Holy guacamole, Batman! A couple of months ago, I scheduled the pool opening for today. As the woman at the pool company I use told me over the phone, “it’ll be in the morning, before noon, but I can’t give you a tighter time frame than that.” I was thinking maybe sometime between 8:00 and noon, depending upon whether we were their first job of the day, or further down the list. They showed up a little before 7:30. My other half woke me up by announcing “they’re here.”
I bolted downstairs in sweats, with a serious case of bed-head, and no caffeine in my system. It was worth it, even if I did look like something a feral cat left on my doorstep as a “thanks for the catnip.” When I had the pool closed last summer, I knew darn well that all the grids in our DE filter needed to be replaced, so I wanted to make sure that had been done, and talk to the woman in charge about anything else they had noticed that needed to be addressed. There were indeed three minor things that I’ve asked them to schedule to be fixed. The guy who accompanied the woman was a different guy than the one who showed up last year for closing, but the woman in charge was the same gal.
She’s good. She’ll answer any question I throw at her related to the pool itself, the filter system, or the heater for it, right down to which gasket needs replacement, and which valve to make sure I fully open during a backwash cycle as a work-around, until that gasket gets replaced. They may sound like stupid questions to someone with her experience, but I think she appreciates the fact that I really do want to learn how it all works. Plus, I don’t watch over their shoulders like a hawk while they’re working. Some people use them for weekly or biweekly maintenance because they can’t be bothered to do it themselves. I don’t, because I’m sure that gets expensive really quickly, and I am willing to put in the work vacuuming, brushing, and adjusting chemical balance as needed.
There are at least a dozen pool companies around here, but the one I decided to use gets at least four times the recommendations as any other. I understand why, now that I’ve used them a couple of times. Their prices are on par with everyone else’s, but all other things being equal, customer service is what puts them over the top.
It’s going to be a few days before I can actually use the pool, but it’s just as well they’re supposed to be gloomy, because my time is better spent weeding the veggie gardens, anyway.
Leave a Reply