Leon Rawitz, of Pentair Water Pool ans Spa, talks to David Wright of JB's Pools and Ponds of Upland, California, about the challenges of an aging pool and how to take care of one.

 

http://www.jbspool.com/

 

 

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Leon Rawitz:       

Hi, this is Leon Rawitz and welcome to the Innovation Lab. Today my guest is David Wright from JB’s Pools and Ponds over in Upland, California. Dave’s a veteran of the business in the industry. He’s been in business for 35 years. And Dave, welcome to the Innovation Lab.

 

David Wright:      

It’s my pleasure.

 

Leon Rawitz:       

You know you have a really interesting story of how you got involved in the swimming pool industry. Would you mind sharing that with our listeners?

 

David Wright:      

{Laughs} For sure. It started towards the end of Vietnam. I was a medic and I was stationed in San Diego. Came up here. I’m from this area, Upland, about two hours north of San Diego. Bought a house while I was still on active duty. But, you know, like any mortgage company they want you to have a job before they would close the escrow and so I had to go out and get a job real quick. And I prayed about it and went to where I thought I was supposed to go and reported for duty and the guy didn’t have anything for me. And so I went home scratching my head thinking, gee, that’s where I was supposed to go. But literally the phone was ringing and he said, “Yes, I can use you for a couple of days, but I can’t pay much.” I said, ‘I don’t need much. I’ve got 60 days of vacation on the books anyway.’ And so I went and worked for the fellow for a couple of times and it was the owner of JB Pools at the time. After a couple of days he said, “What do you think?” and I said, ‘Gee, I mean it’s a no-brainer.’ And he said, “Well, you know, it’s basically too late. I’ve decided I’m going to get out of the business and all that.”

 

So anyway, to make a long story short, what I did was I wound up leasing the pool routes from him for a couple of years. Then I wound up buying the business. Then I bought the property, and so I’m there because that’s where God actually had put me. So I don’t think it’s somewhere I would have chose myself, but that’s where I’m at. And because of it I have to tell you that one of the things that I do is I’m a teaching leader for bible study fellowship. And that’s an interdenominational study where I have guys from 40 different churches come to a 33 week a year study. And so I’m a teaching leader for that. So owning my own business gives me the time to be able to prep and prepare and work on my study that I present to the guys on Tuesday nights.

 

Leon Rawitz:       

Boy, that’s a great story. When you went to work was there an existing retail location there?

 

David Wright:      

Yes, uh-huh (affirmative).

 

Leon Rawitz:       

Okay.

 

David Wright:      

It didn’t look anything like it does now, but yes.

 

Leon Rawitz:       

Wow. And so your company currently does retail and service?

 

David Wright:      

Correct. And repairs, remodels; everything.

 

Leon Rawitz:       

Oh, wonderful.

 

David Wright:      

Everything but the original construction.

 

Leon Rawitz:       

Okay, well in your 35 years you’ve probably seen a lot of old pools and new pools get old.

 

David Wright:      

Yes.

 

Leon Rawitz:       

A lot of our listeners have questions over how do you take care of an aging pool? Are the maintenance, you know, does it – what kind of things change as the pool gets older and what should our viewers be on the lookout for?

 

David Wright:      

You always want to deal with a professional pool shop, whether it’s – I’m sure that geography is different and the ways of doing business are different across the United States and I’m kind of amazed sometimes at the differences I see, but you always deal with a professional pool guy; somebody who’s been in the business for a while and knows what he’s talking about. One of the most important things is water chemistry. And there’s now even more things they’re finding out about water chemistry today that they didn’t know about 20 years ago, for instance. Like today one of the big things is phosphates in the water. That’s basically fertilizer for the algae. And so we’re always dealing with that. And water departments now have phosphates coming right out of the drinking line. So, you know, every time you add water to the pool you’re adding fertilizer for the algae.

 

Leon Rawitz:       

How do you instruct your customers to take care of and, you know, better maintain their pool water chemistry?

 

David Wright:      

Well periodically bring in some water. We keep track of the customer’s water. You know, after we’ve done an analysis of it we tell you basically how old the water is or, like, you know, sometimes a guy brings his water in—I mean it’s a rare thing, but—a guy has brought his water in and I say, ‘Oh, you’ve changed your water.’ He says, “No.” I said, ‘Yes, I can tell by your water test. You’ve got new water in.’ He says, “No.” I said, ‘Then your pool has a leak.’ And he says, “No, I haven’t added water in three years.” I said, ‘Then you have an automatic fill valve.’ And he said, “No,” and I said, ‘Yes. Think about it.’ Then he goes, “Gasp! That’s what that noise is in the middle of the night when I hear that {makes noise}.”

 

Leon Rawitz:       

{Laughs}

 

David Wright:      

I go, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘We need to go out there and check your pool.’ And sure enough we found a big leak. It had been there for ten years or something.

 

Leon Rawitz:       

Oh wow. {Laughs}

 

David Wright:      

Yes, there’s always those kinds of things. But I think one of the things that people do today that I didn’t notice so much before is they’re pretty easy to spend – it’s easy for them to make the decision to spend on something they can brag to their buddies about “look and see what I’ve got.” But when you have something that’s behind the scenes that makes their life easier, they’re not so apt to jump into it. And so people say, “Well I want to get my tile and plaster done,” and I’ll say, ‘Yes, but your equipment’s 20 years old.’ “Yes, but it’s running fine.” I said, ‘Oh.’ This is like a patient going to the doctor and saying I want a face lift, but I’m in congestive heart failure.

 

Leon Rawitz:       

{Laughs}

 

David Wright:      

You know, let’s fix your heart first and then we can do the cosmetic stuff because then you’ll have the ability to actually take care of it. And they say, “Okay, well come out and check it out,” and then sure enough, you know, everything needs to be replaced and we jump in there with, you know, the Pentair IntelliFlo Pumps, which are just I love them. They just save so much money it’s incredible. And then you know, you get a nice 4000 Series filter and a new Pentair heater and they think, “Gee, why didn’t you make me do this before? Now my pool’s real easy to take care of.” And I say, ‘Yes.’ I’ve been preaching to the choir for – you know. Everyone’s just amazed at how much difference the new equipment is compared to the old.

 

Leon Rawitz:       

Now is the IntelliFlo Pump saving them money and how so?

 

David Wright:      

Oh big time. It’s probably the easiest argument to make. Here in California electric is pretty expensive. And we’re on a five tier plan, meaning that the baseline is the cheapest and then it continues to rise. Like in my case I think the baseline is 14 cents and it goes up to 34 cents. So if you can keep your – and it’s broken off into five different tiers. If you can keep your electric consumption down to a reasonable amount, your electric bill’s not too bad. But when you get into tier five, now you’re paying almost three times as much as you did for tier one. So if you go to – what I do is at the stores I say, ‘Here, let me show you something.’ Sit them down at the computer; pull up the Pentair cost calculator. Show them – okay, ask them some questions. How big is your pool? It’s 25,000 gallons. How big is your pump? It’s two horsepower. How long do you let it run? Eight hours a day. What tier is your electric at home? Well everybody here’s in tier five. I mean they’ve got a – and we calculate that. And then you push the button and it gives, bang, it says you save, you know, $1,400 a year in electric. And the guy goes, “You’ve got to be crazy.” I say, ‘No, it’s black and white. Figure it out.’

 

And so, you know, you get your money back on the pump just on electric savings in the first year. And then after that – what Edison is doing right now is they’re raising the rate every six months just to stimulate people’s conservation efforts; meaning that in six months you’re going to get spanked harder than you were in the last six months for wasting electric. And so we’ve put in, I don’t know, three or four hundred of these pumps now and just everybody loves them.

 

Leon Rawitz:       

That’s the adjustable speed…

 

David Wright:      

Yes, well there’s three different versions of it, but it doesn’t matter which version. They’ll all do the same basic thing; they just have a little bit different application.

 

Leon Rawitz:       

Okay, great. What are some of the frequently asked questions that you get from owners, particularly of these older, aging pools?

 

David Wright:      

Well I mean the most typical question is, “Hey, I’ve got algae. How do I get rid of it?” and then you have to say, ‘Well I need a water test so I can tell you what’s going on.’ It’s like taking a physical of somebody. And then you ask them some pertinent questions like how long do you run your pump. “Oh I run it two or three hours a day.” Well that’s not going to cut it. You know, you eat three times a day. It’s going to have to run based on the size of the pump and filter, water flow, circulation based on the gallons of water that you have. You want to flip it at least one time a day. And so then we tell them, well you’re going to have to turn your pump up to eight hours a day and you’re going to have to do this and this to get your water back in balance. And when that happens, presto change-o, now your pool is easy to maintain (and) doesn’t have any problems.

 

Leon Rawitz:       

How will customers know how long to run their pool? Is that something that they can figure out on their own? Do they need a pool professional’s help to figure that out?

 

David Wright:      

We flow charts on the different pumps and we can tell you based on your pump and your gallons how long that pump needs to run. But on the Pentair pumps it’s pretty easy. You just program the pump for the gallons of water that you have and then it’ll take care of it from there.

 

Leon Rawitz:       

Are there any other common mistakes that you encounter that pool owners could use some tips on maybe how to also make their pool easier to maintain?

 

David Wright:      

Well yes. The things you want to stay in touch with is – well. A lot of it has to do with original construction, but little things like making sure that the skimmer weir is operating and in place. A lot of people think that that little door in front of the skimmer doesn’t do much, but actually it’s what does quite a bit of the work because it’s skimming the very surface of the water off the top and keeping the pool clean. The other thing is a lot of people, at least here, are not sure how to regulate the water flow from the main drain. And so we ask them questions that will reveal to us what kind of skimmer it is so that they can adjust and get half the water off the main drain and that, too, helps a lot in getting that water that may be in a tidal area of the pool through the system and treated and cleaned and chlorinated and all that.

 

Leon Rawitz:       

You know at 35 years of being in business, what’s the biggest change you’ve noticed in pool owners and maintaining their pool and how they equip their pool? What kind of changes have you seen?

 

David Wright:      

Well I think the biggest change recently, probably in the last 10 years, is that the guys are—and I say guys generically—the customers are a little more hesitant to spend any money unless they’re totally convinced this is going to be the right thing for them to do. In days past somebody would come in and say, “I need this. I need that,” and then – but now I think the buyers are a little more astute. They’ve already done some research on the Internet. They know what’s going on a little bit. You point them in the right direction and say, ‘This is what you want. And not only this is what you want, but this is why you want it.’ And because it moves the same amount of water, but it uses a whole lot less electric, it’s quiet, it’s dependable. We back it up. And what I tell our customers is, listen; you don’t have to take my word for it. If for some reason you don’t love this, for instance the IntelliFlo Pump, if you don’t love it I’ll come get it and then you can put on anything you want. That’s how firm I am in my resolution on the Pentair equipment. I mean it’s light years ahead of everybody else.

 

Leon Rawitz:       

Well that’s certainly a great guarantee. Dave, if somebody wanted to get in touch with you to learn maybe more about taking care of their swimming pool or learn more about JB’s Pools and Ponds, how would they get a hold of you?

 

David Wright:      

Well probably the easiest way is the Internet, and they can just put in JB’s, plural, pools and ponds, plural, at Gmail and then get a hold of us.

 

Leon Rawitz:       

Great, well we sure appreciate you joining us today on the Innovation Lab. Thank you so much and we enjoyed speaking with you.

 

David Wright:

Hey, it was my pleasure.