Rain Rules For Pool Pros

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (01:03):
Hey, welcome to the Fool Gay Podcast Show.
In this episode, I'm going tocover different aspects of rain
out there with your swimmingpool.
And if you do swimming poolservice, the rain can really be
a problem with your scheduling.
I'll go over some things to beaware of in those rainy days in
the rain season.

(01:23):
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(02:11):
I find that usually the firstrain or two of the season is the
worst because of all the dirt,all the dead leaves in the
trees, nothing really affectsthem in the summer.
And when the rain season startshere, we usually start the rain
in October, November.
Most of that stuff comes out ofthe I don't know out and goes

(02:33):
into the pool right away.
The first rain or two.
And you'll see this on the roadsas well.
Most accidents happen, or a lotmore car accidents happen in the
first rain or two during theseason because of all the oil on
the streets and they're gettingwet for the first time in a long
time.
And so car accidents triple orquadruple here in California.

(02:55):
Besides that, no one knows howto drive in the rain here.
We just kind of go the samespeed where the rain or shine.
So it becomes very dangeroushere.
And you'll find that the poolswill be pretty messy.
The first couple rainstorms, allthe dirt on the sidewalks get
washed in, or around the deckget washed into the pool.
And it's one of those thingswhere you just have to deal with

(03:16):
the extra mess from the rain.
And it's just part of doing poolservice.
I've been doing this a longtime, and the rainy season is
probably the one I like secondleast.
I think the least that I like isthe wind season here, which in
California is October throughFebruary.
But I'm just not a big fan ofrain here either.

(03:38):
When we had these drought yearswhere we had like one or two
rainy days the whole year, thosewere really good parts of the
season.
But of course, the side effectwas drought restrictions and all
the stuff that comes with it.
But we're back to a prettynormal rain pattern here where
we get some heavy rain now, um,like we used to get all the
time.
So here are some things toconsider with the rain in your

(04:01):
pool.
One thing I think that isnotable is then I get this
question asked a lot.
You know, should Isuperchlorinate my pool before
the rain gets here?
And I would say in most cases,it's not really necessary unless
you're getting storms predicted.
And I like looking at thelong-term forecast.

(04:21):
If you're getting a lot ofstorms predicted for that month,
and you may have rain onconsecutive service days, then
it might be logical tosuperchlorinate certain pools on
your route.
But in general, sometimes therain will miss or it'll be
lighter than they're predicting,and you've just wasted some
product in the pool.
So it's not something that Irecommend all the time, but you

(04:43):
kind of play it by ear, andthose pools that you think are
gonna need it, especially thepools that have a lot of heavy
foliage around it, you're gonnaget a lot of leaf debris and
dirt in there.
Then, yes, in that case, I woulddefinitely put more chlorine in
that pool before the rainstormjust to prevent organic staining
and different problems that mayarise from all the leaf debris

(05:05):
falling in the pool.
But a lot of pools don't reallyhave a lot of debris that falls
in during the rainstorm, so Iwouldn't bother
superchlorinating every pool.
And again, the rainstorm maymiss and you've just wasted a
lot of chemicals in the pool.
And I wouldn't adjust the pHeither after the rainstorm or
during the rainstorm if you'reservicing pools in light rain,

(05:27):
because the rain in my area atleast is pretty acidic and it's
gonna kind of mess up thereadings a little bit, so I
wouldn't worry about the pH atthat point.
Just basically the make surethat you have chlorine in in the
pool before the rainstorm andthe superchlorinate, kind of
based on certain situationswhere it may be necessary.

(05:50):
And I also get asked thisquestion should I drain a little
bit of water out of the poolbefore a rainstorm?
Because you know they'repredicting one or two inches of
rain.
I don't want the pooloverflowing.
And in most cases, I would saythere's no need to drain water
out of the pool if you haveadequate drainage around the
pool deck, and it's somethingthat is not necessary in most

(06:12):
cases either.
And sometimes you'll drain oneor two inches of water, and then
the rainstorm misses.
So if you need to drain water,you can drain water after the
rainstorm, or maybe if it's anemergency and water is going to
be flooding in your house, whichis a pretty rare instance.
Most pools the builder willbuild so that there's drains, or

(06:35):
some way of protecting you knowwater intrusion into the house
if the pool does get overflowedwith water.
There are those exceptions.
I've had service accounts beforewhere sandbags were necessary to
protect the backsliding doorfrom water intrusion when the
pool overflows.
But in most cases, it's just alot of water in the pool, and it

(06:56):
doesn't really damage the poolsystem to have the water all the
way up to the coping.
You know, the skimmer opening iscompletely uh below water, and
it's not really a big deal.
The only drawback is that it'snot going, you're not gonna have
leaf debris being skimmed offthe pool surface with the water
that high in the pool.
And to me, it's really notanything detrimental to the pool

(07:19):
to be filled above the skimmeropening.
It's just the pool might be alittle dirtier than normal, and
then it'll eventually drop downnaturally with some evaporation
in the in the rainy season.
And here in California, it maybe raining one week and then 90
degrees the next.
So it's not a big deal here.

(07:39):
And you can always drain thepool down if necessary.
Most of the builders, when theypressure test the line, leave
the hose spigot on the plumbing,and you can easily drain the
pool down by attaching a gardenhose and turning on the pump,
opening up the hose bib, andthat will drain the pool as the
pump is running.

(08:00):
I wouldn't recommend drainingthe pool in backwash mode if you
have a D filter.
They're not it's not reallydesigned to use the backwash
mode as a drain.
Now, if you have a multi-portvalve, then you you can of
course uh drain the pool inwaste mode.
That's different than thepush-pull piston.
If you're draining the pool withthe push-pull piston, the

(08:23):
problem is that the water isgoing inside the grids and
inflating them, and that couldshorten the lifespan of the D
grids.
So it's not recommended that youdrain a pool with a push-pull
piston in backwash mode.
Now, of course, if you have apentar filter with a large air
bleeder on top, you can connecttubing to that.

(08:44):
They do sell the tubing thatconnects to the pent air uh
filter, the air bleed assemblyon top.
It's a 3/4 inch tubing, uh flextubing, and you can put that on

(09:14):
there and you can actually openthat air relief valve and drain
some water out of the pool thatway.
That's perfectly safe.
And again, the best way is withthe hose bib or spigot that's
kind of built into theequipment.
If all else fails, you don'thave that.
You can, of course, use asubmersible pump on the first
step.
You can get one for under$100.

(09:35):
You attach a garden hose to it,drop it in to the first step,
plug it in, and that will drainthe pool pretty rapidly as well.
So there's different ways ofdraining the pool down if
necessary.
In most cases, you don't have todo that here in my area, but
sometimes in emergencies, youwill have to drain some water
down, especially if waterintrusion is a possibility.

(09:59):
Sometimes customers will callyou to come drain their pool
down.
Usually I try to explain to themover the phone or through a text
message how to do it.
You can send a picture.
It's a good idea to have apicture in your phone, by the
way, of a host bigot on theequipment area so that you could
just send it to them.
Probably could pull one offGoogle, but that way they kind
of know what to look for andexplain to them how to attach a

(10:20):
garden hose to it, how to turnthe pump on and drain the pool.
Now, in situations where youhave to get there because
there's water intrusionpossible, you can go out there.
Uh sometimes you have to go outthere in the rain,
unfortunately, and do that.
But there's a service charge forthat, of course, because you're
kind of risking your life to goout there to drain their pool
down.
My dedicated repair technicianthat I use a lot for a lot of my

(10:45):
installs refuses to go out inthe rain because he was in a
pretty significant accident inthe rain one time when he was
doing some repairs out there inthe rain, and so he just refuses
to go out there because it'sjust way too dangerous.
There's not a lot of repairs youcan do anyway in the rain, so
him being out there was kind offoolish anyway, and so he he

(11:05):
just doesn't go out period inany kind of measurable rain.
Now, measurable rain is anotheraspect we should talk about
because how much rain is enoughto call it a day, and I really
recommend you having a serviceagreement that you can refer to
for the customers.
I have one, it's a one page thatI've refined and kept very

(11:29):
simple, and I can email that toyou.
Just send me an email at Davidat Swimmingpoollearning.com,
David atSwimmingpoollearning.com, and I
can get that over to you.
But there's a a small section,actually just one sentence for
rain, and it says rainy daypolicy, chemicals will be added
and pool will be cleaned thefollowing visit.

(11:51):
So that leaves it pretty vaguefor them.
You know, if I'm gonna go outthere in the rain, I'll just add
chemicals, but I won't clean thepool.
So if you do need to go out andit's maybe medium rain, maybe
like half an inch that day, andyou're getting fairly wet.
And by the way, I also recommendhaving the right gear,

(12:11):
waterproof boots.
If you go to my website, let mego over there real quick, and
I'll show you.
I have a list of kind of thegear that I wear, and I have
some rainy day gear as well foryou.
If you go down to the bottom ofmy webpage, go to swimming
poollearning.com.
I have a pool guide gearsection, and I have my rain
gear, my frog togs, and mywaterproof boots that I wear out

(12:34):
there.
You can also get rubber boots,you know.
I think Walmart sells them.
You can wear the full rubberboots if necessary.
But a certain amount of rain iswhen you kind of pull the plug.
You don't even go out there.
The customer can't even see youif you're out there or not.
And if your service agreementsays you'll just chemicals will
be added and pool will be cleanthe following visit, that leaves

(12:55):
it vague enough so that you canbasically skip the pool
depending on how much rain youhave.
There's something to be saidabout too much rain, you can't
even see the bottom of the pool,so you can't vacuum the pool,
and you don't want to set aprecedent that you're gonna go
out there and skim the pool,brush it, and clean it.
When it's raining, the thingyou're gonna do is add chemicals

(13:18):
and clean the pool the followingvisit, and just leave it at that
so the customer knows thatyou're not really doing much out
there on a rainy day.
There's not much you can doanyway.
It's pretty much like thelandscaper, gardener, they can't
really mow the lawn in the rain,they can damage it, you know,
pull up the grass, and there'snot much they can do in the wet
weather, they can't use theirleaf blowers, and so they're not

(13:40):
doing much either in the rain.
You know, everything pretty muchcomes to a standstill when
you're getting one or two inchesof rain, and it's up to you to
decide when you want to pull theplug and not go out in the rain.
And I get this question asked alot.
Well, if it's gonna be rainingtill like 11 a.m., would you
still go out and finish thepools later in the day?

(14:02):
And my answer is I wouldn't dothat.
I if you're gonna go out at alland do service, you're gonna
just check the chemicals, makesure that there's nothing weird
happening, and you'll be in andout of each stop within like
three to five minutes, andyou'll finish your whole route
in I guess 45 minutes or an hourif you do go out during the
rain, because all you're doingis checking to make sure that

(14:23):
there's enough chlorine in thepool basically to hold from week
to week, and there's not muchpool cleaning happening.
Now, situations will develop,and this has happened here,
where you have rain on aTuesday, and then the following
week, rain's predicted again onthat following Tuesday.
And theoretically, you wouldn'twant to skip a pool and not

(14:46):
service it for three weeks.
Bad things can happen, and thecustomer, of course, may
complain that they're notgetting what they pay for as far
as service.
And so, what I suggest doing isif necessary, move some pools
around.
You know which customers are theones that are going to not be
happy with you missing two weeksin a row, and those customers

(15:10):
you want to service maybe on aMonday or a Wednesday, depending
on if the rain's not gonna it'snot gonna be raining on those
days.
So maybe moving pools around andnot doing your Monday route that
week if if you can, and movingpools from Tuesday there.
It gets really messy and reallyhard to do sometimes when you

(15:32):
have rain on your service dayconsecutively in a row.
It doesn't happen very often,but it does happen, and it's one
of those things where you haveto make some adjustments to your
pool route so that those poolsare covered at least, and you
can go there and clean them,check the chemicals.
And again, no one really islooking at their pool too much
in the winter time anyway, orthe rainy season time.

(15:55):
They're not focused on it, andas long as the pool is not
turning green or not full ofdebris, most customers are not
going to hassle you on the factthat you can't really clean the
pool if it's raining two orthree weeks in a row.
A lot of it has to do with, ofcourse, our own obligation or
our own feeling of obligation toservice, and we kind of project

(16:18):
too much on the customer.
You know, if it's raining, we'rekind of feeling like, oh, we
need to go out there and cleanthe pool because they're paying
me for it.
This is kind of like a serviceattitude that you develop.
But in reality, like I justmentioned, the customer is not
really looking at their pool,they're thinking about other
things like, oh, is this gonnaflood my planter?
Is this gonna damage, is my roofokay?

(16:40):
Is it gonna cause any waterintrusion into my house?
These are things they thinkabout the most.
They're not looking, they're notback there saying, Well, I hope
my pool guy shows up and cleansthe pool today, even though it's
raining.
That's usually not how thecustomer looks at their pool
during the rainy day.
They're thinking about theirdrive to work, they're thinking
about other things that are afactor of the rain, and probably

(17:03):
the last thing they think aboutis you coming there to clean the
pool in the rain.
So it's one of those thingswhere you have to kind of shift
your mindset and kind of get outof this kind of service attitude
and providing excellent serviceno matter what, and realize that
in the rain it is dangerous.
You probably don't want to pushyourself to go out there in an

(17:23):
inch or two of water.
It makes zero sense to me.
Now, if it's raining like halfan inch or a quarter of an inch,
I usually go out and service thepools, check the chemicals, do
the best I can.
Don't clean the pools because myservice agreement says I don't
clean the pools in the rain.
It's just kind of futile anyway,because the breeze is gonna fall
down, you're not gonna be ableto vacuum the bottom of the

(17:45):
pool.
All these things are factorsthat prevent you from even
attempting to clean the poolbecause the water is hitting,
the rain's hitting the water,and you can't even see the
bottom, and it's not necessaryto do that.
Just check the chemicals, getout, and move on to the next
pool.
And the rainy days sometimes arereally good because they're
short days for you, and you canget through your route, like I

(18:06):
said, in about an hour, hour anda half, and not really worry
about anything.
And again, if you need a copy ofthe service agreement and you
can modify it as in word format,you can add things to it if you
wanted to.
I just don't like adding toomuch.
I like keeping things kind ofvague so that customers
understand that I'm not going toclean the pool for sure.
And I'll just check thechemicals that day.

(18:27):
Uh, email me at David atswimmingpoollearning.com and
I'll get that over to you.
And if you're looking for otherpodcasts, you can of course find
those by going to my website,swimmingpoollearning.com.
On the website, don't forget togo down to the bottom and look
at the pool guy gear, and youcan get some rain gear there as
well from Amazon.
And if you're interested in thecoaching program or more
podcasts, you can find those onmy website.

(18:49):
Just click on the podcast iconon the banner, and there'll be
1800 podcasts for you to listento there.
And if you're interested in thecoaching program that I offer,
you can learn more atpoolguycoaching.com.
Thanks for listening to thispodcast.
Have you rest of your week?
God bless.

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