COVID-19 is the main topic of this week's episode. Since the virus hit earlier this year, pool costs have been increasing, and they're set to really go up in 2021. Eric and Jarred talk about the factors that are forcing prices to go up, how COVID-19 changed the supply chain, alternatives to trichlor, and where the pool industry can go from here.
00:21 - Introduction
02:48 - How COVID affected the pool and spa industry
05:20 - How COVID affected the supply chain
10:11 - How COVID affects shipping
13:02 - What are pool service prices going to be in 2021
14:30 - Why are sanitizer prices going up?
18:43 - What are some alternatives to trichlor?
27:19 - Wrap up
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Rule Your Pool is a podcast by Orenda Technologies. This show was created for pool owners, operators, and service pros who want the best water quality possible. If you want to know what's really going on with your swimming pool chemistry, this might be the podcast for you. Each week, we'll cover a new topic related to swimming pools, water chemistry, or indoor air quality. With our help, you'll be able to rule your pool without over-treating it with chemicals and wasting money.
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ERIC [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Rule Your Pool podcast, this is Episode 14. My name is Eric Knight and with me, as usual, my co-host, Jared Morgan. Jared, thanks for being with us.
JARRED [00:00:12] It's been a minute since we've done one of these, but I'm actually looking forward to this.
ERIC [00:00:16] We should be more consistent, probably. But, you know, that's what you do when you're virtual on other sides of the country. And [00:00:21]actually, the reason that we're virtual - covid-19 - is the main topic of today. [5.2s] Today, we are going to talk about [00:00:28]why pool costs are going up even now, but really in 2021. [5.2s] And we want to prepare our audience for the fact that a lot of things that you have been buying at a certain rate in the past are actually going to have to go up. And it's not because the pool service trade has to or it's not because they want to raise their prices. We're going to talk [00:00:50]about the factors that are forcing the prices to go up. [2.5s] Jared, is there anything you want to add to it?
JARRED [00:00:55] There's a lot to unravel here because it's it's multiple layers of why the costs are going up. But it's, you know, the focus I think we're going to have today is why it's going up. And then how do we prepare for this cost increase? And really we need to dig in because it could be a couple of minutes here on this episode.
ERIC [00:01:17] Yeah, well, we're going to talk about that and not just how you can prepare, but how you can adapt because it's an opportunity for a change in habits. And I think that's a good thing. So anyway, let's get into it. Episode 14 of The Rule Your Pool podcast. Let's go.
INTRO [00:01:38] INTRO MUSIC AND NARRATION
ERIC [00:01:59] Jared, in March, we were out in California, remember? I mean, I flew over to L.A. for the Western Pool and spa show. You and your family were there and we weren't quite sure if the Western Pool and spa show was going to be happening or not. It ended up kind of starting to happen, but we were already flying back and ever since then it was the lockdowns. So that kind of begun to give us a taste of what the lockdowns were. And I think they really started hitting that week. Later that week.
JARRED [00:02:31] It Was really quick after that. And it was a lot of uncertainty, a lot of uneasiness and a lot of, well, what do we do?
[00:02:37] Well, yeah, because, I mean, I'm in the sales and marketing side of our company. You actually run the logistics of it. You run the fulfillment, the manufacturing side of it. So I want you to kind of talk about [00:02:48]what was the first thing that really changed. [1.9s] And then we're going to transition that into how that impacts everything else in the pool business and why costs are going up. So take it away.
JARRED [00:02:58] Sure. I mean, as far as the manufacturing and production side of the business, it was that really wasn't a concern in March when all this came down, because it was really a what are we going to do? What does this look like? Are we going to be shut down and for how long? And how is that going to impact not just our business, but every business? And it absolutely had a dramatic impact on every industry, as far as I'm aware of. Some good, some bad. Obviously, our industry we're fortunate to be in the, you know, a home entertainment isolation type business, I guess, if you want to say on the residential side of the industry. So it really was something we were unaware of and uneasy about going into the swim season because I mean, I think marches right in time with where we're getting kicked off. Show season is ending and it's our job to get out there and start seeing our customers that we've talked to in all these trade shows throughout the winter. Boy, did that change a lot.
ERIC [00:04:00] Well, it accelerated, right, because most people like in the Northeast and the Midwest, they don't start opening their pools in March. They start in late April and early May. But I mean, I started noticing homeowners figured out they're going to be stuck at home. They started opening their pools in March, which is like a whole extra month, which shocked everybody. I mean, shocked me. And suddenly there's a demand at that time and in the year when we were not expecting it.
JARRED [00:04:26] Well, you really started noticing it in mid-April because it was probably about two weeks after the Western show when we're OK, [00:04:34]we still have demand on our plate. We still have these products we have to ship. We still have everything that we normally have to do. And and it grew [7.3s] with more demand. So therefore, we had to change our production. And everything changed after that. First, you know, two to three, maybe even four weeks of the lockdown. And when this happened, everything was kind of normal. It wasn't great just because things were shut down. But as far as lead times, it was OK. But, man, we really, really started feeling production crunches because of lead times on materials and components and things like that in about May. And it really started to create problems.
ERIC [00:05:16] Expand upon that, because the first take away from this up so that I want to talk about was [00:05:20]how covid-19 change the supply chain, [2.0s] because that's really what we're talking about. It's not. Well, let me let me back up the pool trade as a whole. The prices have gone up roughly about the same rate as the US dollar inflation each year. And sometimes we don't we don't raise our prices every single year. Sometimes we eat it. We don't want to raise our prices every year. But as the dollar inflates, you kind of have to keep pace with that because at some point it's a detriment. And the trade however, the pool service people that go around and clean pools and repair them, they often don't raise their prices because you don't really feel those inflationary raises that much. This is not an inflationary raise that we're bracing for, is it?
JARRED [00:06:07] No, and a lot of that with the full service trade is just fear of losing a customer over increased prices. And obviously, everybody's trying to be sensitive with this year and everything that's happened because it has tightnened a lot of things up. But, yeah, these costs are definitely mounting.
ERIC [00:06:25] Yeah, a lot of people lost their jobs and we have to be sensitive to that. And honestly, they didn't lose their jobs because of anything that they did wrong. You know, a lot of governors mandated their job stop, you know, restaurant workers and restaurant owners, et cetera, hotels, hospitality, flight attendants, all of these jobs just took a dramatic pause. And we are absolutely aware of that. There are some things that we cannot control, though. And that's that's the focus of this episode, what from the supply chain point of view changed.
JARRED [00:06:56] So when you start thinking about a finished product, whether it be a chemical or a piece of equipment or even something you buy at the home improvement store, it doesn't really matter. There's. You know, dozens and dozens of components, maybe even one hundred in some cases that go into making a finished product. So when you start ordering these components and there used to be a two to three week lead time and now there's a three month lead time that is very, very hard to plan for. And then some of these are even worse than that. We used to have like a bottle, for example, we could order a bottle and have a three week turnaround time. Now it's roughly a four month turnaround time and that's tying up, that's something that No one, it's hard to plan for, but once you finally grasp it, yes, yes, you have to plan for this. You have to buy more than you really anticipated because of the timing. And then not only that, you tie up capital, a lot of capital and components that you may not need for eight months.
ERIC [00:08:02] And not only that storage, I mean, now you've got more inventory on the floor, waiting to be processed, waiting to be completed to ship it out. And I remember one of the big things was Heater's this year has nothing to do with Orenda but heater's, you know, you had these ninety one percent completed heaters, but that last nine percent were components that came from overseas and they couldn't get them in because the ports shut down due to covid. And so yeah, I mean think of the demand on above ground pools. They were sold out, you know, they're still sold out the middle of next year, Spas sold out all these things that recreation and home leisure have changed, but the lead times caused delays and delays add costs. And part of that, if if I remember what you were saying earlier, where we have our chemicals packaged and bottled, they can't have a full shift of employees because of covid.
JARRED [00:08:54] No, it's changed changed the game because. Yeah, you have restrictions on how many people you can have in a certain space and in a warehouse. And then are they all wearing protective equipment, which obviously costs money, because if you can't have as many people on a floor manufacturing, you're decreasing efficiency and you're also increasing the cost to keep people safe, which is absolutely the key here, is keeping everybody safe and spread and trying to get this done as efficiently as possible given the circumstances.
ERIC [00:09:25] Right. Well, you know, that's just a hard cost to so having to buy a hand sanitizer and disinfection wipes and Plexiglass dividers and gloves and whatever else. And all of that is stuff that we as the customers of the manufacturing process, we have to pay that. And those costs up and down the supply chain are going up at every single level. Now you've got, you know, delays, which means more cost of inventory because it's sitting on a shelf, not moving. You've got slower efficiency or I should say less efficiency in the actual manufacturing process. And we're pretty fortunate. Our manufacturing process is somewhat simple relative to equipment and stuff. But all of these things slow down. They all cost more money, but [00:10:11]then it gets to shipping, which is the next thing I want you to talk about, because I had no idea what change was shipping and you were telling me about last week. So talk about shipping,. [10.3s]
JARRED [00:10:22] Shipping. Is this just something that we all deal with in the manufacturing process. As far as we offer free freight on some things, we offer freight of order, minimums are met and things like that. Well, when your freight costs have gone up dramatically, because what this also did was, number one, it reduced the movement of freight across the country because of the restrictions that were in place and then people were out of work. And then it's harder to get people back into work and so forth. So it reduced the amount of trucks on the road to move things, number one, to when these ports opened up across the country. I don't remember exactly when it happened, but it was a couple of months ago that created a flood of things that needed to be moved with a depletion in drivers to move them. This scenario has absolutely caused the shipping freight or freight rates to go through the roof. I know we have some stuff come in a couple of months ago and we were picking up four truckloads worth of stuff and we were moving all four of them within the same week. And we got four different quotes. The first one left, it was say two thousand dollars. The next one left three thousand dollars. But what next from that four thousand dollars? The next one that five thousand dollars for the exact same stuff moving in the exact same week. We had different quotes on all of it.
ERIC [00:11:49] And that's because the ports opened or what?
JARRED [00:11:51] The ports were open and it's just a lack of supply supply for drivers to move them. And people have you know, they can make more money moving something else somewhere or so, vice versa. So this has caused the shipping to go absolutely through the roof. And that's something that we can only absorb for so long,.
ERIC [00:12:11] Right. Well, exactly, because we're not talking about, you know, just an inflationary increase of three percent. We're talking about more like, what, 30 percent.
JARRED [00:12:21] More than doubling in the matter of two days on a freight rate?
ERIC [00:12:24] Oh, see, that's crazy. And it goes to the audience listening. If you're not in the manufacturing business, manufacturing is all the cost up until it gets to wholesale distributor, then the distributor has to distribute it. And there are costs in shipping and handling from there out to the retail level or to the dealers or to the service technician who gets it at wholesale. It's not linear, it's compounding. So it compounds on itself over and over again. So what are you looking at here? I mean, not necessarily with Orenda chemicals, but just generally across the board, with the exception of Trichlor, which we're going to get to in a moment. [00:13:02]What what do you think pool service rates are going to be doing in twenty, twenty one realistically? [3.8s] And not because they want to raise their rates for any other reason other than the supply chain problems that covid-19 caused?
JARRED [00:13:13] I would say 10 percent is probably a good, good number to go with. But like I said, it also depends on service rates across the entire country are different depending on where you're located. You know, Southern California is different from Texas, which is different from Florida, which is very different from the Northeast.
ERIC [00:13:30] Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure.
JARRED [00:13:32] So each one of these has a different base rate or rate which provides service. I would think a minimum of 10 percent is acceptable. But honestly, I don't want to put some price in somebody's head that that's what they need to do when it could be higher than that if you haven't raised your prices in the past five to eight years. You're really feeling it now, so you could need to go 20 percent.
ERIC [00:13:58] Yeah, and there's no there's no greediness in this. I mean, if someone wants to add price on top of what is Nessus - like, an absolute necessity, OK, that's their choice. But what we're saying is these are not things that pool service guys want to raise and retailers don't want to raise their prices either. This is just the hand that we've been dealt. Again, we're fortunate that the industry didn't shut down, but we are feeling the same effects. And by the way, this is every industry. Groceries are going up in price. [00:14:30]Everything's going up in price, but especially in pools because of sanitizers. [5.4s] And this is the second half of this conversation. Sanitizers, if you are trying to clean your house, right? What were the things at Costco and at the grocery store that were in demand the most in the early days of covid other than toilet paper?
JARRED [00:14:56] I was going to have toilet paper, of course,.
ERIC [00:14:58] Toilet paper, right. Which is weird in itself. But other than toilet paper, it was disinfection products, disinfectant wipes. It was spray cleaners. It was 409, it was Clorox. It was all these things that kill germs, Lysol, things like that. Well, if you have a manufacturing facility that makes sodium hypochlorite liquid chlorine, that product is actually used in a lot of those products. Like 409, like. Well, I mean, sodium hypochlorite is Clorox bleach, so sanitizers in general across the board, way beyond the pool industry have been in high demand. Would you agree with that, Gerard?
JARRED [00:15:40] Oh, absolutely. And it's just the nature of the environment we're in right now. And so these disinfectants put the supply and demand law of supply and demand. The demand is way greater than the supply.
ERIC [00:15:54] Yeah. So the prices go up and swimming pools, honestly, since the commercial ones were shut down, for the most part, residential swimming pools, unfortunately, have been treated low on the totem pole compared to hospital disinfection stuff, Lysol germ killing stuff for your house. That was what was really driving the demand and then a hurricane happened. Jared, why don't you tell us what happened with the Trichlor shortage?
JARRED [00:16:23] Well, so it was an unfortunate event, obviously, and regardless of where it happened and it just happened to hit, you know, in Louisiana where there was a major Trichlor manufacturing plant and it caught fire and burned up and basically wiped off a significant portion of the Trichlor supply to our country. And I guess it would be the world, but to our country specifically. And the thing about production of a chemical like that is when you are manufacturing a disinfectant or Trichlor Tab's or whatever it may be for it to make sense, you're running at 100 percent capacity, OK? And that means you're making one hundred percent of the output that you plan to make and that you can make possibly make. Well, these other manufacturing plants across the country, they can't just magically say, oh, there's more demand. Well, let me just ramp up my production. Another 10 percent. Doesn't work that way. I mean, they're obviously trying to make as much as they possibly can to make it as efficient as possible. Well, the supply is pretty much what it is at this point. You can't produce more in this country. So there's other things that we have to do to, number one, find a product that was basically taken off the the shelf, if you want to call it that, and fill the gaps. But then that's also going to be a lot more expensive.
ERIC [00:17:49] Well, also, in order to increase the production capability of these chlorine plants, they have to have heavy equipment to actually do things like pressing tabs and blending chemicals and those pieces of equipment. They got to come from somewhere and they have to be manufactured somewhere with components, sometimes from overseas. Sometimes it's all American. Whatever it is, everything's impacted by covid. So we were already at max capacity of chlorine production. And then it's one of the biggest, if not the biggest chlorine production plants in North America gets wiped out by a hurricane.
JARRED [00:18:23] Well, we were already at max capacity, but the demand with pools opening sooner, more pools being built, more pools being used, created a lack of supply already before the plant burned down.
ERIC [00:18:38] Well, yes. So we were already in a deficit and then the plant burns down. [00:18:43]Where do we go from here? I mean, Trichlor is going to be very hard to come by. [3.6s] And it's already, you know what, double in price. It could go more.
JARRED [00:18:52] Yeah almost doubled in price. And it's really going to have to take a hard look. The service companies and the homeowners that are maintaining their pools themselves are going to have to take a hard look at how they're using Trichlor because, you know, a lot of what we do as an industry would be, well, let's take your five or six trichlor tabs, throw them in your feeder and turn the dial all the way up. And I'm good for the week. And us, obviously, as a company, we don't agree with that method because it creates over stabilization and everything that goes with it. Now, that's not going to happen next year unless a customer or somebody just wants to pay an extremely high price for Trichlor tabs and waste them honestly,.
ERIC [00:19:35] Which, by the way, is probably an opportunity for evolving out of the trichlor habit because the trichlor habit is, in our opinion, because of cyanuric acid over stabilization, problematic. And so this is actually a good opportunity to actually shift.
JARRED [00:19:52] It's reflecting on practices. And instead of most normal, like here in Dallas, where we are, where I am, the service company that we have locally, they might use two or three times a week in your average. Eighteen thousand gallon. Twenty thousand gallon pool. Well, that's not going to be a good option next year. So where you might be using two or three now, you're going to start looking at one and then making that work in other ways and making it more efficient and lasting longer.
ERIC [00:20:22] Or not even one - And by the way, for those listening that are homeowners not in the trade trichlor is the common stabilized chlorine. It's the size of a hockey puck. Typically, they go on a feeder or a floater. God forbid the skimmer don't put them in a skimmer. But it's that common stuff that you buy at a retail store. That's what we're talking about. The production of that is pretty much maxed out and has been cut dramatically. So that's what's going to be in a big shortage in 2021. So you have to look at alternatives to trichlor for for how you're going to sanitize your pool next year. So let's talk about some of those options while Jared Pets is cat over there.
JARRED [00:21:02] That's not to say that those of you that are watching the podcast get a nice view of my cat in here.
ERIC [00:21:07] Cat just jumped in his lap. That's that's cute. So, yeah, the best episode ever. And now he's walking and that's great. He's walking on your keyboard. This is good. We're we're going to roll with this. We're not going to cut this part out because it just it makes the podcast more authentic. There is a cat walking right in front of your camera. That's great.
JARRED [00:21:28] That's my cat.
ERIC [00:21:29] OK, that's that's good to know. I'm very proud of you, Jared. [00:21:32]OK, alternatives to Trichlor. [1.1s] Let's get back to topics. What else is there? I mean, there's liquid chlorine. There's hypo.
JARRED [00:21:41] Yep. There's salt cells are going to be a topic of conversation just because they produce chlorine at the cell and kind of eliminate the need for trichlor tablets. There are pros and cons to that, everybody. It's not the save the world thing in our opinion. I mean, I would say I may not speak for you, but we're probably going to lean more on liquid chlorine and Cal Hypo.
ERIC [00:22:09] Mm hmm. Well, I mean, salt systems are a viable thing, but like Jared said, yeah, they're not this end all be all. There is other maintenance considerations you have to take care of. You have to manage a salt pool differently than a liquid chlorine pool. You just have to the LSI parameters are going to be different because you have a much higher pH being created. You need lower alkalinity, you need more calcium, et cetera. We've got all that information on the Orenda blog on how you could do that. In fact, future episodes of this podcast will kind of walk you through how we recommend to maintain a liquid chlorine pool versus a salt pool, et cetera. But Trichlor as your primary chlorine is just not really going to be much of an option anymore.
JARRED [00:22:51] Well, not just that salt is an option, but you also have to think of the. Degradation that salt creates around the pool, so that is something that has to be considered before you just jump in. So if you have coping stones or decks or even even metal fences or gates around your pool, these things can definitely be deteriorated by the salt.
ERIC [00:23:16] That's true. OK, so liquid chlorine. Now, the the limiting factor for those listening, you can only put so much liquid chlorine in a service truck, you can't stack them on top of each other legally. I've seen it done. I don't recommend it, but. Oh, your cats walking in front of the camera again. That's so funny. So, anyway, [00:23:34]liquid chlorine on a feeder. [0.9s] Is is one option so that you can chlorinate throughout the week because you're not going to have trichlor as available to supplement with the chlorine stabilizer, so you can set these things to be chlorinating in the evenings. Right, so that you have the benefit of chlorine working overnight in circulation with a variable speed pump, which actually allows chlorine, doesn't need sunlight to work. In fact, it'll work in pure darkness. That's probably the optimal way to do it. If you can install a feeder like a little peristaltic pump, how else would you recommend doing it? Would you recommend leaving a few gallons of chlorine with the homeowner?
JARRED [00:24:13] I mean, that is an option. But the problem with the service trade, for example, that's that's not going to be a great option. And it is a option, but it's not a great option because most homeowners don't really want to get involved in that process. I mean, and they I'm sure they will if they had to. But they're going to view it as I'm paying a service company to maintain my pool and telling me to put in a gallon of bleach in the middle of the week is not ideal, but it is doable. I think the best option, like I said, is a feeding system of some sort. And, you know, like I said, if you are fortunate to have some trichlor, don't waste it. Put one tab in and see how far you can get by.
ERIC [00:24:56] Yeah, well, I mean, the feeder pumps are great and they have you could put a residual tank of like five gallons, just top it off every week. That is one option. And then the other one is Cal Hypo. No, they have these NST non stabilize tabs. But if you're using that, you can't use liquid chlorine anywhere around it because any type of different chlorine is touching each other, or being stored near each other, is very hazardous. They can catch on fire or even explode. It's going to be very careful with how you store and handle these chlorine. But a lot of people just use cal hypo once a week as a shock. What do you think about that?
JARRED [00:25:32] That's more common where we are in Dallas. They do have liquid in areas, but cal hypo is, the most common use and one pound of shock in a pool will definitely boost the chlorine level and get it by. But if you're going to do it that way, you're going to try and maintain a pool without, you know, trichlor tabs because they do add stabilizer and give it that protection from UV. You might have to have a little higher cyanuric level in your pool if you're going to try to do that. You know, whereas before we try to say 30 parts is about where I would recommend 20 to 30 parts cyanuric well, if you're going to not have trichlor introducing cyanuric acid in your pool constantly, No. One, you're going to check it more frequently. But two, you're probably going to have to maintain that cyanuric level around 50 parts to give it that added layer
ERIC [00:26:23] But but you don't need to buy Trichlor to get that. You could still buy cyanuric acid. There's no shortage of that where you could just buy pure cyanuric acid if you need to raise it up, we say don't go over 50 parts. And the reason for that is over stabilization. If you want more information on that topic, go to our website, Orendatech.com, or more specifically, blog.orendatech.com And just search CYA and you'll find a whole bunch of articles in it. One of them is our fourth pillar of proactive pool care called minimal CYA. Read that article. It explains why we don't want you to go too high. You still get the sunlight benefits under 50 parts per million, but you don't weaken your chlorine too much. So. Let me see if I can kind of recap this here for the audience will wrap up this episode and hopefully we get to see your cat again walking across your keyboard, because that was just awesome.
ERIC [00:27:19] [00:27:19]OK, so there's really two things that we're talking about of why the costs are going up, [4.3s] covid-19, of course, is the big one, and that is that everything up and down the supply chain got more expensive. It involves more safety gear, sanitization, slow deficiencies, slow slowed efficiencies is what I said, because you have to space people out. There's less people on the floor. You're not running as fast as as usual, and then you've got all the delays that come with it. I mean, we were waiting for bottle caps and little components like that. All of that adds cost. The second aspect of that would be shipping. Am I right so far?
ERIC [00:28:01] OK, so on the costs of covid directly, what else is there that has raised the prices, at least in our industry? I think we covered them all.
JARRED [00:28:12] Yeah, like I said, most of it's just the supply chain and the delays that go with that and tying up capital. And then you have the shipping cost to get it to customers, which has gone up a lot. And then, like I said, the protective equipment that's in place that's required to stay open and produce and keep people safe.
ERIC [00:28:32] OK, so after shipping, then we talk about the actual swimming pool, chlorine shortages, which, of course, came from the big chlorine plant getting destroyed by the hurricane, which coincided with an already maxed out demand, which we were still behind on because so many more pools were using chlorine and everybody was home. So they opened up a month earlier. They closed a month late. All of that has just compounded into sort of the perfect storm. So the question I have for you, Gerard, is what next? How long does this go on? When do we start to curb this back or do we curb it back?
JARRED [00:29:10] I mean, hopefully it creates a shift in pool management to create more efficiencies and make your chlorine last longer and more efficient, which obviously we sell chemicals. There are other chemicals in the market that are geared towards creating chemical efficiencies and limiting the amount of problems. y'know we are enzymes. Like I said, that we make can make your chlorine be more efficient. Same thing with phosphate removers. These things are something that you could look into building into your route, whereas before you may have viewed it as more expensive and not something you really wanted to absorb into your cost. Well, if the cost of Trichlor tablets has nearly doubled, that gives you a lot of latitude to look at other things that aren't necessarily a higher cost anymore. So whereas you might, you know, make your chlorine more efficient by incorporating some of these other specialty chemicals in its water, that's easier to maintain. It's more efficient. That provides a better quality to your customers. It's definitely something that you could sell and make it make a case for it. And that's really what I think is a better option. There are secondary systems that ozone and UV that are commonly used in residential pools that would definitely help make your water more efficient. But the problem is there's still no residual in the water, which is really what chlorine provides.
ERIC [00:30:49] Well, you've got the hyper dissolved oxygen. You've got AOP. You've got new technologies coming out that can supplement chlorine elsewhere. And while they may not have a residual, they can definitely help chlorine be more efficient. I think that's not up for debate. It's to the extent of how much they help. And and that's really not our discussion because we're not in that world. But either way, we need to supplement chlorine.
JARRED [00:31:17] Well, now you ask, how long does this last? And the answer is, I don't think we really know because, you know, as as having a backyard pool, you know, in a residential home, it's becoming more popular. The demand is there because it's something that's, you know, not in a mass gathering and it's control. And if you're going to be isolated at home, you might as well have some entertainment that's good for the kids. I know my kids used it every day this summer because it was great and I'm glad we have a pool. But it's something that I don't know how long it lasts because until another plant gets rebuilt, which there is a plan to rebuild, that supply is still not online, therefore it's not available to be sold. So there are going to be other options that come up, but I still don't think it's going to necessarily fill that gap. So you're looking at least a couple of years before that's a reality?
ERIC [00:32:09] Well, this is why we're making this episode so that the service professionals listening to this can share this episode with their homeowners. And if you are a homeowner listening to this, first of all, thank you for being here. That's great. We we are actually creating this content primarily for you so that you can kind of get a little insight into what's happening. We don't like surprises either. And I know that homeowners don't like surprises. So thank you for all your time. Is there anything you want to close with Jarrett or do you think we've covered it all?
JARRED [00:32:40] No, I think that, you know, like I said, we're we're we're in a fortunate industry and there are those that aren't. And we understand that, you know, my family, for example, is in the food service industry, not the pool business. And it's been really hard. And it's there's been a lot of furloughs, been a lot of, you know, people laid off. And it's definitely affecting industries across the board. And we're fortunate. But, you know, hopefully we can pick up and get moving on and next year and get things moving in the right direction.
ERIC [00:33:16] All right. Well, thank you so much for all of your time and insight on this. I'm Eric Knight with Orenda. This is Jared Morgan over here. He's the president of Orenda. And he has the actual inside scoop on the manufacturing side of things. This has been Episode 14 of the Rule Your Pool podcast. And we just wanted to take this time to explain why the prices are going to be going up in 2021. And we want you to be prepared for it. Thank you all so much for your time. We'll see you next time.
OUTRO [00:33:43] OUTRO NARRATION AND MUSIC