New customer wants me to use Carefree Clearwater Ionizer system

[moore887]

Hi,

I went to do a quote yesterday and the lady that owns the house said she was unhappy with the current pool company because they were dumping gallons of chlorine in her pool when she told them she had an ionizer system. I spoke at length to her about her pool and her dislike for chlorine. She has worked as a swim instructor for many years and managed her own baquacil pool for many years in New York without trouble. Admittedly she said that the copper/silver anode on the ionizer probably needs to be replaced (it is a couple of years old).
Let's look at yesterdays numbers.
FCand TC .5
Alk 70
pH 7.2
CH 200
CYA 0
Cu.4
Fe.1
Phos 500
Salt 1050

Tested with spintouch.

My question is, IF I carry out a weekly service, add borates to 50ppm increase Alkalinity to 100 with bicarb (I expect pH to start pulling closer to 7.8) and add the chlorine to maintain max 1ppm can I service this pool? I would also leave non chlorinating oxidizer there for them to shock the pool each time it's used.
It might be worth noting that I am in South west Florida with lots of sunshine and heavy rainfall.

What say you?

 

[Bperry]

Hi,

I went to do a quote yesterday and the lady that owns the house said she was unhappy with the current pool company because they were dumping gallons of chlorine in her pool when she told them she had an ionizer system. I spoke at length to her about her pool and her dislike for chlorine. She has worked as a swim instructor for many years and managed her own baquacil pool for many years in New York without trouble. Admittedly she said that the copper/silver anode on the ionizer probably needs to be replaced (it is a couple of years old).
Let's look at yesterdays numbers.
FCand TC .5
Alk 70
pH 7.2
CH 200
CYA 0
Cu.4
Fe.1
Phos 500
Salt 1050

Tested with spintouch.

My question is, IF I carry out a weekly service, add borates to 50ppm increase Alkalinity to 100 with bicarb (I expect pH to start pulling closer to 7.8) and add the chlorine to maintain max 1ppm can I service this pool? I would also leave non chlorinating oxidizer there for them to shock the pool each time it's used.
It might be worth noting that I am in South west Florida with lots of sunshine and heavy rainfall.

What say you?

I foresee the customer finding a third option in a couple months because she’s unhappy with the pool service. How can they expect 1ppm chlorine to last an entire week without CYA? unsanitary water will result. If you add CYA to keep the chlorine at 1ppm, same result.

Question becomes, do you want your company reputation to be dependent on the outcome of this customers future experience?

 

[JoyfulNoise]

I have found people who were either former swim instructors or avid swimmers always wind up hating chlorinated pools because they have spent years of their lives dealing with the side effects of improperly or poorly maintained chlorinated pools. They have probably dealt with dry stringy hair, bleached out clothes, burning eyes, infections, etc. There’s no way you’re ever going to change her mind on the subject after years, maybe decades, of going through that.

I too suggest you walk away from that client.

 

[duraleigh]

I too suggest you walk away from that client.

Run, don't walk.

 

[Newdude]

3 letters:

1) S
2) W
3) G

 

[JamesW]

add the chlorine to maintain max 1ppm can I service this pool?

How would you maintain the FC at exactly 1.0 all the time without it going higher or lower?

What did the pool look like?

Do you think that you could maintain the pool with good water quality going only once per week?

Are you willing to give a good water quality guarantee to the customer?

This means that if there are any issues like algae or cloudiness, you will return for free to fix the problems?

 

[Oly]

Test her tap water for FC and TC, it may enlighten her.
My small business solution to quoting jobs for difficult clients was to bump the price estimate by 3X. I assumed they would decline but if they accepted it may be worth the hassle.

 

[proavia]

Customer will need to understand it's your way or the highway. She needs to trust that you know what you're doing. Maybe try to convince her to try it out for a month or two and then revisit.

Or do as Dave said... "Run, don't walk."

 

[wireform]

Not even worth the try, this is a know it all customer that can't do it on their own but will blame you for all.

 

[ajw22]

0 CYA = harsh chlorine. Thus begins her hate of chlorine. 0 CYA with 1ppm of FC is harsher then 30 CYA with 5ppm of FC.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

The problem is, with copper in the water, you will not get algae. But you will also have no idea whatsoever if the water has bacteria in it. Some pathogen will flourish in the pipes and put the owner at risk of some kind of infection. It may turn out to be pink eye, or a mild skin rash, or even a UTI. Then she’ll say the pool is causing it but you’ll have no way to know exactly what to do. At that point all the goofy solutions with start to emerge - add MPS, install a UV sterilizer, add more minerals, use clarifiers, etc, etc, etc. You’ll wind up chasing down every ridiculous idea because she won’t want to do the one thing that will work - SLAM the pool and follow the proper FC/CYA ratio.

It’s just a recipe for frustration and acrimony. Not worth the indigestion.

 

[JamesW]

I went to do a quote yesterday and the lady that owns the house said she was unhappy with the current pool company because they were dumping gallons of chlorine in her pool when she told them she had an ionizer system.

Call the current service people and ask them their side of the story.

The customer will call you constantly and complain that there is a problem and you need to come out immediately to fix it and do it for free since they are paying you to keep the pool perfect, and it's not perfect.

 

[moore887]

Call the current service people and ask them their side of the story.

The customer will call you constantly and complain that there is a problem and you need to come out immediately to fix it and do it for free since they are paying you to keep the pool perfect, and it's not perfect.

..and this one is the most worrying one. I think it is a system that "could work" from a home owner looking after their own pool but weekly service with all the variables that a Florida summer throws at a pool would make this a problem pool out the gate.
Thank you everyone for your replies. I am extremely grateful.
I will send a message and respectfully decline the account and encourage them to maintain it themselves.

 

[Bperry]

..and this one is the most worrying one. I think it is a system that "could work" from a home owner looking after their own pool but weekly service with all the variables that a Florida summer throws at a pool would make this a problem pool out the gate.
Thank you everyone for your replies. I am extremely grateful.
I will send a message and respectfully decline the account and encourage them to maintain it themselves.

I kind of like the idea of offering to do it your way for a month and seeing if they liked it and at least telling them that you can’t do a good job with the restrictions they’ve put on you or for maintaining the water in a sanitary way. Kind of depends on how much benefit there is in that kind of offer.

I tried to hire the pool service that had been servicing our pool when we bought our home, but they kept refusing to do it saying they weren’t accepting new clients. But they only gave me the response that they weren’t accepting new clients after I provided them my address, so I’m kind of curious if the previous owners were some kind of problematic customers or if there was some other problem that we don’t know about . Like the skimmers leaking even though the inspection said the skimmers weren’t leaking, causing the deck to shift and sink away from the pool edge.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

I kind of like the idea of offering to do it your way for a month and seeing if they liked it and at least telling them that you can’t do a good job with the restrictions they’ve put on you or for maintaining the water in a sanitary way. Kind of depends on how much benefit there is in that kind of offer.

Not to keep this thread going any longer than it needs to, but I get what you're saying here and I think it will still fail. The reason being is that the pool owner is closed-mined - she has already written off chlorine as a non-starter and is highly biased against it. So even if she agreed to a trial period, it will be a completely adversarial approach on her part. She will be hyper-sensitized to any little defect or problem and then immediately jump to an "I told you so..." attitude while either demanding her money back or demanding that the pool not be serviced with chlorine. It's just a lose-lose situation all around. If it were simply a situation where she had a previous bad service company and wanted to try someone else, then it's probably someone that could be worked with. But I suspect calling her previous pool service company and asking them about the relationship would be extremely enlightening ...

 

[JamesW]

Angel Customers and Demon Customers: Discover Which is Which and Turbo-Charge Your Stock Hardcover – June 2, 2003. Larry Selden (Author), Geoffrey Colvin (Author).

 

[Newdude]

I thought that book was written by Dewey, Scruem and Howe.