How to actually compare two pool companies
Two quotes that look thirty dollars apart are often not the same product at all. One includes testing, dosing, brushing and a report. The other is a person with a net. Compare on these dimensions and the gap usually explains itself.
| Dimension | Skim or chemistry only | What we do | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekly scope | A net dragged across the surface, baskets emptied if they are in the way, and back to the truck in six minutes. | Skim, brush the walls and steps, vacuum when the floor needs it, empty both baskets, test the water, dose to the written plan, and walk the equipment pad. | Algae starts on surfaces nobody brushed and in water nobody tested. Skimming alone treats the part of the pool you can see from the patio. |
| Chemistry | The pool gets cleaned, chemicals go in by habit or not at all, and nothing is written down. | Every stop gets a full test, the readings get recorded, and the dose follows the reading instead of the routine. | A pool that is cleaned but never tested still turns. Chemistry is what holds it between visits. |
| Green pool recovery | One heavy shock, an invoice, and the pool is your problem again when it clouds back over on day four. | Recovery is quoted as a package with the return visits and the filter cleaning included, because it takes more than one pass. | Dead algae still has to leave through the filter. The visit that removes it matters as much as the one that killed it. |
| Who answers the phone | A national number routes into a queue, and the person taking the message has never seen your pool or your street. | The phone reaches the shop at 2100 Riverplace Dr in Flower Mound, where the route board and the trucks are. | Franchise and call centre models are legitimate businesses. They simply put a step between your problem and the person who can move a truck today. |
| Repairs | The repair gets farmed out to a third party, and scheduling turns into a negotiation between two calendars. | Repairs are done by the same company on a scheduled truck, and anything genuinely outside our scope gets named as such up front. | Every handoff adds a week and one more chance for the story to change. |
| Proof of the visit | You come home to a gate that was opened and closed at some point, and you take the rest on faith. | Photos and the actual test numbers land before the truck leaves the driveway. | With no record, a service disagreement comes down to two memories. With a record, it comes down to a date and a number. |
| Approving extra work | A tech mentions something in the driveway, work happens, and it appears on the invoice at a number nobody discussed. | Extras get a written scope and a dollar amount, and nothing starts until you reply yes. | Surprise line items are one of the most common reasons people fire a pool company, and they are completely avoidable. |
| Commitment | A twelve month agreement with a cancellation clause you read once and then filed. | Month to month. If the work is good you stay because it is good. | A long contract mostly protects a company after the service slips. It is not doing much for you. |
| Chemicals in the price | Chemicals included, undefined, which in practice means whatever fits inside the price that month. | What chemistry is covered and what is billed separately is stated in writing before the first stop. | Undefined included chemistry is exactly where mid season price changes come from. |
| A missed week | The stop does not happen, the invoice does not change, and you find out by looking at the pool. | A miss gets a makeup visit or a credit, decided the same day we know about it. | Weather happens and trucks break. What separates companies is what happens in the next twenty four hours. |
| If your route changes hands | The route is sold or handed to another brand, and you find out when a truck you do not recognise pulls into the driveway. | If your stop ever moves to another company or another tech, you are told in writing first, with a name. | Whoever has your gate code should be somebody you were introduced to on purpose. |
| Local knowledge | Advice written for pools in general, which means it fits nowhere in particular. | Plans built around hard North Texas fill water, spring oak pollen, July evaporation and January freeze nights. | Local water leaves calcium on your tile and local weather cracks pump housings. Generic advice mentions neither one. |
| Filter cleans | Slipped quietly into a weekly stop, or skipped for a year and never brought up. | Quoted and scheduled on their own, with the clean pressure reading recorded so the next one is timed by data rather than by guess. | A filter nobody cleans raises pressure, drops flow, and eventually makes the heater and the salt cell quit on you. |
| Freeze events | Nothing changes on the schedule, and you hear about the split pipe after the thaw. | Pad settings and freeze protection checked ahead of a hard freeze, and a walk of the pad after it. | A freeze split is a several hundred dollar repair caused by a setting that takes two minutes to check. |
A note on naming competitors
We compare models, not companies. There are good operators running every one of these models and there are poor ones. What we will not do is invent another company prices or conduct to make ourselves look better, because a business that does that to a competitor will eventually do it to you.
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