Eric and Jarred return to reclaim their place among the top 17 swimming pool podcasts.
You asked for more podcasts and great information. But instead, we brought Eric back.
The new email address is ruleyourpool@gmail.com.
Show notes optional.
170. Rebirth
===
[00:00:00]
Jarred Morgan: Alright ladies and gentlemen this is the first rule Your Pool episode since Eric signed off in April. And it's been a long summer, we've had a lot of stuff going on. And uh a lot of you have reached out sent emails, Yes we do read them, we do respond. And there's been an overarching theme of requests and what's your craving. But instead we're bringing Eric back.
Eric Knight: Jarred it is good to be back. Now, I've got to admit, you and I are both out of practice as evidenced by that wonderful rambling intro you did. But, we both know the fans did not want me back. They just wanted you back and they wanted Scarlet back and that's okay.
No They wanted Scarlet and Blue and all the other animals that I have in my house. Maybe the squirrels I'm not sure. But uh
Yeah.
Jarred Morgan: We didn't have any show notes here.
A New Era
---
Eric Knight: It's a new era for the Rule Your Pool podcast. The bar has been set [00:05:00] lower and I don't hate it because I used to put a lot of time into those show notes. I'm not sure why, honestly. But as we move forward. I'm excited for this new era.
We have worked out an agreement to have this podcast continue and I'm very grateful for that. And if anybody, because I have had some feedback from people, they're like, wait, why'd you, why'd you leave? And all that stuff. The entirety of my reason for leaving is to expand education. That's what I love to do.
I've. can't explain to you what it feels like to be in front of a classroom full of a few dozen or even a few hundred people, and you could see it on the students' faces that they're having an epiphany, they're learning something they didn't know before, and it's going to change their business. It's going to change how they can make a living for themselves.
And I wanted that to continue and I wanted to scale that to a bigger degree. And I recognized that the opportunity at Watershape was a way to do that beyond chemistry.
That was the reason it wasn't. It wasn't to like abandon HASA by any means. I still believe in proper chlorination. I mean, I was a swimmer, Jarred you know this. I've probably said it a [00:06:00] thousand times. The utmost priority to me is the health and safety of swimmers. That's why I'm in the industry. I got really sick swimming indoors.
Air quality matters. Water quality matters. So of course, chlorination matters. Of course, disinfection matters to me. And I recognize that there are a lot of pros out there that just haven't had either the time to educate, or they haven't had the opportunities in a more accessible way. And that's something that we're building at Watershape. A more robust online learning system, similar to Orenda Academy, just not produced the same way.
But we're talking construction school. Like if you want to build a pool and get into pool construction, how are you going to build one on a hill? Where are you going to learn how to do that? How are you going to build a retaining wall so that you can make a vanishing edge for the first time? Where are you going to learn how to do that? How are you going to learn how to do rebar correctly? How are you going to do a bond beam correctly? And all of these things I knew nothing about at Orenda, and it's a chance for me to learn a lot more.
And this podcast has been reborn in a [00:07:00] sense that we're going to cover more than just pool chemistry now. We're going to cover pools in general. You're going to rule your pool, but this is also for pool pros who are going to get a lot of information about pool construction, design, engineering, business, you name it.
And I think for the homeowners listening to this, you're still going to get chemistry for sure, but you're also going to get a lot of insight as to why pools cost what they do.
There's a lot that goes into them. There's a lot of complexity. There's a lot of engineering, there's a lot of soil studies that need to be done, and a really quality pool build takes a lot. It's not an easy endeavor to do.
And in this show, as we bring it back, I'm in some ways going to do some teasers for some Watershape content where you'll get like the first few minutes of an actual class. And if you want to take that class, you can go on to Watershape.org and you can continue taking the class.
And we're going to talk about things back to pool chemistry. Things that I want to talk about that just, we never got around to. We were so busy doing what we were doing. And Jarred you know, this, I mean, we still [00:08:00] have a list of 30 or 40 episodes that we never got to do. So I'm very grateful that we're able to work something out and, and get me back to continue ranting. I suppose?
Jarred Morgan: I mean it's ranting with me and you know it's just nails on a chalkboard. But in all seriousness, it's more of, you know at Hasa and Orenda what we all have been a part of. Pool care in general has always been very important aspect to our industry. Bringing a resource providing value. If we're not bringing value to your business or if you're a homeowner for you maintaining your pool, this isn't very fun.
So we do get enjoyment out of that, and it does promote safety. It does promote being better. And at the end of the day, that's what this podcast is about. And whether Eric's with HASA, with Watershape, whatever endeavor it is, the mission and the message is still the same. It's being better at what you do and it's going to [00:09:00] revolve around pools, pool water chemistry pool building. Um we've had health experts on so it's being out in the sun and the business that we're all in.
This is just a continuation of something that we've already started. And obviously HASA, we want to make sure that this lives and that that message and that proactive approach doesn't die. And over the past few months you know it's it's been busy. And honestly Eric is the one that drove the podcast as he likes to call himself the host And I was the co-host but I was a very mediocre co-host.
Eric Knight: I wouldn't say that you're being too harsh on yourself. You were terrible. Um, you, you did almost No, no, I'm just kidding. Yeah. I mean, honestly, we, we had a lot of fun doing it. But, uh, a lot of the ideas for the podcast came from Jarred. He would hear from a customer, he'd call me up and say Hey, we need to talk about this.
I've had two calls this week on the helpline about, you know, whatever the problem was. And then I would go and do some research. We'd make it happen. We had a lot of fun doing it, and we're going to continue having fun doing it. Different companies, same mission.
Because Jarred you [00:10:00] know this, you were a pool service tech for a long time. It's a hard job. There's a lot of skills that you have to be, you have to be proficient in electricity. People get hurt. Some people die from electrocution in the pool business. You got to be a plumber. You have to be a chemist in some ways. You have to be able to work outside and clean, and you got to do it 10 times a day, and drive in between. That's hard. That's really hard.
It's incumbent upon the professional to have more education in that discipline, to be able to offer some value that the homeowner can't just do themselves. Over 50% of the residential pools in our country, according to most data we've seen, are DIY homeowners. They do it themselves. And chemistry is one thing. But the last thing you want is homeowners trying to replace a pump and dealing with electrical panels and doing all those things. Those, those are things for professionals that can come in and actually do it right.
And how many times, Jarred, have we had incidents where a homeowner doesn't really trust the pool guy 'cause maybe they messed up the chemistry, so they just hire an electrician to [00:11:00] install something. But the electrician's never worked on a pool pad, and he does it wrong. And something breaks early and it's not under warranty, and then the homeowner is screwed. And it all goes downstream.
Jarred Morgan: Or, the one that I really enjoy, They have a 2 hp pump on their equipment pad, but they see a sale on a 3 hp pump and they slap that baby on there thinking that it's going to move water better. And turns out there's
Eric Knight: Oh and it screams.
Jarred Morgan: Oh it'll scream for sure. and you get into hydraulics issues and that's why plumbing, electrical, all these things matter. Now that's on the, obviously, technician/electrical plumbing side of the business. You know it's all segmented. But educating and knowing what you're doing, it flows through on all aspects of what we do in a backyard.
More than just chemistry
---
Eric Knight: I guess what I'm getting at is this podcast started as a chemistry information center. The basic physics of water. Why does water keep doing the exact same thing the exact same way every single time, and yet we think it's unruly and not behaving? And come to find out if you could summarize the [00:12:00] previous 169 episodes that we've done since 2019 together, Jarred, we are the problem.
We think that we can impose our will upon water. And water doesn't like that. Water just wants to be in equilibrium, that's all. It doesn't care about us. It just wants to get back to its natural state.
And when we recognize that water is going to do what water's going to do, because it's not governed by mankind, it's governed by nature and physics, we can change the paradigm in our mind and we can be a lot more successful with our water if we're a homeowner. Or, with the water that we serve, if we're a service pro on all the pools that we treat.
Water behaves extremely well when you give water what it wants. But what people want, of course, like I said before, is disinfection. I want that water to be safe, clean and clear. I was a swimmer. I used to spend hours a day in pools, and trust me, that is still the priority. But that's again, that's just on water chemistry. You know what else I want?
I want safe pools. I want spas that don't crumble. I want concrete that is sound, that doesn't leak and [00:13:00] crack. I want people to understand when they install a pool and they invest in this brilliant piece of joy in their backyard, it better be built right. It better be installed right, or else it's a nightmare for a homeowner and that.
Yeah, nobody wins.
The future of Rule Your Pool
---
Jarred Morgan: If you've read our blogs, and you've unfortunately, if you've listened to Eric enough times, you'll know what we're talking about.
Eric Knight: If you're still awake.
Jarred Morgan: Yeah, Kathryn. She's not awake.
Eric Knight: Yeah. I'm fairly certain just listening to my voice has driven people out of the industry. They're just so bored, and you know, Jarred, we have a chance now that we're back...we can break into that top 17 pool podcasts once again. We were in there, for a little bit.
Jarred Morgan: How many listeners do we have now? I
mean
Eric Knight: I can't tell the real number, because people ... yeah I don't want to show that card, but now that we're going to talk about a lot more stuff, I think we're going to get a broader reach, we might get to 500.
Now here's some other orders of business. As we mentioned, [00:14:00] Jarred is still with HASA and Orenda, I'm now with Watershape University. We still work very closely, we talk every week. And I have relationships now with other sponsors of Watershape University that have nothing to do with chemistry, per se.
But all the equipment manufacturers, we're going to have some of them on here for subject matter experts. Automation, heating, We're going to have some special guests on here that can provide unique value to you. And if you're a homeowner listening to this and you're thinking about maybe an upgrade of something, or replacing something maybe that episode will speak to you. We're going to introduce some technology to you that you may have never heard of before.
So we do have a lot of Watershape partners that'll be on this. The title sponsor is still HASA and Orenda, so I will be hosting it once again. Uh, But there will be other sponsors involved with this and I, I don't want to commercialize it. I don't want it to be advertisements per se. I think a lot of podcasts do that. That's not the point. It's really to introduce ideas and information to you.
So the way that sponsors will be presented in our show [00:15:00] is if they have a unique value to you. If they have a promo code or something for you to try out their product and they can educate on it. It's things like that. And I will be the one making decisions of how that is presented to you, because I can't stand ad interruptions on podcasts. I understand you're listening to this while you're driving between pools. If you're a pool pro, most likely,
Or a homeowner, who knows when you're listening to it? We're glad you're here! But maybe there's something that you didn't know existed. And I think this is a great opportunity to introduce those things to you just so you can make informed decisions, really. And they're good people.
Everybody in this industry is trying to add value. I don't think there's a company out there that's like, ah, let's make a mediocre thing and just see if we can get on an get in on this gold rush. I think everybody's trying to add something unique to it and make things better.
And look [00:16:00] at how technology has advanced. I mean, Jarred when I got into this industry in 2016. The advances in automation are insane. Um, there's better filter media now. We've got crushed glass was just kind of coming onto the scene at that time. But you've got alternative filter media, you've got way more efficient heaters now.
You've got advances in all sorts of stuff. And you know, hyper dissolved oxygen, nano bubble technology, ozone has been improved greatly. The delivery systems for that have been improved greatly. Um. Now, you know, all these companies have apps so you can automate things and look at the service softwares that we partnered with with the Orenda calculator.
They all have the Orenda calculator in it. Now to do chemistry readings that automatically record week by week if you're a service pro. That's value that didn't exist when we started, and I feel like we built something really special, not only with the Orenda calculator, but this podcast made things like the LSI and the pH ceiling mainstream. Enough that I see it on Facebook that homeowners are talking about the pH ceiling.
Hell yeah. I [00:17:00] mean, we didn't come up with the concept, but we did coin the name, the pH ceiling. And to see that out there in these Facebook groups and there's a lot of 'em out there with homeowners especially, and they're screenshotting the Orenda app and they're talking about Contain your pH and do all this stuff.
It warms my heart that we've gotten such a reach and it is such a blessing and I don't want to take that for granted at all. And that's really the main reason why we're back. I how much it means to me of the amount, the sheer amount of phone calls that I've had. Since the podcast ended, um, I, a lot of the emails probably go to Jarred because I don't have access to eric@orendatech anymore or podcast.
I, I'm sure the, because I've only seen two, so the new email address is ruleyourpool@gmail.com.
Jarred Morgan: You know who does? Miguel Chavez. Miguel is Miguel has been awesome, by the way. Miguel is taking, obviously he does the Rule Your [00:18:00] Pool podcast in .Spanish.
Eric Knight: Controlando la Piscina, Jarred.
Jarred Morgan: He he's obviously a shoe in for that role. And actually Miguel's great He's he's kind of taken over the educational aspect uh that Eric was leading whenever he left. And Miguel's done will be job. So Miguel I'm sure will be on this podcast. If y'all still send emails to to or you
email uhh, ruleyourpoolpodcast at gmail, is that right?
Upcoming Watershape U Events
---
Eric Knight: I think it's ruleyourpool@gmail.com. You know I got to get back into that flow. And, actually this is probably going to go live right after the Hawaii event. Watershape is going to have two Essential Fluid Engineering classes. That's hydraulics classes with Dave Peterson. They're two days a piece. One of them is hosted by Pool Builders Supply, which is a Heritage branch in Charlotte, and that is September 30th and October 1st. There are still some seats available in that one.
And then the other one is hosted by Vue Custom Pools. One of the IWI companies. And IWI is International Watershape Institute. It's kind of like our PhD in the Watershape University system. [00:19:00] That's the highest end kind of pool builder you can have, and they're hosting it up in Greensboro the next two days. We will be at the Master Pools Guild in um, Whistler Canada, in British Columbia. Really looking forward to that. Master Pools Guild, it's first time doing that. I'll be teaching a business class there.
And the other event is Oct. 22nd and 23rd in Reno. It's actually going to be during the Pentair training event. we're teaching Essential Major Renovations. So if you're in Northern California, Reno, Vegas, anywhere that goes to the Reno event. There are some seats available for that as well.
We have a bunch of online stuff that we're teaching. We're building this LMS that's coming out later this week. And the big event that I want to bring up to all the pros listening to this is our Education Vacation.
Jarred you and I have talked about this, but it's apparently it's never been tried. According to the people that've been in the industry longer than I've been alive. We are putting on a [00:20:00] three day education event in Phoenix at the Embassy Suites there in Biltmore. And you can see this on Watershape.org and then go to live events. You'll see it.
But the point of it is not just to educate students. Yes, of course we expect probably couple hundred students actually. But every manufacturer that works with Watershape University can bring all of their employees. For the price of food. No tuition to them.
And the reason for that is, as a manufacturer, for so many years, Jarred you know this too, we had to work the shows. The expo floor is super busy and we don't have time to sit in classes very often. Most people don't. So they don't educate. And so a lot of these employees and salespeople, service people, they really know their product, but they don't have any access or time to educate beyond that. We want to change that.
We're trying to professionalize the entire industry. Bring up the bar. How much more valuable can a equipment sales rep in a territory be if they understand pool construction better? Or if they understand fluid engineering better? Or electrical better? [00:21:00] And that's what we're going to be offering to them.
I think it's going to be a pretty big event. So far we've got a lot of signups for it already. And that's not until December was that, uh, September now, so October. That's three months from now. So we're very much looking forward to that event. And if you would like to take the Plaster School, we've revamped it. We've got our three day construction school, Electrical School, shotcrete School, Rick Chafey's teaching a Vanishing Edge Masterclass.
We're going to unveiled the first time ever an eight hour service class called the Core Four. Which now has the involvement of every equipment manufacturer that we've talked to.
Pentair, Jandy, Hayward, Aquastar, Poolside Tech, Raypak, all of them are coming together and working together on a brand neutral, fair and balanced class. Approximately two hours each of pumps, filters, heating and automation. It is for any level of service technician whether you've been doing repairs before or you've never done repairs. It's going to be awesome. I'm very much looking forward to it. And all the manufacturers that have been working with us so [00:22:00] far are saying basically the same thing. The industry needs this. We need to get objective information out there instead of just about one brand or the other.
So that's the Education Vacation. You could check it out on Watershape.org Uh, let's blow it out.
Jarred Morgan: We do have homeowners that listen to this. This is a service pro event, correct?
Eric Knight: It is for pros. But these classes that we're putting out, they are available to homeowners too. So I'm going to be recording our 8-hour chemistry class, and we're going to put it in the Watershape system.
And there is a cost to these classes. We do have them accredited. Um, but you can take 'em. If, if you're a homeowner, and you want to learn chemistry? That's great. And again, if we can raise the bar, generally speaking, the industry is going to get better, and that's better for homeowners. Because the end product is going to be better. If that minimum standard is raised, then no matter who you hire, there's going to be a higher level of proficiency. That's where this podcast is going to go. We're going to start educating beyond chemistry and I think we've spoken enough..
Jarred Morgan: You're coming back to whoever's dismay. [00:23:00] But I think it's ultimately going to be a good thing. I'm glad to be back, I'm glad that this is going to continue. I'm glad that, you know, Eric's going to call me and try to get me to read show notes, which I'm not going to do. And we're just going to get on here and rant.
Eric Knight: I'm not, I'm never, I'm never writing them again. Not with your attitude. Oh by the way, can we just comment on how old we are? We're both wearing glasses now.
Jarred Morgan: So these are blue light glasses.
Eric Knight: What happened? So are mine, but what happened to us man?
Jarred Morgan: I feel like I'm going blind. That's the only reason why I'm wearing them.
Eric Knight: Come on, take them off for the video. Let's get back to old times.
Jarred Morgan: You don't see the glare on my screen now. But I felt like I'm just staring at this screen pretty much daily. I was squinting a little more. And I was just kinda like ughh, it's rough.
Eric Knight: I'm the same way man. These blue blocking glasses are awesome.
Okay, anyways, we've wasted enough of your time. Um, yeah next episode we're going to get right back into it. Thank you so much, and I will put the email address...the new email [00:24:00] address...in the show notes.