Sparkling, clear water, friendly dogs, happy customers and a breezy 75-degree temperature.
Sounds like a perfect day to service a pool, doesn’t it?
A picturesque pool service stop would indeed be one where everything goes just right — the water is impeccable, the client is satisfied and nothing is needed.
But that doesn’t do much for job security.
Luckily — or unfortunately, depending on who you ask — every day being a perfect one isn’t a thing. There are still pools to scrub, leaves to skim and filters to change. And, yes, there are still demanding clients.
While ideal days may happen, the reality is that a good part of how everything goes is up to the pool pro. For some, that includes being prepared, embracing the weather and chatting with the occasional customer in a backyard.
We interviewed five pool pros to see how they keep their days going smoothly. Here’s a look at how they do it.
Joey Busic
Precision Aquatics, San Diego, California
For Joey Busic Jr., an ideal morning starts off with no traffic in bustling San Diego. Given that he lives 30 miles from his route, he’s up early so he can hit every pool with ease.
He has a secret to ensuring he’s not making multiple trips to his truck before leaving his house for work: chemical delivery.
“If you looked in my truck, you would never guess I’m a pool guy — I do delivery to the [commercial] site,” he says, noting he uses a local chemical distribution delivery company. The poles he uses stay on-site, too.
As a service pro, one tool he says he’d be lost without is his Taylor Water Technologies kit. To clean pools on the go, his ideal worksite includes IPS automation remote monitoring so he can easily adjust chemicals through his phone.
While Busic loves his customers, he says it’s an easier job when they stay in the house. When he first started servicing, every aspect of the job had to be like clockwork and operate smoothly because of his massive residential route. But then a customer would come out and “talk forever not realizing I had 18 pools to go.”
Joey’s Soundtrack
When he isn’t rocking out to $uicideboy$, BONES or Deftones, he’s usually listening to Pool Chasers, The Joe Rogan Experience, Pool Nation Podcast or Rule Your Pool Podcast.
Silence is golden, he says. If he does happen upon a particularly chatty customer, he has a remedy.
“I always have my AirPods on, and we [my team] have a code word for when talkative customers are on-site,” he explains. “If ‘Bob’ comes out, I’ll send a code like ‘Oklahoma,’ and they’ll spam call me until I pick up, and then I’m like, ‘Sorry, Bob, I’ve got to get this phone call.’ ”
Even if he has overly chatty customers or windstorm-trashed pools — as are common in his region — Busic takes each day as it comes with enthusiasm. He admits it’s rare for him to have a bad day and that his mindset doesn’t make it feel like arduous work.
“To have a bad day on this job is really hard for me,” he says. “After 12 years, I love this job so much that every day I just can’t wait to go to work.”
Kyle Peter
Nevergreen Pools, Sacramento, California
An ideal day is an intentional day for Kyle Peter. That usually starts with his 5-year-old daughter promptly waking him at 6:15 a.m.
Peter whips up what his daughter calls “dip-dip eggs” — fried eggs with toast and some yolk to dip pieces of bread into — while he sips his coffee and spends 15 minutes downing supplements.
“I designed and grew my business so I could have flexibility to have time in the mornings for my family,” he says of his full-service and repair company. “The perfect day is sticking to your schedule and getting home on time for dinner.”
But with 925 weekly service accounts and 22 employees, it doesn’t always go as planned. The worst that could happen is he or an employee loses or breaks their phone.
Kyle’s Soundtrack
He’s taking a break from podcasts and lets Apple Music spin up his playlist. Usually, though, he’s on the phone chatting with employees.
That’s why his new company rule and favorite tool is a quart-size bag of rice in every truck. If a phone falls into water, the employees are instructed to pop it into the rice bag to help draw moisture out of the device.
“The No. 1 tool [we use] is the phone for the Skimmer app and navigation,” he says. “The newer iPhones these days are pretty water resistant. We probably lose one phone a year.”
Other than starting on time and not losing a phone, Peter says summer days are often ideal pool service days. A brand-new pool with working equipment is the dream, along with a pool that doesn’t have a ton of trees around it, he says.
His least favorite time is fall.
“Come fall, you have a pool full of leaves and can spend 30 minutes and barely put a dent in it,” he says. “Or you’ve got a pool that’s been turned off all week and is green and murky and you’ve got your hands full.”
Christian Yates
Mill Bergen Pools, Brooklyn, New York
In a region with a climate known for its chilly temps, Christian Yates loves nothing more than starting his pool route with temperatures in the low 80s. If he could dial up the weather, he’d request a breeze, too.
“I appreciate a beautiful, sunny day — not too hot and not rainy,” says the technician who does swimming pool openings, closings and repairs. He’s on a team that services around 250 residential pools weekly.
When Yates approaches a client’s yard, he says it’s the simple things that can make a pool servicing much easier — like a finished yard and not having to navigate around a construction job.
The best days are when clients are welcoming, he says.
“Some clients will be kind enough to open their outdoor backyard cabanas to us and offer water bottles, sodas and even a bathroom,” he says. “I had a client make us espresso. A little bit of kindness on a long, hot day goes a very long way.”
Yates says he feels best prepared for a smooth day when he has all his gear and it’s in good working order.
Christian’s Soundtrack
He turns the dial to New York’s HOT 97 and enjoys listening to DJ Ebro in the Morning.
“You must be prepared with multiple types of vacuum heads, vacuum hoses of all sizes, wall brushes for concrete pools, vinyl pools, telescopic poles, leaf nets and deep skimmer nets; garden hoses and extension cords are sometimes needed as well,” he says. “Submersible pumps, WetVacs and sometimes the occasional Super Pump will be needed.”
“A fully stocked toolbox is a must,” he says and notes that some techs don’t think about things like filters being hard to open, but some require special tools to open, clean and reassemble.
It’s remembering those details that can keep a pool route schedule on track, Yates says. In some cases, he notes, having extra time and prior awareness of install details can help.
He learned a lot on a recent unique equipment installation that seemed simple at first but ended up being challenging.
“I had to install a new filtration system in a very tight spot,” he says, noting it took two hours, which was longer than expected. “It messed up the remainder of the route. I am a punctual person, and I take pride in completing my route each day.”
While every day isn’t perfect, Yates says if it were, he’d opt for a clean yard, warm customers and time to be on his side — all the time.
Kim Langley
Tried & True Pool Company, LLC. , Lancaster, South Carolina
For Kim Langley, who runs a family business, getting out the door on time is a great way to start the day.
Second to that is a service site without any distractions.
“There’s so many things that would make a pool day a great day,” she says. “A pool where you didn’t have all the outside distractions and you could focus on the pool. No kids in the pool. No people talking. Just 15 to 20 minutes to focus.”
Even more helpful would be if customers realized pool servicers aren’t miracle workers, says Langley.
Kim’s Soundtrack
The Talking Pools Podcast is her favorite to listen to while on the go.
“We’re there to help, not do it all,” she says, noting that customers who care to maintain their pools in between service visits are ideal.
Her favorite chemicals to have on hand include BLUERAY XL and Re-Fresh chlorine. She says a Riptide Pool Vacuum and a fine-mesh net for flying ants that fall in the pools are her must-haves.
Langley says a pool route that stays on track is one of the best ways to have a good day in the industry. For her small team, that means not overscheduling. Fifty-five pools seems to be the “sweet spot” that allows for flexibility to get to maintenance emergencies, too.
As for most southern pool pros, summertime weather is brutal. South Carolina is known for its 86% humidity nearly year-round.
Langley’s ideal temp? “Eighty-five degrees sounds great,” she says. “A perfect day would be low humidity.”
Michael Krause
First Response Pool Service, Simi Valley, California
For some pool pros, seeing a dog in a yard is an immediate turnoff.
Not for Michael Krause, who focuses on residential service, maintenance and repairs. It’s the people he prefers not to see, he jokes.
“I like it when the customers aren’t home; that way I can focus on getting my work done and make sure everything is good to go,” he says.
Even though he’s been bitten by three dogs, he still doesn’t consider it one of his worst days on the job.
“I don’t mind having the dogs in the yard; I’m a big dog person,” Krause says. “I don’t have any mean dogs on my route. I have in the past but not anymore; if I see the dog’s ball, I’ll throw it for them.”
Michael’s Soundtrack
He enjoys listening to the Pool Nation Podcast and Talking Pools Podcast. When he’s not tuning into those, he’s jamming to reggae music.
Other than seeing a happy pooch trotting his way, Krause likes to see zero pool toys in the water, or, more commonly, no chairs in the pool due to the Santa Ana winds.
For him, a cleaning job that lasts no more than 25 minutes puts him in a good groove for the day. Forgetting his favorite brush, though, is game over. Because he’s done it a few times, he always keeps a backup brush in the car. His A&B 3015 18-inch wall brush is his absolute must-have.
“I keep a rotation going, but I prefer to have a new one,” he says. “The brushes I use, the top is metal, so once they wear out, you have to be cautious of that wearing on the plaster.”
His worst day was courtesy of Mother Nature and a puppy.
A few years ago, a huge Santa Ana windstorm “destroyed” his pool route with excessive debris and downed trees that had been sitting upward of five days. He had been working filling trash cans with leaves and had three pools left on his route when a lab puppy named Gus came up and pushed him into a filthy pool.
He can laugh about it now and has a photo to prove it. Krause knows that not every day will be perfect and that’s just part of the job.
