Pool Service

Eight hours is a guess. Divide your gallons by your real flow rate, run a variable speed pump longer and slower, and make sure the salt cell and heater still get the flow they need.

Most pool equipment repair is an $11 seal or a $32 capacitor, not a new pump. The expensive ones are salt cells, heat exchangers and leaks under the deck.

Clean at 10 psi over clean pressure. Four OEM cartridges cost about half a new filter, and an $18 o-ring fixes more leaks than a new tank.

2026 part prices against the cost of a new installed unit, the failure that usually ends a heater, the error codes you can clear yourself, and why a cover beats a heater if the real goal is swimming in April.

An acid wash removes a thin layer of your plaster, permanently, which is why a surface only takes one or two in its life. When it is the right spend, when the money belongs in a new interior, and where the water can legally go.

Chlorine kills the algae, the filter removes it, and the order of operations is what most recoveries get wrong. Why cyanuric acid stalls a green pool, and when a drain beats another week of chemicals.

One drop of muriatic acid tells you whether the crust at your waterline is calcium carbonate or calcium silicate, and that answer decides whether a $12 pumice stone fixes it or a blasting crew does.

The same tired pool can be a $2,000 job, a $20,000 job or a $100,000 job. The three tiers, what triggers each one, which upgrades actually pay back, and where a maintenance company stops and a licensed builder starts.

Skipped weeks and unanswered texts are usually route economics, not spite. How pool route pricing decides which accounts get cut first, what CSLB licensing actually covers, and the four things to get in writing before you hire anyone.

The lamp is $30 to $70 and the invoice is several hundred. Where the money actually goes on a pool light job, when a drain is genuinely required, and why converting to LED beats replacing an incandescent like for like.