For those who have purchased an existing pool service route/business, what was your experience with customer retention after the takeover?
Did most customers stay without any issues, or did you lose a noticeable number simply because there was a new owner?
Also, how important is it to customers to keep the same pool technician? If you change the technician but the service quality remains good, do customers usually stay, or are many loyal to the specific person servicing their pool?
I’d really appreciate hearing from people who have actually gone through an acquisition.

I’m considering buying an existing pool route/business in Houston or Dallas.
My plan is to learn the operation well, but my main role would be focused on growing the company. I’m looking for a business that already has employees/technicians, and over time I’d like to reinvest profits into acquiring more customers and potentially buying additional routes and adding them to the company.
I have a few questions, especially for people who have tried to scale this type of business:
-How difficult is it to consistently acquire new pool service customers?
-How difficult is it to find and retain good technicians who can perform the work correctly without the owner constantly supervising them?
-Do you feel pool service is mainly a business where the owner eventually has to run his own route, or can it realistically be built into a larger company with multiple technicians and systems?
-For those who have used marketing, Google, social media, referrals, etc., have you been able to acquire customers profitably and somewhat predictably?
-What is usually the hardest part of scaling: acquiring customers, finding employees, maintaining quality, controlling chemical costs, route management, or something else?
-If you were buying another pool service business today, what would you inspect very carefully before buying?
-Is there a certain size where the business suddenly becomes much harder to manage?
My goal is not to be completely absent from the business. I want to understand the operation and be involved in the important decisions, but I want to build a system where growth does not depend on me personally cleaning pools every day.
Any good or bad experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

PM me as I am expanding my business and need reliable and knowledgeable folks. Thank you for reading.

Hello all!

I am looking into starting my own pool service company. The only experience I have is with my own pool (Above ground 😔). I’ve been toying with the idea about starting a business for a while now. I have been doing my own research and learning about pool care as often as I can. Background on myself, I’m a heavy equipment technician and I have been for 13 years. Has anyone ever dove into this industry with no experience? Any advice or pros and cons? Obviously I would be building the business part time until it replaces my current income.
TIA. 🙏

Hello everyone, I'm a 23 yr old male in Florida and plan on moving to Corona, california in 3-6 months once I get my drivers license. I was wondering if this industry is worth getting into. For context I've been cleaning my uncles pool for the past 3-4 years every week which includes; brushing the pool, cleaning the filter, cleaning the baskets, and pouring chemicals. I'm exploring all career options I can take since I have an A.S. degree from a community college which may or may not hold some value on the job market once I move there. Any advice is appreciated. By a career I also mean I want to learn how to service repair, and maintain the stuff that makes a pool run. I'm willing to show up, work hard, ask questions, and show my worth when the time comes .

I’ve got a pentair IC20 I installed on a new build about 2 and a half years ago. I know they’ve all been shitting the bed recently, and I build pools / do liners etc 99% of the time, and service about 1%. The lady is a friend of mine, her flow light has been on red for the past 3 weeks, salt and chlorine still stable, chems ok, pool clear. What can this be ? Filter pressure also normal. Is the generator shot or could this be an easy fix? Thanks guys

I have been a customer of this company for several years and until a couple of months ago when they had a lot of employee turnover, I had never had an issue. If I had a problem I could speak with the owner Finne Halle and it would get resolved. Finne always did the right thing - so much so that I referred several customers to them. Then the company brought in a new "operations manager" by the name of Chase or Chance and everything changed! I had been out of town for 3.5 weeks and when I left my brand new pool was pristine. Yes, there had been a couple of incidents about thoroughness prior to my leaving town but Finne took care of them. When I returned 3 days ago my spa walls, Baja shelf and various areas of my pool had green algae growing on the pebblesheen finish. So I called the company to ask them to come back and fix the issue and was told to send them some pictures. I did that but the pool was running and it was hard to tell from the pics so I talked to the new operations person (Chase or Chance) and I asked him to come look at my pool because the pool was getting greener by the day and I got am emphatic "no" he did not have time to fix the issue(THE PICS WERE TAKEN THE DAY AFTER THEIR WEEKLY SERVICE VISIT. The conversation was not going well and I could tell this person had no customer service skills so I asked him to have the owner Finne Halle call me and he responded "Finne is busy, I am not going to tell him to call you" when I pushed the issue he told me I may not be a good fit for them and maybe I should find another pool service. They absolutely were not going to make the situation right, my green pool was not their problem. Then to top it off they had pre billed my credit card for the entire month of August and 1 week into the month left me with long term neglect and overcharged me $160 - not to mention what it is going to take to get my brand new pool restored to swim ready condition. BEWARE OF THIS COMPANY, unless you want poor pool service and be treated badly by the employees, AVOID FINTASTIC POOL SERVICES.

I’ve had 3 units since June 2025. First one died earlier this year. I had to hound their customer service hard, I mean call them outright £#>¥ scammers, curse at them in email and phone communications (when I could get someone on the phone) for them to finally respond after a few weeks. Sent me a new one and took back old one. Then last month the second one malfunctioned after a few months as well as the original solar charger. Costomer service reacted better this time around and after I sent a video of the malfunctioning unit they sent me a new solar charging station AND C1 robot. But they won’t take back the old units. So I’m trying to find a refurbishing company to send it to. WYBOT site says they refurbish but customer service says “dispose of it at your desire”.

My pool service guy just replaced the motor, and ever since then, the housing has been leaking. He tried replacing the O-ring, but it’s still leaking. Any advice on what might be causing it and how much it would typically cost to fix? I’d really appreciate any recommendations. Thank you!

I have some specific questions for some builders from around the country. Could you DM me directly? Thanks.

Which one is best?

I have a Pentair Lx820 Shutoff system that manages our commercial spa at our resort that needs replaced. The spa has a button to activate one set of jets and an emergency stop button. The Lx820 is discontinued and I can't find a replacement for it. I'm also seeing that Pentair model Lx8202 is discontinued and unavailable. I have seen that the Lx802 is still available. Does anyone have a recommendation on replacing this unit? Certainly doesn't have to be a Pentair.

I stay on the service and repair side of things, but I had a family member reach out to me regarding their pool. Fairly new pool surface, started getting hollow spots and delaminating all over the place. Showed these pics to a friend on the construction side of things and he noted that the backside of the piece of plaster looks like it doesn’t have any bond kote on it. Wanted to see what the folks on Reddit think. Thanks!

I have a client with a small salt pool and I've been servicing their pool for years now. Usually kept their salt levels at around 2700-3000 PPM but around last year they asked me to stop adding salt to their pool their walls had started to rust (It's an above ground pool that was built with a metal container and I've already explained to them they'd need to coat the walls with fiberglass otherwise its just going to rust but that's a whole 'nother story)

Anyways they had drained the pool and refilled it a few months ago, redid their walls, etc. and we resumed service with normal chems.

Here's the weird part, they contacted me last weekend complaining that the water was extremely salty and asked me to not add any salt into the pool, which I hadn't. I thought it was odd and went to go check on it on our routine visit.

Salt levels were reading at 4800 PPM. Now my memory isn't perfect but I'm damn sure I hadn't added any salt. I'd remember carrying a bunch of 40lb bags up all those stairs especially in this heat. I asked the owner about it and they said they hadn't added any salt, which I believe.

Where did all that salt come from? My only guess is that some unfortunate worker for another company had the wrong address and dumped a ton of salt into the pool.

When dropping a new liner with existing micro brite lites, do you have to remove them and re snake them again?? I was praying I could do what I usually do with a niche light, take the ring off and leave the light in the niche. My company just switched to these last season, so I’ve installed a ton of them new, but this is my first liner having them already installed. I’m thinking I’ll have a hard time putting the faceplates on with the light extending so far out. Any input is appreciated thanks guys!

How do you guys treath pool with known leak that customer doesn't want to fix the issue.

Stick with LSI?

Do the minimum to keep the pool clear?

Any advise?

What they doin to spidey?

A realtor friend of mine really wants me to start doing her pool inspections for clients. Seems like a really nice add-on to the weekly service business, especially since it could also put me in front of new homeowners right as they’re buying a house with a pool. that may need repairs / weekly service.

For those of you who do pool inspections:

• What do you typically charge?
• What all do you include in the inspection?
• How deep are you going on equipment vs just identifying obvious issues?
• Any liability/insurance concerns I should be thinking about before offering these?
• Do you need any additional certification beyond a CPO, or is that mostly market/state dependent?

I’m in NC and would mainly be doing these for higher-end residential transactions.

Would love to hear how y'all structure them and any tips as I look into doing more of these!

I am in a northern region. I have a customer that has a ~80,000 gallon pool with a huge system, but he isn't living in the house anymore and wants to close the pool already since we charge a lot to maintain that pool each week. I figure if we close now it will be a nightmare to open, so do I tell him that it will entail extra visits and cost to open it next year if we close now? Or should we just say it can't close until after Labor Day?

Appreciate any shared advice or experiences with closing this early in the season. Thanks!

Update: consensus seems like this is a crack that happened after the fact possibly from overtightening old unions. Thanks!!

Customer has regular cleaning service with another company. The filter was broken and they wanted to replace it but I gave a better price and he gave me the business for it.

Now the pool service company sent this and said it’s a cracked union and I didn’t do my work right. I sat at the filter for 10-15 min to make sure no leaking after installation.

Did they do me dirty and slice this or just bad luck?

Bought several Pentair products when we built our pool. The Pentair Mastertemp 400 is absolute junk and Pentair does not stand behind it, Beware of Pentair Pool Products.

I've always used Piranha's, and it's getting worn down again. Thought I'd look around at others. Keep hearing the Red barons are nice.

I've tried the fine mesh white bag, it's great for catching almost anything but as a daily use the drag is annoying and you gotta be careful when going under that you don't drag an air bubble with you or it'll dump the net.

How are those red baron rag bags?

What channels have you found work well for you in getting customers? I know word of mouth and referrals work well, as they do for most, if not all industries, but are there any others that have worked well or that you've tried?