How to clear water after algae . . . professionally

[DDawgCleaningPools]

I'm interested in getting into the pool service business. I'm still a novice though.

Ive been practicing on cleaning green pools, and I find the whole thing very frustrating. Killing the algae with enough shock and algaecide is easy. Clearing the water is the hard part.

While you inevitably can clear the water, it often takes way too long and I'm not sure how I would explain that to a customer.

Any ideas? Is it just about dumping enough flock the day after killing the algae? If I dumped the maximum amount would it work? Or should I just be draining green pools?

[PoolDoc]

Flocculating agents ("floc") are not a cure-all. In fact, they often cause problems.

Part of the problems is that the liquid flocs sold today -- unlike the aluminum sulfate ("alum") of years past -- are 'mystery goo'. You don't know what you're getting, and you don't know the concentration. As a result, it's impossible to find technical data on the products, since these are only available from the original manufacturer. And since these products are mostly 'off-patent' and being made in China, you have to work out who ORIGINALLY made it (DOW, DuPort, Sherex, etc) and see if tech data can be found.

It's not a problem I've been able to solve.

The way for a pool guy to deal with algae is to avoid it. In 25 years of servicing very large commercial pools (> 100,000 gallons), I've only had a pool under contract turn green from algae twice. The first time was my first year; the second was when a new pool manager took charge and ignored my explicit instructions.

I've never heard of a pool business that operated trying to clean up green pools -- there's way too much unpredictable stuff going on.

If I *were* to try to do so, I would do it by setting up a dual axle trailer with multiple 2HP pumps each coupled with a matching Sta-Rite 72 sft DE filters and independent flex piping. I'd set the pump on recirculate, bypassing the filters, and inject bleach until the pool 'turned'. At that point, I'd begin filtering. With 3 pump/filter combos, I could maintain a 240 GPM circulation rate, and with proper placement of the inlet and outlet piping, I could filter 90% of the water on the first pass. With a 30K gallon pool, I could 'turn-over' the pool every 2 hours, and could probably offer clean up within 6 hours.

BUT . . . it would take 1 skilled operator, with 1 helper, a full-size pickup, a dual axle trailer and $10K for the piping, pumps, filters and generator. In my area, you'd be lucky if you could operate 100 days out of the year. With $30K of gear plus labor, your costs would run at least $30K annually. So, if you charged $300 per clean up, you'd merely break even. To be profitable, you'd need to charge something like $450 per cleanup

Again, in my area, the number of pool owners who'd be willing to pay that, to turn a green pool crystal in 8 hours is small.

In Dallas, you might find a market, but it would be expensive to get the word out to them.