Pool Runs Blog

A salt water pool is a chlorine pool with its own chlorine factory, and that shifts the work rather than removing it. What to test, why pH keeps climbing, how to verify and add salt, and how to keep the cell clean without cleaning it to death.

High pH is the most common chemistry correction on a route and the one most often done by feel. Why pool pH keeps rising, which acid to carry, how to lower it without overshooting, and when alkalinity is the real problem.

Yellow algae looks like sand or pollen, brushes away in seconds and is back by the next visit. How to identify mustard algae, the treatment sequence that clears it for good, and how to stop it travelling between pools on a route.

Every dosing decision you make rests on a reading, and most bad doses start with a bad sample rather than bad chemistry. What the six readings actually tell you, when a strip is enough and when it is not, how to draw a sample worth trusting, and how often testing needs to happen.

Black algae is cyanobacteria, not algae, and it survives treatments that clear anything else because it builds a cap over itself and roots into the surface. How to identify it, the sequence that actually removes it, when it stops being a chemistry problem, and how to keep one infected pool from becoming five.

Rinsing a filter is not cleaning it, and a filter that never comes back to its clean starting pressure is not dirty — it is finished. The proper procedure for cartridge, sand and DE, and how to tell those two states apart.

Cloudy water is a symptom, not a diagnosis, and the five things that cause it call for different — sometimes opposite — responses. How a professional works out which one they are looking at before anything goes in the water, and what the job really costs to do properly.

A green pool is a chlorine problem before it is an algae problem. How a professional works one back to clear: what the readings tell you, the dose that actually holds, when to vacuum to waste, and how to quote the job so it pays for the time it really takes.

Closing a pool is a sequence, and the order matters more than any single step. Here is how a pool professional works through it - balancing the water days ahead, clearing the plumbing, choosing winter chemicals that survive four months in the dark, and setting a cover that holds through a freeze.

Raising a rate is one of the few levers that adds margin without adding a stop, and it is the one operators put off longest. Here is the sequence that works: what to check before you pick a number, which accounts to move, when to send it, what the notice should say, and what to do when someone pushes back.

Whether pool work needs a licence turns on three things: what the work is, whose pool it is, and which state you are standing in. Here is how those lines are drawn, what the categories actually mean, and how to get a definite answer for your own state in an afternoon.

A pool service truck is a workspace you drive between twelve and twenty times a day. What belongs on it, how to separate chemicals so nothing can go wrong in a hot bed, and how to lay it out so the tools you touch every stop are never behind the ones you touch twice a year.

What a buyer is really paying for, which factors move your multiple, the twelve months of record-keeping that decide the number, and why the handover period protects more of your price than the negotiation does.

Stops per day, drive time, chemical cost per pool, revenue per stop, attrition and collections — what each one tells you, how to calculate it, and how to review them in twenty minutes a week.

The first hire is where an owner stops being the whole business — and where a profitable route can quietly stop being profitable. When the numbers support a second person, what to look for, and how to structure the first ninety days.

Two owners charging almost the same price per pool can end the year in completely different places. The difference is rarely the rate on the invoice — it is route density, chemical cost and what the owner's own hours are worth.

How pool routes are actually priced, what pushes the multiple up and down, the due diligence that protects a buyer, and why the ninety days after closing decide how much of the book you keep.

Which policies a pool service business actually needs, the two exclusions that catch pool operators specifically, and what the coverage costs before anyone tries to sell you an upgrade.

What actually belongs in a pool service business plan: the route-density arithmetic it should be built on, the assumptions that sink first-year forecasts, and the sections each reader really turns to.

Most pool service marketing advice starts with a website. It should start with the map. Here is what actually moves a pool business up the local results, in the order worth doing it.

Why marketing a pool route is a geography problem before it is a message problem, and which acquisition channels actually produce customers on the streets you already drive.

What it really costs to start a pool cleaning business, how to license and insure it, how to price your first accounts, and how to build route density from day one.

What the job is really like, which skills and certifications actually matter, how to get hired with no experience, and how pay progresses from helper to lead technician.

The clauses that decide whether a pool service agreement protects you or just documents the argument: scope, chemical billing, access, repair authorization, and cancellation.

Learn how to create professional pool service invoices, set up automated billing with Stripe and QuickBooks, and get paid faster with autopay. Includes templates, payment processing comparisons, and common mistakes to avoid.

Learn how to optimize your pool service routes to cut drive time, service more pools per day, and boost your bottom line with proven strategies.