my dad and learning learning the ropes and It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed those those early years Or when I turned 18 I had a chance to start something of my own. So that's what I did And so you are in San Diego So tell me the the scope of work because I see on the truck that you have here That it also says repair and installation service So this is more than just cleaning tell me a little bit about the scope of the business that you do and How that all works for let's say a homeowner or a B&B owner that has a swimming pool or a vacation rental owner or somebody like that We Can in as much expertise as we can So cleaning is like one of the balls. We're juggling but there's so much more we need to be able to do to provide Quality service and problem solving Unfortunately a pool doesn't just stay problem-free forever. So when a problem does arise Like to help them move through the through those steps and to navigate those next steps So there's a lot that can happen and we want to be an advocate for them Make their their equipment last longer. But when it does There are parts and tools and they get right into the repair and diagnosis So if you keep a pool clean, does that prevent some of the stuff that will help or cause a pool to break down or fall apart It's a fantastic question a very informed question Yes, it it does. Yeah, you can prevent a lot of these issues quite often. We we find Issues pair a lot of times it comes back to a service related issue where we may have low flow, you know pump basket got clogged with leaves Well, that's you know a cleaning issue really that basket should be emptied regularly. It should be inspected weekly That's what our service technicians are trying And to do comes out the pump. Well now you're talking about a multi-thousand dollar repair So it's one of those things where you can step over dollars to save dimes That expression sticks in my mind that if you don't pay for professional services or prioritize these maintenance tasks You end up with much more expensive So then my my question is if you are um Not able to clean your pool on a regular basis like I don't know Let's say that you get super busy and you're not able to clean is it possible that then you would Call a service and have a service come on a regular maintenance basis. So it takes that off your plate Yes, absolutely. And i'm not ashamed to even admit this but I do that for my own pool at home I use our company gl pools to service my pool. I certainly know how but I work full time in this company Do not have to go home and continue working When I get home, I want to spend time with my kids. I've got two young goddess That's precious time before they go to bed. So it offers me the opportunity to do that so it's a way to buy back your time And highly recommend that for homeowners who don't have the time to master this craft it is like To preserve not only the equipment and the the plaster and the materials But the health and the wellness and the enjoyment and those things really really matter so it's about quality of life and helping our clients to Enjoy what they've worked so hard to to put together for their backyard Well, and I know that there are a lot of people who have Entertainment sessions they invite friends over they have parties they have and the backyard is a really big area of entertainment And so making sure that you have a crystal clear pool Is of high priority when you're going to be entertaining and especially now that we see a lot of people getting ready for spring and summer And getting ready for the pools Is there something we do to clean our pools? On off season like right now our pools right now in north caroline are not quite open yet We're like getting ready to open them Is there cleaning and stuff that we should be doing in advance and getting it ready for the the opening of the summer Definitely and there are so many different varieties of answers here because of the the locality So the location matters tremendously in san diego. We don't even have pool clothes There are some seasonal options to reduce the service and to save some money But it's still a weekly visit everything we do is a weekly visit in san diego. We are borderline swim season all year long You know a great part of living here, but that is part of the downside is that pool So we need to make sure that they're maintained all year long As far as winterizing there, obviously there's there's different things for different areas, but You know making sure that that's done on schedule putting it on a calendar is one of those big things for winterizing It needs to be circulating, but you did it a month late. Well that can cost you some time and some money I know that in north caroline and we have a lot of pollen at this time of the year And so if your cover is off your pool, we call them whirly twirlies because The leaves as they start to come on the trees There are these trees that have like little whirly twirlies that come down and they just coat the ground I mean the ground is completely coated and you can't literally take off your your cover until The whirly twirlies have been blown away and it's like another two weeks down the road And then the bee pollen has kind of subsided. Otherwise, you're going to have all kinds of ick and crap inside your pool Oh, absolutely. Yeah, we do have pollen issues here, too at whirly twirlies is a new My My language, but we do have pollen issues, you know, those things are high in organic content and High in high in phosphates and things like that. So they even influence the water chemistry They certainly influence the look and the tile So there's a little cleaning tips and tricks that you can do that help to reduce that or make that And so what would you recommend if I were a homeowner and I had whirly twirlies and I had icky icky content as you say organic content inside my swimming pool And I was I was wanting to get it completely clean I went to your website and I pulled out a picture and this was a before picture You have some before and after pictures that are amazing for my favorite But you have a picture here That if I had a swimming pool like that, I mean I would run for dear life It's got all kinds of just ick ick to it. I mean like what do you call this when you see a pool like this? What do you what do you do? So, I mean it looks inviting right you want to invite all your friends and family over to swim Yeah, it's we call this a green to clean. But this is uh, this is the step one You know, they these are very intimidating typically for the homeowner Or for folks who haven't had the experience of turning turning this Or as much Because we're confident that even when we see this we we know that there's a code to break that will turn this into a crystal clean pool There's some things we need to figure out how to increase that flow and to increase filtration and get to the bottom of why this happened in the first place At times you do need to refresh that water if the water is so critically old or mistreated, but most Our cleaning practices on an aggressive schedule coming once or twice a day for three days We can turn them around really quickly at times. We've had somebody with a pool like this that says I was hoping that could swim this week And you know, we have been able to turn it around and that sort of abbreviated timeline It is possible if if you can get down to the bottom why it's happening Well, um, I saw the after picture and I would like to share that if I might This is the after picture of this pool right here. It's shot from a different angle You've got the the diving board right here and then over here you have the diving board over here Which is the corner right here in the picture right This is the same pool and I'm really intrigued at how Number one and maybe you can share the insight on this for us. How did a pool get in this situation in the first place? I believe this was one that I was on site for personally, but the The standard way this happens is through Well, there's a few different ways The one common story is it just didn't make it on the calendar to take care of this pool And once it starts to slip and starts to get out of control It can escalate really quickly and if you don't know what you're looking for You'll miss some of those signs until it's kind of in the too late phase That was probably the number one reason that this started to happen It wasn't something that was on someone's calendar It would two or three years later that filter cannot take any more material So a pool filter has a square Their footage is just packed with material It's like trying to push water through a brick wall You're just not getting any water movement through there And you're not getting any additional bacteria or contaminants removed So in this situation as soon as we clean the filter we were off and running Obviously we had to address the chemistry Because we need to kill that bacteria and kill that algae. So we had to shock that pool But if I recall correctly, this did not use on a standard pool So no magic chemical needed just trying to oxidize and eliminate that bacteria and that algae And give it non-stop filtration for a few days Now you talk about water chemistry for those of us that don't have a swimming pool And this is a new concept to us. What is water chemistry? And how does that affect the cleaning process or the the use of your swimming pool? Right, it's the most important part. I would say of what we have going on with these pools Because not only is it Something you can't see directly it takes some expertise to train and to to test these things and to Influence by that materials that you've spent tens of thousands of dollars on you know pebble or plaster materials They're highly affected by water chemistry So corrosive water that's stripping away eating away at materials or scaling water that's depositing calcium scale those things And we have seen that before Where mismanagement and that even happens sometimes? through I would say air quotes professionals, but maybe less trained less To testing and knowing the things that need to be tested weekly and monthly And logging those things so that you can track trends and understand why those things are happening We're testing chlorine, you know free and total chlorine pH total alkalinity Calcium hardness sinuric acid total dissolved solids salinity a number of other things. So we're testing many things constantly through the To having medical records is understanding what's happening underneath in the why behind what we're seeing play out Well, I was going to ask the question and this comes up to me a lot I get asked a lot in the cleaning business Can a house cleaner jump in and also clean someone's pool like oh, hey By the way while you're cleaning the house Can you step outside and clean the patio and clean the pool as well? And as house cleaners we typically don't do that And you just mentioned a whole bunch of things that would suggest the reasons why from the alkalinity to that the acids and all the different uh technology that you used can you share with us some of the reasons why this is a specialized industry that People outside their league like I say stay in your own lane people outside their league should not be attempting this at someone else's house absolutely, uh, it's an important question and uh, I think it's important to be able to say no We get asked to do things that are Somebody wants us to start breaking up concrete. We're going to partner them with the right person who has the license and the experience to do that That's not us. We want to stay in our lane as well um, and specifically here for the liability aspect This is a body of water that swimmers bathers. They're they're going to be in this body of water That alone increases some liability Not only that those materials we just talked about if somebody Put themselves in a position where maybe they damaged some thousands of dollars of equipment or tens of thousands of dollars in materials That starts to become a very hard to navigate situation. So chemistry knowledge is is huge. It's a Something they can affect the health and wellness of human beings. So it's important that it's done with extra And it's not that it's impossible. It just takes dedication and learning and a professional will have done that And now you mentioned a few and thank you for Explaining that because it's easy then for a house cleaner for example to say no, that's not something that we do also, can we talk about for a second the The possibility I know that there are a lot of vacation rental owners that expect the house cleaner is going to come And even though there are a lot of things that a house cleaner has to do On a vacation rental turn that they don't do on a normal cleaning That does not include pools and I'll back up for just a second on a regular clean We don't open people's drawers. We don't open closets. We don't go through people's stuff For example, but on an Airbnb clean we might we got to open up the bed stand and look inside and make some Sure that somebody didn't leave a charger We got to make sure that people didn't leave clothes in the closet Or that they didn't leave something behind that we then have to ship to them So there are things that we do not because we're spying or we're snooping But because the scope of the work has changed However, and we do laundry and stuff like that that we typically don't do on a regular on a regular cleaning job Because we're washing the bedding in the linens and things like that The scope of work is different but that does not include hot tubs and swimming pools and spas and saunas and things like that Can you address to us the reasons why? Yes for the similar reasons to what we just described there, but um, you know, they're As a we do provide service for airbnbs. They have that high turnover rate high demand. It is a business So it's not the same for us even as treating it like a standard residential. It needs to be treated more similar to a true commercial property In what risks could be posed for a potential hot tub swimmer or bather They're tremendous So getting the wrong chemistry in there and having a rash or not addressing the chemistry at all and getting a recreational waterborne illness those sorts of things are again tremendous This risk the impact on another human being is even more important to me So understanding what could happen. Um, that's one of them That can be managed, uh, but I would recommend drawing the line and you said the word scope I think that's a brilliant word to point out to find the scope and Making sure that a client understands clearly what scope you're committing to it's huge in any sort of agreement You have with a client. This is as far as I'm going to go We will not And as far as I should be stepping into Beyond that, I would recommend pairing them with a good professional pool service cleaning company in that area We can make plans that help to address things like the frequent turn Two to three times a week if they're very high use and they want it perfect. That's likely what it's going to take And for a homeowner that doesn't have a vacation rental property or needs two or three times per cleaning per week About how often does somebody need to hire a service like yours to come Turn over their pool and get it clean and keep the the pipes or the filters clean Sure. Yeah, it's a great question Slightly different answers from everybody, but our philosophy here is that a pool needs to be visited once a week We don't do any service plan where we're not swinging by at least once a week Because water chemistry can change very quickly and nature is not on So we want to see what's happening In and get in front of it two weeks One month, you know, you'll find services that do those intervals But we don't stand behind the quality that that would provide I think that impacts the The equipment in the pool in a negative way. So we would like So I've got a question about um the spas. I know that we have some spas that look like this for example And this might be a hot tub or a Um, I guess it's called a spa. Um, what is the difference in cleaning something like this from cleaning a swimming pool? So a couple differences Um, the primary one is just the volume is so much smaller that it takes much more attention to detail when you're treating that water chemistry Uh, any dose that you would do in a pool if you did something similar in a spa would be outrageously Uh, you know out of whack out of line So we want to understand the gallonage and really use the tools that we have to dose some The frequency of exchanging that water They bathe their load has a tremendous impact on such a small volume of water So knowing how often is it getting used? These are questions. We ask our clients Uh for an air bnb, this is going to need to be drained much more frequently Um, and for a standard family who's using it once or twice a month then So understanding how it's used cleaning the are dealing with the chemistry Uh, and then again, everything is just smaller too. The filter is small It needs to be viewed and cleaned more often because it's smaller. I just can't handle the same kind of volume now I know that I have a hot tub at my house And it has five I believe five filters inside those filters have to be replaced on an average of Um, and I don't mean an average but they have to be replaced on a regular basis Tell me what the um frequency of replacing those filters are they're like round tubes that go inside a little door And then the water fills up in a little door Our filters in general the more frequently you clean them the longer they will last because they're not going through that same stress and strain So part of what we do we have everybody on a filter cleaning schedule Um, even in our industry, that's not a standard to hold a very very tight schedule Sometimes it's we'll get to the filter when we can or we'll do it You know, maybe half the frequency that we do it. Um, we recommend Four times a year that is the best way to prevent those issues prevent tearing for jacuzzi's again Knowing the beta load would would impact that but if you are cleaning it more frequently, you know Once a month or twice a month Until they're very impacted. Well that water pressure is determined to find a way through that fabric And so it's going to start to tear stretch crunch pull twist It's it's strong. So it's going to find a way through and so preventing that Another thing that I I have at my house and it was kind of a fun thing is a really long skinny little vacuum And they sold it to me because I like vacuums and I like cleaning and they said, hey, we got the perfect thing for you This is for homeowners and they said if you're a homeowner you should have one of these and I said, okay Cool and I I don't know when I'm supposed to use it But I've used it a couple times just because I have it and I'm like, wow I see like little bits of sand and stuff at the bottom of my pool And I go out and it has it's a really long skinny tube. I'm sure that you know what I'm talking about And it's like a pump and you hold one side of it and you pump with the other side of it Almost like you were inflating a bicycle tire with a bicycle Right and it scoops up It's got like little brushes on the end of it and it will scoop up and it will eat the sand That's at the bottom of the pool and it traps it into a little filter that then can be empty Tell us about uh things that a homeowner can do in their jacuzzi or their pool Whether it's a little vacuum like that or maybe a robot vacuum that has a motor to it I've seen some of those as well. Do you recommend those? Yes, uh, so we we do recommend a pool cleaner in just about every pool Some pools it's around our area. It's probably more standard to have a suction side cleaner This is one of those things that can be different all over the world But our particular market it's a lot more suction side cleaners Um a vac line and we can get dedicated suction through a hose and a cleaner That's particularly my favorite just because of affordability and trustworthiness But there are situations where we may recommend a robotic style cleaner as well A robot a sweep whatever the lingo is in every particular area That does benefit everyone obviously it makes the pool stay cleaner But the issues that I see with pools that don't have that those deal with things like organic staining So a leaf sits on the bottom of the pool Uh for undisturbed for five six days until its next cleaning visit Well, that stain It's going to take some work to remove or it's going to take some time to bleach out and fade out With a vacuum cleaner. It's picking that leaf up Similar to for preventing algae You don't have soil and dust and dirt build up and all these spots as much So a vacuum is a great idea That plunger style vacuum that you're discussing especially for smaller areas like a jacuzzi Very handy tool because your service may not be there on a Friday night And that might be when someone's about to enjoy the spa Well being able to have a couple quick ways to deal with that debris yourself is It's handy. Um, so definitely those tools So You can remove it Uh, if you have toys at the bottom of the pool, you don't have to send the kids in to go pick them up You've got a pole and a net ready on hand to to get those out So those sorts of things just the standard tools what we'd recommend Tell me about the standard tools what standard tools should every homeowner have you mentioned a pool and a net Is that something that a professional would use or something that a homeowner would have that they themselves would use startups for pool New pool owners and one of the things we do in that startup process is called a pool school We'll inform them on you know the risks of pool ownership the things you need to keep an eye on The preventative maintenance. We of course talked to them about the value of professional service We usually try to make sure they have the essential tools as well So we want them to have at least a pole a brush a net if they are trusting a professional service. There's a probable A Mind Be more of the knowledge the knowledge to understand what to do in case of an emergency How do I decommission or shut off my pool in case something's gone wrong? So knowledge and swimmers say Full knowing how to shut a breaker off knowing how to Uh, instruct your kids or young swimmers how to stay safe in and around the pool how to make sure we're aware of Keeping an adult Supervisor around the pool. So there's figurative tools like that, but they're very very valuable We want every homeowner to be confident around their pool and have good memories only. That's one of the things we say around here I love that So how does a person hire a professional pool company if they don't have one? Let's say that you move to a new house and there's a swimming pool and you're like, whoa, this is out of my league I got to hire somebody How do you how do you hire somebody and what questions do you ask? Excellent question. Um, I would recommend A few different steps one would be to talk to your friends and neighbors if you do have somebody in the area and Of course, he's going to represent themselves well Hopefully in those arenas but getting someone who can attest to the real life experience That somebody has provided for them Long-standing client is, you know, probably a good thing As far as asking the pool service Company questions. There's some really great questions. I'd recommend I would ask things like how do you schedule these routes? How do I ensure that I won't get messed? Unfortunately at times in the pool industry It's not as as formal of a schedule for us. We do use software that keeps us on a fairly rigid schedule We've never That we're hitting them on time on the same predictable day with the same technician So it's important that somebody asks that it's important that somebody asks how much training they have on the topics of chemistry and mechanics It'd be important to ask do they have any knowledge about repairs? Things will go wrong. Unfortunately, some pool service companies they they won't be able You want somebody who can also advocate for you and prevent issues, but solve them when they do come up Those are some of the things that come to mind Asking the specifics about chemistry in our area There's a tendency to overuse certain chemicals like chlorine tabs And those have a side effect of overdoing the pool with sinuric acid, which is the not to get Too into the weeds here, but it's a binding agent of this chemical and your pool only needs so much Refill this pool. It's a significant waste of time and money And not to mention California. We can't afford to waste water So all of those things together we want to prolong the life of that that water Those are some questions that come to mind And then another question that I have is how does a person know that their pool needs to be clean Can you like see it with the human eyes or If you wait until you can see that it needs to be clean you waited too long Exactly that's exactly where my brain was going It's by the time you have that visual feedback We have let something happen that didn't need to happen So preventative maintenance is almost always the the cheapest and most peaceful form Chasing these problems and wasting time and stressing about them That there is an issue occurring but understanding how to test things and how to Engage with the equipment the equipment is going to give us some feedback like the pressure gauge It's going to tell us The pounds per square inch on the filter. Well, that's something that we log on every visit so that we can Much material and need to clean the filter is it trending down? Well, that gives us a whole another scenario to pursue Why are we reducing flow? It could be a suction issue. It could be a blockage So understanding how to read those measurements and then similarly with the chemistry Understanding what's going to happen if I don't address this low issue? It may not show up today, but in a week two weeks a month We'll start to see it show up in the pool. We can get in front of it by knowing our chemistry And what happens when we have a swimming pool that It might look clean, but it smells bad. Sometimes there's like a sulfur kind of smell Yes, so typically that means we don't we haven't hit breakpoint chlorination. We don't have free chlorine in the pool Yep, even at times you can get that smell just with adding chlorine, but not enough or adding a sanitizer, but not enough So that Mel we need to oxidize that out. We have a backlog basically of of organic material That needs to be removed. So there's different ways to do that. You can do that through a Chlorine through different sanitizers. You can also use Way to break down and oxidize And vaporize the the materials there in that pool But it's an important point that somebody would smell that and understand what's going on and then start getting into the chemistry and find out why it's happening When you use a public swimming pool You'll often see signs and the signs will say things like please shower before getting in this swimming pool Does that really make a difference or is that just like a polite thing to do? Both I suppose, but yes it does it does make a very big difference because we're not a Pool and when you have just one person in a pool as a resident You're not going to see the impact of that significantly When you have 400 people make it through that pool in a day Then those habits and those signs can have a huge impact Yes, so that oil body film sunscreen even those things can create That's water surface that water tension doesn't allow for oxidation of the water doesn't allow for it to function correctly At a commercial pool and you you ever see kind of a gummy oily film that's attached to the tile That's where that's coming from. It's typically from the bait or load sweats Sweat and things like that So I have another picture which reminds me because this is a picture of a swimming pool and the The reason that I pulled this up and I got this from your website It looks like there's a ring around the pool And it looks like at the bottom. There's little tiny bits of debris And I'm I'm curious When we see something like this, what is happening in the pool and when we call and ask you like, hey, there's something in my pool How would you describe this to a repair technician so that they could come and do the job properly and know what you're trying to explain? Sure, I think this pool in particular was in the process of a I believe a drain or a refill But we do see situations where we'll have a water level stay exactly perfect, but not we're not perfect, but I think it's okay just to let their pool sit through, you know, half the year and just turn it back on in the spring and summer In that scenario that can leave a line if it's like that for, you know, more than a couple days What we would start Be cleaned off fairly easily If it's scale, you know, because we have Water hardness issues in different locations Then we need to treat it differently because scale is going to require removal of scale But we do see at times Through construction and different issues like that that you have some staining Staining is because you can't start treating it until you've investigated it So we'd want to know what it is. Is it an organic like I was mentioning earlier the botanical stains Well, those are easy to treat if you know what they are if it's a rust stain an iron stain a copper stain You need to know what the metal is That's being where stain is treated the same way And at times treating the stain with the wrong material the wrong chemical is going to make that particular stain worse So we use products like jack's magic. They have some stain identification tools That help us in our industry to know what's going on so you can figure out what type of stain that is And as far as cleaning that the floor of that pool, you know, there's different ways to do it a light acid And starting it back up again with fresh water if it's been sitting stagnant for a long long time. Sometimes that's the way to go Are there certain things that homeowners should be looking for In the cleanliness of their pool to say, oh, hey, wait a second. There's something that I need to call a professional for help on Um providing that they have a regular schedule and there's a regular service If they see something should they say something or do they just wait for the next service call? We'd always love for our clients to reach out to us. We're very approachable and our office We'd rather get that early notice even if it just gives them peace of mind. That's valuable to us. We won't Pool So, uh, I would always recommend There's no no harm in communicating send a picture if you have a professional pool company that can receive photos Send a picture or a video or get a phone call Into them and ask them is this normal? Is that the wrong with being curious and asking? And hopefully getting a quick answer But yes, there are definitely things you'd want to listen for or look for The equipment is one of those areas if you hear noises coming from the equipment that are not That's starving for water and it's cavitating which is when it's it's struggling to get enough water Well, that could be a sign that there's a blockage. There's a Air loss a vacuum loss somewhere and if that goes on for several days That could be placing things that don't need to be replaced So we have sounds we have sites like less water flow If you see less water flow than the normal where you attempt to use some function of the pool or spot It doesn't work. Well, we've got to investigate why if anything like that happens I would reach out immediately and start getting answers to why it's happening You mentioned sending a photo or a video. Do you have a preference as to which is best? It depends on what what information I need to see here A photo can be real quick and easy for a homeowner as well But if we need to hear a sound or see an action then I would rather get that video so I can get a little bit more So a question is I know a lot of videos eat up a lot of megabytes or gigabytes or whatever with settings on the phones What is the best way to send a video if when you try to send it like through email and says Oh, there's too many megabytes that won't let you send the video Is it better to like upload it to your youtube channel and send a link or like what what do you recommend? Yeah, I I think one pro tip. There's a lot of videos Just probably be able to get that that information in eight seconds or less Uh, and that might really help to transfer that data otherwise, you know Better format than you know using our our texting app that can only handle so much data So yeah, sometimes we'll ask them to if it's a longer form send it by email But I don't have a whole lot of other information on that. Unfortunately. I don't know how to get Those compressed any any more than that The reason I ask is because we had not used our hot tub in a long time And we are getting ready to sell our house and we wanted it in working order before we sold it to the next owner And so we went to turn it on and there was like a leak And I was like, oh my goodness. There's a leak and how do I how do I explain the leak because I need somebody to come out and fix it And so I unscrewed the front panel and then I could see the leak So I just took a Little video with my camera and then I tried to do just that I tried to send it But it was like too many megabytes or whatever And so I was like, well, I have a youtube channel So I'll just make it unlisted but I'll upload it to the youtube channel And then I'll send them the link because then at least they can click on link and watch the video But then I was like, this is not the normal way to do it And I know that I'm trying to Make something that's not this is not the right way how they receive information But I was like, I don't know what else to do. So that's how I did it. That's brilliant I mean, that's a thinking outside the box solutions type thing I think another way at times is if uh, if your provider can hop on FaceTime or video chat That's something we've done from time to time with our clients who have an ongoing active You know, I remember in this, well, let me see if I can get somebody to hop on FaceTime with you All right, see this one. Yep, you're pointing right at it. Let's go ahead and turn that clockwise It's just like having a little coach show up on your phone. So at times that can be a good way as well Oh, I love that. That's a great way to do it And that way you've got two-way communication where you could ask the question like hey When did this start happening and you know kind of troubleshoot it in order to know what Equipment to bring out or what parts you need to order Yep, it's live feedback. So everybody's getting what they need faster. What's happening right then and there One of the things that I've discovered and this is just for me personally is whenever I call a repair service and you might give me advice on How to tweak this so that it's more effective for you for example But one of the things that I've always done is I've tried to take a photo copy of the serial number or the model number If there's a part in question And that way they can either order the part or they know what version it is or they can look it up or whatever it is They do what do you recommend? We provide the service provider when we're calling to ask for help It's a great question. I think that photos often up Yeah That's you know if we're trying to help somebody get a quote for an immediate repair or emergency repair That's usually our starting point if you know the make and model you can text it to us But uh or call us and tell us about it But if we can get that picture, you know, we're so familiar with all the pool equipment We're going to know what that make and model is a lot of times just from a photograph Now if it's an ongoing client for us somebody to sign up for service What we do is an onboarding The stance of any sort of emergency we're prepared So if they say hey my heater is not working Well, if they're a client with uh with us I already have photos of that heater and I already know the make and model So I can say all right. What's happening? We can start working on a solution for you and we don't have to ask them in the middle of their crisis to do a whole lot That uh makes them uncomfortable, you know climb around back there and take pictures We we can skip that step if What a great idea So then the next question is and this is not a question that I prepared to ask you But I have to ask now because I'm thinking about do it yourself or is in youtube Um, what happens when there's a problem and the do it yourself or says Oh, I can probably fix this by watching a youtube video And then they try to fix let's say a pump or a filter or something in the swimming pool And then maybe it voids a warranty of a park or something because they they did it the wrong way Can you address that issue for me? Absolutely, we we do see that from time to time Poolish spa heater But one of the things that they require for that to be under warranty is to have chemical records and to have those chemical records Show that it's been in balanced condition for a lot of these heater manufacturers They want that log that says yes back in june. My average ph was blah blah blah So not having those records or not having the the professional The calling for a warranty also the the tinkering if somebody has engaged with something But they're not the qualified warranty professional That can come back to bite them as well. So it's not that it's I personally I don't think I'm smarter than anyone. I think I've spent a lot of time doing this one particular trade So I've acquired a valuable skill set that I can offer to other people. So I never approach it as this take It's not one of the things we say is not rocket science, but it is science So it does take some dedication to understand why it's happening and what's happening And it takes putting in in my opinion years to get good at this So that's the value of that di wires Just knowing what that line is that you're comfortable If someone's dedicated enough time and effort into getting good at cleaning the pool That doesn't mean they should take the next step at jumping into You We're going from From one zone into a very different zone So I don't recommend that I think you that's the line that You know, you definitely want to draw a line somewhere and that's a good line Well, thank you for bringing that up But I have to talk about di wires for a second because there will always be di wires I mean, I don't know why but there always will be what are some of the misconceptions or Misunderstandings that some di wires have about cleaning pools Well to speak bluntly, I think a lot of people think that it's simple that it's easy Because It just looks it looks simple I think from an outside perspective when you haven't gone through the education Understand what can happen if you haven't had those negative experiences It just looks like anybody can do this But not everybody can do this without and dedicating a lot of time so Similar to any trade you you can do it if you dedicate a whole lot of time From my experience the challenges that they come in also have a lot to do with schedule Even if somebody can do it at a decent level But there's their life is so busy life is so busy That it's just hard to make sure that you dedicate this the calendar to this And you don't miss Time and if you miss that appointment You might be in an unrecoverable zone where now you really need to spend a lot of time chasing this and getting it back in shape So, uh, that's that's a big issue and then also access to materials goods, you know, we Deal with it's about anything we need for the residential pool service world in a day or so That's not something that's as easy to access for a di wire So they might be making concessions installing the wrong part that might kind of work here Using the wrong type of glue using the wrong type of fitting those sorts of things And then those cause bigger problems later on i'm assuming absolutely One of the things that can happen is now you are no longer adhering to any sort of electrical or plumbing codes You're not adhering to local building requirements Uh, you're installing things at the wrong spacing too close to a house not, you know Not close enough to the shut off valve And then those things can really bite you when you go to sell your house And the home inspection points out a bunch of unsafe work surrounding the pool Hmm, I did not think about that. Let's talk for a second about People repurposing their homes because I know right now we're in a really weird real estate era Where people are not Buying new homes as much as the the new home's construction has kind of ground to a halt And a lot of people are staying put they're staying in their homes right now The price of homes has gone up as have the interest rates So people like oh, hey, I should I should build a pool and or I should renovate a pool that exists in my house That's been neglected Tell me a little bit about that process and some of the things that we need to be on the lookout for absolutely The process there, I think, you know, we do see that psychologically Happening a lot here in our local market. It's just whether or not I'm going to move I want this to look nice If I'm if I'm here for longer than I expected to be I want to enjoy it To the maximum that I can so We're big on the philosophy of of preventative maintenance and prolonging the beauty And the maximum enjoyment people haven't put in pools and spas because they had to they put it in Because typically an emotional decision. I want the kind of lifestyle that this affords me So how do we pair that up with making sure that when you go to use it? It looks beautiful and things are functioning correctly Now those those same philosophies are going to serve somebody really well if they try to sell their house as well So keeping things as dialed Put something on the market if maybe the market pivots or you or you need to move If a family situation you need to you know get this posted and listed Well, if you've got all this backlog work to do and the pool has really fallen off and it doesn't look appealing Well, the people who are coming in to view this property, they're going to have emotional reactions too And you don't want to look like that picture with the green pool That's not the backyard that somebody wants to walk into Crystal clean pool that's ready to go that says I'm inviting have fun make some memories back here This is a great spot for you. So just keeping it clean and ready Can really save a lot of time and hassle and and make you ready to pivot whichever way you need to go That's funny you bring that up because I was looking at some real estate homes in my area the other day because we're our houses on the market We just we're under contract right now But as I was looking at this one home and it was a beautiful home There was a pool a picture of the swimming pool from every angle and from every time of day And there were like the umbrellas were open and then there was lemonade out on there And then the lemonade was gone and now there's a plant out there And it was all about the pool and I was like this is so odd because really the best part about this house Whatever the house is like they didn't care much about showing the house at all. It was all about the pool Right. These people are selling a pool. They're not selling a house. They're selling a pool in a lifestyle that goes with it Absolutely. Yeah, that's uh for a lot of clients That's what they've envisioned when they went to get a building You know lifestyle change and it really can be a lot of my best memories in my childhood Swimming in the family pool learning to swim my dad teaching me how to swim my Biggest brother oldest brother thrown me in the pool All the crazy stuff that happens in a family pool. Well, those are core memories for me Style thing that you you build these memories and have this confidence That you've learned to swim that you're comfortable swimming. You have relaxation serenity. They can have a huge impact on the quality of life How can pool owners extend the lifespan of their pool and their equipment or their accessories? Great question Biggest thing there. It's going to be scheduling things preventively Talked about a little bit filter cleanings make sure those are done on schedule Making sure those pump baskets skimmer baskets are maintained emptied That you don't let cracked materials exist that you replace things when they need to be replaced All those sorts of things are going to lead to a healthier life cycle for the equipment And then that water chemistry has a huge impact on everything that corrosive water. That's too acidic that It's going to strip away metal out of the heater and it's going to tear apart this expensive piece of machinery So that's one of those ways that you can just make things last longer I like to consider it. I enjoy strategy. So I like to think about what's my annual cost of owning a pool And how do I keep that as as low as possible? Because why not? I'd like to keep that as low as possible And this is where I think if people thought this way They would actually if you don't have that support and you do have an issue or a mistake gets made Of course we're human and it leads to a three thousand dollar four thousand dollar piece of equipment that lasted half its life and you know 15 thousand dollar plaster Spend way more to own a pool than you would if you outsourced that to a professional and they make things last twice as long three times as long And that's not even counting for it all the time you get back in your life All the time you get to go do something that makes you feel happy versus working on a chore around the half Oh, tell me if you will about maintaining things like I don't know they're like I'm going to call them extras things like Waterfalls and water slides and diving boards and things like that that some people have attached to their swimming pools Those features can be really exciting and uh, they add a lot of beauty So understanding the mechanics behind it would be the first step for us We want to know does it have its own dedicated, uh equipment? Does it have its own pump? What makes this function? Does it have a valve that rotates with a motor which would be called an actuator? Is that what's creating this flow through this water feature? We understand we need to understand how and why it operates so that It comes to mind in our area we deal with a lot of calcium hardness high calcium buildup over time And when that happens we see it's kind of on surfaces. So with those water features things that drip or run off A lot of times we recommend scheduling them only for the hours of the day that somebody's present to enjoy them Or leaving them on a manual turn off and on situation sometimes people let them run all the time but that More scale buildup just because we're introducing more water on the surface of these things So just being clever about how to operate these so that you lead to less problems for the homeowner that has um Equipment and or chemicals at their home. What is the proper way to store those? Yes, very important. We try to catch this especially when we're doing pool schools Or chemicals that somebody bought you know made from leslie's or uh home depot Two years ago stored outdoors in the sun Um, so things like that really catch our attention because that's a that's a severe hazard And so do you recommend a dedicated place to put those like let's say indoors in a cool dry place Like all other kind of cleaning chemicals For most yes, most of our clients we actually recommend they don't have any of these chemicals on site And they just let us bring uh bring what we need and we don't try to leave anything The reason for that is even The more sick kids a dog So unless it's fully fully locked up And ventilated which also needs to be ventilated for most pool chemicals It's just not typically a great idea, but if you they need to be stored upright Revented lids they need to be stored upright. They need to be spaced correctly not next to fellow combustible materials So, uh, you know a locked room or a very safe area where yes cool and dry out of direct sunlight Those would be things I'd be looking for Oh my goodness you are a wealth of knowledge. I mean just a wealth of knowledge I did not know that I would have so many questions number one number two I did not know I would learn so much just in the short hour that we spent together And I'm looking at the clock and our time is gone I mean the time has just flown and I say here and I'm like, oh, I've got so many more questions This is amazing. Um, but please tell our listeners where they can go to find you Absolutely. It's been a blast for me. Uh, so thank you very much for having me, Angela The view uh the listeners can go to glpools.com. That's probably the best way to find That's packed with us. If you're in the San Diego area, we service the entire San Diego county We're always happy to partner up with people In our area even in other industries. There's sometimes a lot of uh collaboration that can exist You can also find us on instagram as well. You can look up gl pools where you can find me on link Happy here as well And I'm going to leave links in the notes below so that you guys can connect with Austin and gl pools And maybe get other questions answered and if you're in the San Diego area, certainly have them come out and take a look at your pool I uh, I've learned so much today and I think I got all of my questions answered as far as Let me just repeat it and say it so that there are no surprises and there's no guesswork The professional house cleaners are not pool cleaners. We don't clean pools We don't clean hot tubs. We don't clean jacuzzi's and all the things And if you are a homeowner and you're do it yourself Unless you are willing to go through pool school And you're willing to learn the chemistry of it and you're willing to put it on your calendar and do it on a regular basis And not let it slip Okay, house cleaning can slip a little bit but it sounds like the pool cannot because it's going to get really expensive If you let it slip and then try to recoup the the cleaning and the maintenance and all this stuff So just put it on a calendar and let a professional do that It's one of the costs of owning a swimming pool and having that amazing lifestyle that you see in the pictures Am I right? Did I get that right? Absolutely knock it out of the park. That's amazing Awesome. Thank you Austin so much for joining us today. I've I've been enlightened. I've really thoroughly enjoyed this hour I appreciate your time and your energy. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you so much for having me on Right. We'll see you guys again soon. Same time same place next week. Take care