Episode 97: Pool Openings with Chas Bogardus of Budd’s Pools & Spas

Pool OpeningsPool Service Education
Written By Pool Chasers

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In this episode, we sat down with Chas Bogardus of Budd’s Pools & Spas to discuss all things Pool Openings. This is a topic that we are not too familiar with being from Arizona, so we thought it was best to talk to an expert about it. Memorial Day is approaching quickly and we know many of you are starting to open your pools. Budd’s has been around since 1958, so they know what they are doing! Chas shares their process of opening a pool with us as well as some best practices, most common mistakes, and how pool openings can differ with every pool. He believes that a “summerization” customer is an important one because they are choosing to have the company open the pool instead of doing it themselves and that the company should go above and beyond to ensure those customers are properly taken care of. 

Budd’s Pools & Spas began with the vision of one man, Herb Budd, Jr. He founded the company fresh out of college in 1958, working side by side with his wife Phyllis. That same year, Budd’s Pools & Spas became a member of the National Spa and Pool Institute, where Herb later served as one of the National Directors. With continued service and dedication, Herb and Phyllis grew Budd’s Pools & Spas to become an award-winning business, highly respected by its peers in the industry. In 1998, Budd’s Pools & Spas became one of 13 pool and spa dealers nationwide to be inducted into the AQUA 100 HALL OF FAME. The Aqua 100 Hall of Fame recognizes companies selected as the top 100 Pool and Spa dealers in the industry for five or more consecutive years.

Show Notes (Time Stamped)

  • [01:23] Chas Bogardus Introduction 

Chas Bogardus: “I grew up in a blue collared home. My dad was in business for himself. I went to work with him in construction and I went to work with him a ton on the weekends. He'd come pick me up. So I just did a lot of work with him, working with my hands.”

  • [04:57] Chas early years before getting into the pool business 

Chas Bogardus: “I was getting there before the service company was in and then one thing led to the next. I ended up splitting my duties between lifeguard management and service. And then I just I just stayed in the service and I did that for probably commercial pools for five years.”

  • [11:52] The visual part of pool service for customers

Greg Villafana: “I think we're really lucky because there's not too many businesses that can walk into a situation where something looks so, you know, nasty and gross, like a green pool filled with algae. You can't see the bottom. And, you know, the pool wizzard kind of comes in here and puts all his magic potion in.”

  • [13:07] Painting swimming pools

Chas Bogardus: “You paint with chlorinated rubber back then.”  

  • [21:27] Business in New Jersey during COVID-19 Coronavirus

Chas Bogardus: “We're finding is we had a lot of people call and want to open their pools earlier.”

  • [23:20] Swimming pool openings meaning

Chas Bogardus: “For us, pool opening essentially is is getting out to the pool, taking the pool cover off, cleaning the pool cover, putting all the equipment back together, firing the system off and getting everything up and running.” 

  • [25:40] Pool opening process

Chas Bogardus: “We'll go out with the pressure washer, take the cover off, fold over, top itself in, and then we'll clean it.” 

  • [33:17] Not testing water during pool opening

Chas Bogardus: “We can test the water and then they can lead with what they need. They're here. They can buy their supplies parts if they need different things, toys, everything just in the store.” 

  • [35:55] Opportunities during pool openings with repairs and more

“Chas Bogardus: So you have a lot of homeowners that may open the pool themselves, but they don't close.” 

  • [41:08] The difference between drain plugs and rubber winterizing plugs

Chas Bogardus: “Every pump is manufactured, has to drain plugs on. There's one at the bottom of the pump, housing itself at the very bottom.”   

  • [52:05] Adding pool openings to your business model

Chas Bogardus: “So we are proactive with our weekly service customers where we are calling them and saying, hey, listen, when did you open? Last year. You open this time. And we even go as far now as when we get a deposit for the opening, we actually get a deposit for the closed to hold their spot and set the date.”

  • [56:07] Common mistakes when opening a pool

Chas Bogardus: “The biggest mistakes that happen now are with that. I guess I see more times than I care to think about or the pool spa combinations with actuators.”   

  • [01:14:50] Where to learn more and get trained on pool openings 

Chas Bogardus: “We have multiple opening classes. We have multiple closing classes too.”

Episode 97 Transcription

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Tyler Rasmussen:
Thank you for joining us today.

Tyler Rasmussen:
Episode ninety seven of the Pool Chasers podcast. As always, our mission is to help educate and inspire in the form of a podcast. We know that pool openings are starting to happen around the country to get those pools ready for Memorial Day. And that is why we wanted to put out an episode that would relate to everybody who is currently opening pools or about to be, you know, being from Arizona. We don't really have much experience with pool openings. So we brought on an industry expert to discuss them with us today. We first heard of Chas from our mentor, Greg Garrett, when we asked him who the right person was for this topic, and he immediately said Chas his name after recording the episode with him. We completely agree with his suggestion. Chas is currently on the board of directors at NESPA and has taught many pull opening classes for them over the years. It was a true honor to have him on the podcast with us. And we know you all will learn a little something today. So please enjoy this episode with Chas Bogardus, of Budd's Pools and Spas.

Pool Chasers Intro:
Welcome to your go to podcast for the pool and spa industry. My name is Tyler Rasmussen and my name is Greg Villafana and this is the Pool Chasers Podcast.

Greg Villafana:
How you doing? Good. Are you guys. Very good. Thank you. So how did all of this start?

Chas Bogardus:
Well, I grew up in a blue collared home. My dad was in business for himself. I went to work with him using construction and I went to work with him a ton on the weekends. He'd come pick me up. So I just did a lot of work with him, working with my hands.

Chas Bogardus:
You know, he was built houses, remodeled homes, additions, anything like that. So it was always a very for me. I just grew up working and doing things. Even my grandfather and uncle had a flooring business. So I was always busy working, you know, doing things like that. So it was very it doesn't surprise me that I'm not sitting behind a desk doing something, but it does. Certainly the pool industry is not something I would have thought that I would have landed. That's for sure.

Greg Villafana:
Right.

Chas Bogardus:
And did you play any sports growing up in South Jersey, just about 20 minutes east of Philadelphia? I mean, my life was essentially sports, school and church, super active in our church. That's really what our, you know, our foundation was. I would tell you, you know, traditions, you know, had more to do with, you know, just spend time with the family. That's why my dad on Saturdays would pick me up and, you know, and I would work with him. But in general is very I got four sisters. So I guess we have a large family. I have one older, two younger. We did grow up with the pool. We had an in ground pool that was put in, I guess, when I was almost 10. So I did grow up with a pool in the backyard, so to speak. My mom stayed at home when I was younger. I always just saw my dad working hard. So his work ethic is, you know, that's what I saw. That's what I knew. It's the only thing I knew that working hard. And so I always saw that. And I definitely credit my work ethic to to that for sure.

Greg Villafana:
Yeah. What did your parents do?

Chas Bogardus:
So my mom was so my mom actually my dad was in business for himself. My mom ran the business from inside, so she did all the bookkeeping and stuff like that. And then later on my dad got into inspecting. He went from being basically a business building himself to, you know, he went back to school essentially and and got all his inspecting. So he was a building inspector, construction official. And he worked that aspect of the industry after being in it himself for seven years. And then my mom, she ended up going to work for the township and she was a tax collector. So my mom was a tax collector for many years. So my parents, they just worked and worked hard. So it was easy for me to do with having them as role models. For me, seeing that that was. That's what you did. I mean, you just worked hard.

Greg Villafana:
Very good. And I see here that your two oldest kids are actually lifeguards.

Chas Bogardus:
So that's pretty good. So I am married, my wife, Robyn. We've been together for almost 30 years now and I do have five kids myself. My oldest son, Jake, is 18. He was a lifeguard at a pretty big winter park, pretty close to our house. And he started off as a lifeguard, which was cool and didn't take long. He jumped in and gotten the pump room, which is ironic him.

Greg Villafana:
It's in the blood. It here it is in the blood, I guess.

Chas Bogardus:
So he jumped in the pump room and then end up doing some head guard stuff. They really took a liking to him. That's where he went. And he loved it in the pump room. He was there was a head guard, five star, the whole I was able to guard and struck. And then my next daughter, Gina, who just turned 17 in March. She's been there since last summer and she was guardian. And now she's kind of gone in the direction, I think, and being trained to be a head guard. So she's doing it, too. And then my next daughter, Julie, she'll be 16 next month. She wants to go be a lifeguard as well.

Greg Villafana:
Very good. So how exactly did you get into the pool industry?

Chas Bogardus:
So funny you say that. I was never a big. I was never a big college guy. Like, when I was in school, I did take all the classes and had honors classes and did things that I just I was never, never big on the books. I thought when you went to school, that's when you did school work. Certainly not when you went home. So college was never going to be something that I was interested in. That being said, so when I graduated high school, I was leaving home. My dad was pretty much OK. You're not calling the school. That's fine. You're going to work. I remember graduating whenever it was a Tuesday or Wednesday night, and the next day he had a job pretty much lined up for me, working for Mason, who would build homes, doing brick block, stone work foundations, those kinds of things. So I just started working right out of high school. At that point, my dad wasn't in business where absorb anymore. So that's how I started, you know, basically working every day. And then the way the story goes, which is ironic and I'll try not to be wrong with it, but I was really active in the youth in my church. You know, basically just turned 18 and we did a summer camp. Every year that our youth group is doing. And I got real involved to be directing. And they used to charge us so much money for the lifeguards. So I'm like, well, I'm going to be there.

Chas Bogardus:
I'll just become a lifeguard. So whatever happened in this summer of 90, I went and took a lifeguard class to be a lifeguard at our youth camp for the summer, which is just a one week thing, while the instructor ended up being one of my old gym teachers. And she had a lifeguard management business and she had 50 or 60 commercial accounts, you know, apartment swim clubs, you know, where she provided the guards, the service, the chemicals. It was like a contract for a season. So she wanted me to come work for her. And I was like, no, no, I hate swimming. And what did she said? Well, what are you doing here? And I'm when I told her, I she just couldn't believe that you got to come work for me. You know, I'm like, why would you got a full time job? And then she wanted me to come in. And obviously being 18 have my own vehicle is a different demographic than what she normally has, which is the 15 and 16 year old kids that are on the swim team. I mean, that's essentially what the lifeguards least around here are. And so I said, all right. So I took a job with her working basically afternoons, you know, four or five o'clock till they close. And weekends. And so I started working for her. Long story short, I actually had an accident. I had a brick fall on my back when I was working.

Chas Bogardus:
And I couldn't work physically in the field anymore, but I could swim what certainly wasn't supposed to lifeguard, but I ended up still working and life garden and and one thing led to the next. And she asked me to run a couple into her accounts for her. And then the next year I was managing her lifeguard portion of the business. So the way that her service portion worked out, that was subbed out to another company. So the calls would come in from the guards if something was broken. And sure enough, she would just call me and say, hey, go check this out and I'll go check it out. And I didn't care. I was mechanical. So I just started got liquid feeders. You got air bubbles trapped and, you know, you got pump baskets full on. You know, you just start figuring stuff out. So I was getting there before the service company was in and then one thing led to the next. And I ended up splitting my duties between lifeguard management and service. And then I just I just stayed in the service and I did that for probably commercial pools for five years. That's that's how it all started. It all started by me. Want to be a lifeguard for a youth camp that I go to every summer anyhow. And now here I am. Just, you know, I'm a pool guy full fledged at this point.

Greg Villafana:
Right. How did you like taking care of those commercial pulls back then?

Chas Bogardus:
So. So commercial pools back then for us here in the Northeast. I mean, they just become swampy over the winter. That season up here is Memorial Day. All the commercial pools are open and running. Memorial Day, that's it. So that Saturday, Memorial Day weekend and it's it's OK. And they run a lot of them just run weekends until the kids get out of school, which is sometime in June. And then once you get into the second third week of June, then they go full time where they're obviously Monday through Sunday, but it's usually just weekends until mid to late June and then Labor Day weekends. That's it. So Labor Day, most of those pools close for some. Stay open for a few weeks here, there. But, you know, that's the season. So for us and for me back then, what my responsibility was, is essentially most of those big commercial pools don't have pool covers. So, you know, we would drop the pool down in the fall and blow out the lines and then the pools would just fill up. You've got these big, massive pools that you're draining acid washing and doing whatever service you need. But, you know, that was my job. I just basically drained and asked to wash pools whatsoever, filled back up. I go around and start everything back up, get everything running down the water and just get things ready for that weekend. So there was, you know, the two weeks before Memorial Day, you know, it would be nothing to be out until eleven, twelve o'clock at night. I mean, it was you loved Pump rooms because when you were in an inside pump room, you don't have to worry about rain. You didn't have to worry about dark. You just kept working. So that's what it is up here in the Northeast. You know, I mean, it's it's pretty season on, especially for commercial.

Greg Villafana:
No doubt what part of taking care of pools the equipment, chemistry, all the different things that you have to do during service. Did you pick up fastest and maybe what did you enjoy most in the beginning? You didn't enjoy any of it.

Greg Villafana:
You can just be honest.

Chas Bogardus:
Yeah, well, you know, it's you know, when you go to a pool that's a green swamp, you know, I mean, there's not much to enjoy, but there is I don't hate Sagen. You go to a pool and, you know, you get these pools that are a hundred fifty two, one thousand gallons. And by the time you get out there, you get four trash pumped set up and you just hear them humming on the deck and you're moving water. I mean, that's pretty cool. But, you know, then it's, you know, moving things around and obviously going from it was rewarding in a way to just show off. And it looks like a bomb, you know, and then by the time I leave, it's looking good, you know. So that's nice. You feel the pool up and you get things running. You know, I would say the I got my first CPO, actually, I guess my certification in.

Chas Bogardus:
Ninety two. So I got pretty involved pretty quick and as far as, you know, one thing to the next. Probably one of the things that I enjoyed the most was plumbing, you know, cutting pipe. PVC kind of recreate and fill the rooms. That's probably something that I enjoyed the most. The electrical aspect of it, I probably didn't. That's probably what I was weak at and was probably more scared of until, you know, I got to understand it better. But I always I did always love, you know. I don't know. I just kind of like a blank canvas. You go and you get like, you know, you're start and you wanna make it look neat. I did. And I probably appreciated that more than anything. Nobody likes the sand changes on those big tanks where your know, sometimes you get it. No. Back then, I certainly wasn't nearly as big as I am now. But you take some of those bean holes off and you're getting rid of all that sand. That's. That wasn't joyful.

Greg Villafana:
You know, it's funny you're talking about green pools and I'm thinking about every other business service business. And I think we're really lucky because there's not too many businesses that can walk into a situation where something looks so, you know, nasty and gross, like a green pool filled with algae. You can't see the bottom. And, you know, the pool wizzard kind of comes in here and puts all his magic potion in. And, you know, does this thing it could take, you know, a day, three days, whatever, but you can really flip it. And people are always in awe of like, how did you do this? You know, if you didn't drain it, do the acid wash. And even if you do, it's such a it's really cool that we're in a business that, you know, that is a part of it, that we can do that for people because you know, it just how my see fix, it's like, yeah, they seem like running and it's cool, but there's certain things that you can't visually see. You can see something looks disgusting and then somebody walks in and really just kind of changes that. And I think you think about that too much until now. But that's a that's a really cool feeling.

Chas Bogardus:
I mean, who wants to spend money, put a roof on their house?

Chas Bogardus:
Right. It's something you gotta do. Nobody cares. Nobody notices. You gotta say you're just want a roof on you to spend more money.

Chas Bogardus:
You wanted to. And that's it. I got a new roof. Right. So that's one of the nice things. I guess one of the things I didn't talk about that was nice, I guess, is we painted a lot of pools back then. Now we're talking this is back in the early 90s. So there were a lot of pools. Most of our pools, most of the bigger swim clubs, they should say, were painted. So I did a ton of painting and it was cool for me because, you know, a lot of my friends all went to school there with the college. They'd come home and I'm grabbing guys and like, hey, you want to paint? And I'm paying him either day to paint my pain. But it's I got my friends were paint pools. So that's kind of cool. I remember a couple of times there's this one swim club I'll never forget. I swear they used to do a leaf collection in the fall and they just used to dump them leaves in the pool.

Chas Bogardus:
And I said, I know you're you're taking it's one thing to get a hundred fifty thousand gallons out of a pool.

Chas Bogardus:
Let me tell you what. When you got a hopper full of big old oak maple leaves that you're trying to get out. It is a train wreck, you know, and then trying to get up and down the slope without all in. You know, there's great. There are some great stories about. I remember. I mean, you know, you paint, you're coming out. And we had the pool painted. I remember coming out of the slope and, you know, you leave yourself an area to come back up. And and I just hit that rubber based paint. I just hit it wrong. And then I just slip right back down into the bottom of that pool. And I mean, I used to have paint all over. And if you ever work with chlorinated rubber, it is not pleasant to get off.

Greg Villafana:
I was about to ask. I've never I don't know what how you even go about painting a pool. I'm assuming that's not a thing anymore. I mean, we've seen it. Heard of it.

Chas Bogardus:
Yeah. So paint a pool. They back then. I mean, when you paint with chlorinated rubber, you'd basically get five gallons of paint and then you would mix a gallon of paint there. So you would box the paint, which would essentially be you'd have an empty bucket, you'd caught a gallon of paint or a gallon thinner in the bucket, and then you would just literally box it 15, 20 times and mix that paint together. And then you go back into the pool and then you start painting, you get done painting. Hopefully you try and, you know, then you got to paint the lines in the, you know, the crosses at the end. You know, it's a thing had to do with strips, but it was what we did. And, you know, it gets to a point here that Memorial Day is such a hot time. And if you're not ready for Memorial Day, I mean, it is it's the worst thing ever. But I just remember literally being done painting pools. And when I was done painting the pool, we started filming swimming pool. So, I mean, you literally just you put the pill line on and you made a cushion in the bottom and that's it. I mean, we literally got done and that pool was filling on our laps.

Greg Villafana:
So crazy. Did you ever decide to get a little fancy out there paying those pools? Did you ever do any designs or anything? No. Paint your name. I've seen like pools where they've got, like David Bowie painting at the bottom. And so that's some crazy stuff. But that wasn't. Yeah.

Chas Bogardus:
I'm the most on fancy person you've ever met.

Chas Bogardus:
And I had about as much artistic ability as this black shirt that I like to wear. So I just mean, that doesn't happen, although I'm going to tell you that there weren't some swim clubs that, you know, tried to paint their logo. I would paint the pool and then somebody else would come in and do that when they were done. But no, I did. I did.

Greg Villafana:
All right. So where exactly are you at today?

Chas Bogardus:
Yeah. So from commercial pools, which was the first four or five years my life I literally was at the time, is back in probably the mid 90s. I did a lot of other stuff besides swimming pools. You know, it's a seasonal business here for us. So I worked for a guy in my church driving a forklift. I delivered pizza. I always get busy. And with my father being a business, I had opportunities to do different kinds of construction work and was considering going and doing some stuff that way. And I just literally I was looking in the paper for a I think I was looking to the paper to buy a break, an aluminum break. And sure enough, I found this ad, the company looking to hire a pool technician. And it was local to me. It was 20 minutes away. So I called in. So I went in for an interview. And they really didn't do much commercial stuff. They just talked about backyard pools. And I know how easy. I just was like, oh, I did this commercial stuff. I'm sure there's nothing to it. And I'll tell you what, it's two completely different worlds, the backyard pool and a commercial pool. So I just took a job for a company that was 20 minutes away from me in South Jersey. That was it.

Chas Bogardus:
And then I was, you know, basically working, doing backyard residential pools. And that's really, to be honest with you. There was one guy that I worked with there, Tim Vitt, who really kind of took me under his wing and just taught me a lot. We go and, you know, we go install pump filter heaters and we cut the stuff walkaround up. And he he did all the stuff I didn't like doing. He did the electrical stuff and the pumps, the gas pipe. And I mean, I just used to go and cut pipe and follow the systems. And he called me the king of the forty five. That's kind of how we went. But I just did a lot of that and I did that. I worked for that company for a long time and we really grew the business and we had a successful run there, you know, and you know, one thing leads to the next, you know, you grow and then you go from being the guy in the field to helping out with the schedule. And, you know, things just kind of grew from there. I would tell you, there was one year that we were doing indoctrinations. And I tell you this because there's a big landscaper by us that started building some really pretty nice fancy pools. And the landscaper didn't really have anything to do or know much about running the swimming pool. So we ended up, you know, work with them and started up these new pools, these beautiful got pools. I mean, back in the early mid 90s. And we're talking these were four hundred thousand dollars projects and that was a lot less than I was. I was loving it because I was going in and I all the RNC high end stuff, I was doing control systems and starting these schools up, showing customers how to use them and then got the self safety covers to and they became our customers and it was great. So I started doing that. And I really love that aspect of not having to do the pool openings and and do that. And it led into me.

Chas Bogardus:
Look into a company that was doing startups for Sylvian out here. I worked for them for one year and just basically started up pools and and that was fun. I love that. And then I've gone back and basically a few years later had an opportunity to come here where I am now, which is about schools and spies. And we're in debt for just 20 minutes each to Philly. And I've been here since January of 04. And it's been a whirlwind. This is when I came to work with Bud's buds, was a was a huge vinyl builder where we would build, you know, I guess there's almost one hundred fifty calls a year. And they used to build aboveground pools. The company was started in nineteen fifty eight. So this was a really big business compared to, you know, I was working for smaller service companies. But all that I knew and all that I really cared about at the time was service. I was a service. I fixed pool. That's, that's what my deal was. And here it was. They had a service company, but it wasn't the focus. The focus was building a swimming pool. So when I got hired here, I got hired here. And it was the service manager here at Bud's for a long time. And, you know, one thing going to the next, that's where I am. I will tell you that one of the things that was really neat back in my other days breaking the buds is I got real involved industry wide. One of the guys that I worked with, Frank Reilly, and he was real involved in the Penn Jersey chapter of PHTA. And that's where I kind of at the time it was was it was NSPI. And sure enough, that's where I I started working and getting involved industry wide and going to meetings. And then Budd's we were actually one of the early members of the PHTA. Herb was was real big on that. So when I came here, I was able to get more involved, which was actually great industry.

Greg Villafana:
What exactly is your role right now?

Chas Bogardus:
So now I've done a lot of different roles here at BUDS and currently on the general manager.

Chas Bogardus:
Service, everything, services. Back on my plate from no openings, closings, weekly service installations until filter heater installers. We do have the renovation side branched out into different avenues. That's not a part of service anymore. But we do spot deliveries and real involved in seven hot tubs and stuff like that. And, you know, I just general help and manage and oversee whatever the day, wherever it takes me.

Greg Villafana:
There's business been crazy because I've covered 19 Corona virus. Are people buying more spores and, you know, paying closer attention to the swimming pool?

Chas Bogardus:
What we've found with the virus here, it's obviously being outside of Philly. We are well below where it's been real bad. Obviously, up in North Jersey, in New York. So we were outside of that by a good bit. It's actually starting to kind of creep down here a little bit, but nothing like what it was up in New York and and North Jersey. So it's been crazy. People are home. And what we're finding is we had a lot of people call and want to open their pools earlier. This is their home right now. I mean, it's it's not really swim weather here in South Jersey.

Chas Bogardus:
But, you know, it's so we have we've seen a lot of the the work push up to be earlier. And now we're you know, I mean, we're first week in May. So if you're not incredibly busy right now in this region, then you probably should find some else to do because you're probably not a good company if you're not crazy busy right now.

Chas Bogardus:
All right.

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Tyler Rasmussen:
You're talking about pool openings, obviously, in memoria these coming up here shortly. You know, being from Jersey, we do a lot of the pool openings. And so I wanted to have you on. So can you explain kind of what opening pool means exactly and why it's important to do it correctly?

Chas Bogardus:
Yeah. So a pool opening for us. And understand that the the commercial season, their pools are open up and running and they have swimmers on Memorial Day weekend. The backyard pool. I would say that season may start a little bit sooner. There's a lot of backyard people that are looking for Mother's Day. We start opening swimming pools early April with a pretty we start opening. Pretty, pretty good amount of pools early April. I will open pools all the way through to mid June. Right. I mean, that's really the main opening season for us is probably mid April to mid June. I was it up here we had frost or freeze that we have to concern ourselves with. The idea is the pool was winterized and the plates were blown out and then covers were put on the pool. So for us, pool opening essentially is is getting out to the pool, taking the pool cover off, cleaning the pool cover, putting all the equipment back together, firing the system off and getting everything up and running. So that's what it is. And it gets pretty. We can go into much further detail with the idea, as you recall, summarization, winterisation, but who openings for us are pulling covers, you know, getting the system up and running.

Chas Bogardus:
You know, pumps aren't working, replacing pumps, fillers, heaters, you know, whatever that might look like. People trying to you know, that's one of the fine lines. It's, you know, how many more times can you keep fixing that heater, right? Or how many more times? No lifetimes. What happens here is we haven't had any snow this past year. But I mean, there's times we get a ton of snow and you could have a popper or something that's buried in the snow for what could be better for two, three weeks, a month. So, you know, that moisture in the pump certainly create some moisture in your house. And, you know, you got to put the switch and, you know, you got a motor that sees. So now you're right in the back of the motor off to try and get the shaft to try and see if you can kind of jumpstart that motor to get it running. So, you know, there's there's a lot of different things. Same thing with the heaters. You know, you get those heaters running and spiders and cobwebs and, you know, mice to get those heaters over the winter time. And you never know what you're going to see when, you know, when you open up a swimming pool.

Tyler Rasmussen:
All right. Well, let's go a little deeper. I mean, what what does the process look for you when you show up to a house from start to finish? When do you guys do so for us?

Chas Bogardus:
You know, we drive up to the house. I will tell you one of the thing that's different this year than it has been in years past. You know, before we'd always go through a house, knock on the door somewhere. Here we go. Right. So we call them on the phone and say, hey, we're here and we're going to sneak out back and, you know, start working on the floor. I tell you, I definitely see way more customers now than we have in years past. Most of the time you go to somebody who has nobody home. Now everybody's home. Right. And do people do come out? They come out. You know, obviously, we wear masks. They wear masks.

Chas Bogardus:
Everybody is keeping their distance. They're very appreciative of us being out there. But the two opening essentially for us is we're going to go out back and depending on what kind of pool cover they have. I would say the majority of the pool covers that we do and we see our safety covers. So they're the trampoline style covers that are, you know, obviously I fit into the deck. So, you know, we go out, you know, personally, we use pressure washers. So we'll go out with the pressure washer, take the cover off, you know, fold over, top itself in, and then we'll clean it. And, you know, fan folded the idea, fan pulled in the cover. You know, I like to do everything. And what I try and get the guys to do is, is, you know, try and do the little things that are going to make it easier for when we go to close the pool. Right. So, you know, the plugs and the things that we're taking out of the skimmers and we try to put that in a Ziploc bag, you know, so that no, we're not looking for that come the spring. Right. But, you know, most fools up here could have four or five returns, you know, one or two skimmers. They have a spot. Sometimes they have a jet. So, you know, we get the big gallon Ziploc bags and then, you know, that's where we're putting all the winterization stuff to try and keep that together.

Chas Bogardus:
But, you know, we pressure wash the cover. Lot of times we fold it. You know, I love our pools of diving board. So most of the time your phone words, the shallow end can pull that cover, you know, rolled up, put in the bag customer where they wants to store that. It's great to have mesh covers because it's they're much lighter and easier to move around. You get some of them solid safety covers on an eight hundred square foot pool and their way in two hundred fifty pounds. So, you know, they get a little bit awkward. So it's a little bit heavy. Most of the time we're working with too many crews. So if you get six of those in a day, that's a pretty heavy day. Sometimes you can you get one on that. A covering, you can squeeze seven. But for us, I would say the pool openings take anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half. But what you have the cover off, we lower the anchors. You know, most of time we can go in first. Really depends on what's on the cover. But, you know, you get the cover off the other covers that we have. There's still people we call trash bag or poly covers or water bag covers. So it's basically a you know, you have these tarps and they're weighed down with water bags.

Chas Bogardus:
You get like 10 foot double water bags that, you know, around the pool keeping the cover them. The problem with these covers more than anything, is, you know, you show up to the pool, you show up and there's water on top of the cover. There's water and leaves because it's it's not a flat cover. So the water level, especially in a concrete pool. I mean, we take the water level down below the tile. So if you have a six inches of tile and you have the coping on the top, you know that water levels down, you know, 10 inches from the top. And, you know, all the leaves from the yard, most customers don't take all that stuff out. So you show up to a pool that's got leaves and little bit of water on it. That's a little bit of a mess. It's nice about safety covers or they stay dry for the most part ever. So they will, you know, the leaves and stuff blow free. But getting water off of one of those pool covers is a treat. I can tell you that some of the things that well, you know, you get this water, you think you can pull it out. You think you could pull it up. And I got a couple of really funny stories.

Chas Bogardus:
I remember once I was just like a step section. And, you know, you take these covers and I used to put like a big like a little giant pomper, like a glorified cover pump. I put it in a crate and I'd push it down to try get all the water to come to one spot. And I'll never forget I took my acid wash brush and I'm pushing it down on top of the pump. You've got to remember tons of leaves and crap on this fool. So it's kind of slimy and nasty. So I'm pushing my thing and I'm leaning over it. I'm paying attention. And also I'd snap right. My acid wash brush breaks and I'm like, lean over. And I'm like, then I jumped into this pool on top of the cover and just just right off in the shallow end. And I mean, I was moving and there's all these leaves and dirty water and crap and I'm just on top of the cover. And my helper was just barely over on the ground laughing. And I don't want all this crap to get into the pool. You know, you got to get it off because any of that sediment stuff goes in the pool.

Chas Bogardus:
It's such a pain in them that to get it often. So I said, stop, lay off and give me out of this pool. So, you know, he had. And I finally did get out of man. It's nasty. One of the things I tell all the guys I hire, I'm like, guys, I'm like, you've got to do yourself a favor, get a backpack or get an app secretary, call it, bring an extra set of clothes, because inevitably you're going to fall in a pool. So and that's what happens when it's that kind of stuff happens. And you'd be surprised what's on top of that cover and other times, same sort of thing. I'm reaching down trying to get these leaves out. And sure enough, I reach down. There's a big old bullfrog, jumps up, hits me round the side of the eye. Scares the crap out of you. So those covers are nasty. A lot of them are going away now because, you know, lot of safety. Most people don't take the covers. They used to get 20 fibers in those pools, probably have those covers in. And they can be a train wreck for sure. But once the covers off, usually at that point both guys are working on the cover, then the, you know, the technician or the mechanic usually goes back to the equipment area, starts putting the plugs in, put everything back together. But we put all the drain plugs back in and, you know, get all the equipment together. Help are usually and pull the plugs out and, you know, and then we obviously prime the pump to get the system running. Once we get the system running, at that point, we're going to start testing things, looking for leaks, obviously charge the system. If you're doing your cartridge. We always clean the filters in the fall. That's for us.

Chas Bogardus:
That's like a big thing. You know, at the fall when you're going up the line, joystick, bar clean, cleaning out real good with a cartridge. You get the system up and running that it, then you usually just go right over the heater and start, you know, possibly the heater, you know, clean it out, hopefully don't have any cobwebs trying and fire that heater, get that running, you know, and if everything goes well, you know, you can be back there, you know, fifteen, twenty minutes, everything's run in check and release. Then you pretty much could go back to the pool area. We kind of scrub the deck. We got to the ladders, the handrails in return, fittings, eyeballs. And again, we're real big on doing stuff to make it easier for the poor. So that Ziploc bag I was telling you about earlier, all the little parts, all the return fittings, the escutcheon plates, the bumpers with the ladders, all those things are in that same bag. Right. So kind to go out, pull, plug, put it in the bag, put an eyeball in telling the helpers not to turn the eyeballs to tights. Always a treat. But, you know, that's just part of it. You put the ladder chain rolls back in. We put some chemicals in the pool. Some people test the water. I'm not real big on testing the water right at the opening. We like to circulate the water a bit and then we usually have customers bringing water samples to us. Obviously, their weekly customers where we're going at serves in the pool every week. We could vacuum or do some things, but but that's generally what the what the opening in sales.

Greg Villafana:
And why don't you like to test the water immediately after here at Budd's where we're located?

Chas Bogardus:
We're in a we're in a pretty big blue collar area, so we stretch out certainly farther than that. But, you know, our idea and we have a really big retail stores is when we open the pool, we want everything to be running. And then we were asking the customers to bring a water sample to the store to get tested. So a lot of people will, you know, in a day or two days, you know, maybe following, we can get everything up and running and who's clean and clear, they can bring a water sample to the store. Obviously, we want people to come into the store. So it attracts people in. We can test the water and then they can lead with what they need. They're here. They can buy their supplies parts if they need different things, toys, everything just in the store. So everything for us that we were doing. You're trying to bring people into the store. And I just don't necessarily know that pool that's been sitting. Obviously, there's getting everything up and running and move. And I think it's just better to circulate the water in and have the water be a little bit more even throughout and then trying to test with the surfaces on that. We were pool that's been sitting for nine months or eight months, whatever it might be.

Greg Villafana:
Yeah. So you're not putting any chemicals in right after or you're putting a little bit of something in there. Yeah.

Chas Bogardus:
So we, we do put an opening kit in and everybody's opening kit can be a little bit different. I mean, I've done it differently over the years. Some people will put, you know, some liquid chlorine in the pool. Let's matricide in the pool. You know, definitely some people just throw some cow hypo, but usually there's some kind of wake up Keter or some kind of chemical that goes into the pool at the opening. We stay away from the liquid chlorine in the cow hypo. We actually do a little different. We actually put in we put in four pounds a monitor sulfite and then we'll put in at 30 percent outside, decide into the pool. Makes it easier for us. A lot of the pools up here are in. A lot of the pools that we service now are salt pools, you know, where they have salt and water. So doing a wakeup kit with the monitor, sulfates, nothing is something that's going to hurt. No one has to worry about doing anything that way. So that's that's what we do. And the other thing is we want to bring people into the store. So if I'm juicing that pool with liquid chlorine, they come to a store that, you know, when the water is 45, 50 degrees, that chlorine is not going anywhere. So I don't want to test water 24 hours later in the chlorine reroofing that's, you know, bleach and other reagents. So we're we're pretty big on. We're pretty big on just using it. Oxidising, kind of kickstarting a little bit and then starting their program.

Greg Villafana:
Sure. So I'm just curious, what what are some of the most common issues that you do run into when opening up a pool? I'm sure that there's also just as much opportunities out there. You know, when you're starting up a pool where, you know, somebody might need a new heater or a new pump or a new filter or new grid's, new cartridges, new sand, whatever it may be. What are some of the most common things that you see that people listening to this should really be? You know, they should be looking at this as an opportunity to when you're starting up a pool, to pay close attention to everything that's going on. Because I'm sure with a real bad winter, it could do quite a bit of damage, pompous on his last leg or something like that. That could have been the final season for that piece of equipment.

Chas Bogardus:
I would even take it a step further. The the pool opening customer is is a really important customer. And the reason I say that is because we probably close. I would say that we would close at least twice as many pools as we open. OK, because a lot of people are comfortable opening a swimming pool themselves. Right. So they can pull the cover off. Right. You know, they can figure out how to put the plugs in. They turn it on sometimes with and somewhere, like a word, this plug go. Oh, that's where it went, you know. So you have a lot of homeowners that may open the pool themselves, but they don't close. Right. So blowing up the lines, they can. Sure they do that correctly. That's a little bit of a bigger deal. So for me, when we open somebodies pool, that's a big deal. You know, they're paying for us to open. So we need to kind of need to go the extra mile to make sure there's a little thing. So what are the things you know? You know what? If people do that, take care of the pool themselves.

Chas Bogardus:
Well, the first thing they do is they know they're going to clean their skimmer baskets. Right. So so what we do is we will go after with some cleanser and scrub brushes. So I want those skimmers clean. I don't want them reaching into a skimmer. That's just nasty. Right. So that may be the only time of that game or skimmer does get clean. Something that takes us just a few minutes. But to scrub. And you can get them things so clean with just a little scrub brush, a little cleanser and scrubbing the inside of the skimmers. You know, because those pools have suntan lotion and everything and those oils just kind of get bound up on the inside plastic and just looks nasty.

Chas Bogardus:
I mean, it's it's the white just the nasty scum line in there. So little things like that. The other. I try and get my guys to do. And I know they don't do it because they don't want to unroll the hoses. But I get the calls and I get I mean, I get ticked off. I hate having to go back out to somebody's house because the backwash line's weak. I get so mad or the cyclist is leaking.

Chas Bogardus:
You know what happens to a pool? You know, they get a mesh cover. They got a backwash in the first week. Sometimes they go out the back question, there's water squirt. Right. And I mean, it just makes us look so bad. Guys start to pull on backwash, cut a little piece of the hose off Tennessee and reattach it. That's one of my pet peeves. You don't want you know, that's the last thing you want is a customer backwash. And all of sudden the water squirting, they're getting wet. And because there's a hole in the hose, so backwash hoses, certainly pressure gauges. I'm I'm I'm so over the top with pressure gauges. You know, there's a brand new filter last year. I'm like, well, you've got one season, this pressure gauge. You may get five years out of the next one. You may get two months out of no pressure gauges. They're cheap. They're ten bucks. And, you know, sometimes they work. I always tell people is up to me. And I don't want a pressure gauge on your filter. I'd rather you stop looking at the pressure gauge and look at how the water Sloane in the pool, you know, that's where real judges. So we get those calls all the time. You know, my pressure is at 40 and I'm like, really? I'm like, that's crazy.

Chas Bogardus:
And like, I thought we'd better go out. I said, let's go out to the equipment guy, turn the pump. OK, I'm like, what's the pressure now? She's like, it's still a 20. I'm like, okay, you just need a new pressure gauge. It's it's starting at 20. It's 40. They're freaking out. Right. But again, that's a you know, that's a ten dollar right over fifteen dollar right on the replace pressure gauges, the pressure gauges, backwash hoses, escutcheon plates for ladders and buffer's. All those kinds of things are you know, you have to have the stuff on the truck to be able to do that. Certainly, you know, when you're getting into the pumps and filters and heaters, you know, the bigger ticket items, you know, you get a pump that's screaming and the motors loud. I mean, you can tell and say, hey, you know, it may quiet down as the season goes on. But the reality is your motors lab, you know, you may want to think about replacing the pump. We're not real big on doing motor replacements, especially now, because obviously next summer, you know, everybody needs every replacement is going to need to be a variable speed.

Chas Bogardus:
So we're pretty big on trying to get people on the variable speed pumps. But, you know, my thing is I want I want to communicate. I want to call the customer and say, hey, this and everything went great. These are the things that we, you know, would keep an eye on. You know, beta heater did run. I like to run the heater for an hour or so. You know, after the cool opening, I'll tell the customer, hey, let it just burn imprints on that, rust out with the heater run. But you have opportunity. And that's why I think it's really big to communicate with the customer and those customers if they're paying to have their pool open, their customers that you want to go the extra mile for, make sure that you're taking care of things.

Greg Villafana:
Thank you for all that. That is very helpful information. And I've got to go back because I really don't know what this is. Can you explain what exactly the plugs are, the drain plugs? Because I'm there's a lot of different plugs in this business, but I'm thinking about when you're actually shutting the pool down, you know, in the fall, whenever it is that you decide to do it, what exactly are those plugs? What are they designed to do?

Chas Bogardus:
So every pump is manufactured, has to drain plugs on. There's one at the bottom of the pump, housing itself at the very bottom, you know, basically almost touching the ground. And there's usually a quarter inch tapped threaded flug with a little gasket on it. So the idea is, you know, what I do is a whole nother there's a whole nother conversation. But basically, when you go to blowout a swimming pool in the fall, you know, I want to take all the drain plugs out. So you take the plug, it's in the front on the pump housing and then the back on the balloon. Right. So they have two different plugs that actually drain those two because water could stay in there. And if you don't take those plugs out and water's laying in there, they will crack and, you know, a freeze up over the winter. It'll it'll break the bottom of a pump housing, no doubt. All the filters, especially the filters, I should say, especially all the filters, whether it's the cartridge sand filters, they all have some kind of dream drain plug that you're taking out that literally just is there to empty the water out of the bottom of the tank. Obviously, the sand filters have a drain assembly at the bottom of the assembly stays in.

Chas Bogardus:
So it obviously keeps the sand in the tank. And then there's just, again, a little plug. Sometimes it's a cap. You take all the heaters. You know, a lot of the different manufacturers have heaters on the inlet outlet side of the heater, you have the exchanger. So the exchanger, there's usually a plug on both sides of the exchange. There's one on the rear where the water just kind of comes back. And then on the inlet outlet, there's usually a plug there. You can go as far as the nature, choose the nature to the big professional G units. Even a booster pump like a player screws your proper something. They have a drain plug. The bottom of their blue Laurinaitis. All the commentators at the bottom, they have a quarter inch plug in there. So you need to take all those plugs out and you go, you want to. So what I do when I close the pools, I take all those plugs out. I start the blower and I start low and everything out. And then I put them in and just hang tight so that all the air now goes out to the pool. Right.

Chas Bogardus:
And then the plugs that we use are rubber winterizing plugs. So the idea some people blow up pools with compressor. Some people use blowers. And this problem when you were looking for. But the idea of the plugs in the pool is, you know, it's a rubber plug and it's an expansion plug. So you have that inch and a half hole that you actually put the plug in. And as the air is blown out, the water is bubbling. Right. So all the water gets pushed out of the line. And then you put a plug in there and you tighten that plug until no more air comes out. So when the air can't come out, the water can't go back in. So every hole that's in the actual pool, whether it's a return line, skimmer, lying, players lying, all those plugs, all those areas, they have to be fit with a plug. So the water doesn't go back in pipes. So you have equipment, area plugs that are, you know, drain plugs for all the pieces of equipment. And then you have the, you know, the winterization or the rubber plugs in the pool that we need to take. After that, the water doesn't get back into the pipes.

Greg Villafana:
That's incredible. I had no idea.

Chas Bogardus:
And basically, when we're done blowing out the pool, we take all those little plug. We take them out in case there's any residual water. And what we do is we just put them all in the pump. So we leave the pump to ask it in all these little plugs. I mean, they're small. These little plug your I don't know how to describe them. I mean, they're tiny, they're little plugs. But I mean, you just throw them in the pump basket. You take the pressure gauges off, put them in the pump basket and all that stuff just sits in there and is there for us for the actual fall.

Greg Villafana:
Oh, that's smart. You're talking about all the existing plugs, gauges. You're just putting that in seconds. It's dry. Putting them inside this given basket. We put them in the pump as it is.

Chas Bogardus:
We put them in the pump. Is it because we know they'll be there in the spring?

Greg Villafana:
Right. So why open it up?

Chas Bogardus:
That's one thing we didn't talk about is, you know, we open the pool. That's usually the first step to open in the back yard. So there's nothing worse than going in the backyard. There's no furniture out. What's great for us? That there's no furniture out. So we have room to clean to cover. But then it becomes a train wreck when you need to go into their shed. That is just completely full of crap. And then we need to you know, we need to put the cover in there where the skimmer baskets at, where the ladders and handrails and inevitably we close the pool before they put the furniture away. So guess what? It's all the way in the back of the shed. Right. And we need to get that crap out. So we we always we know the customers. We call the customers. Now, one of the big things, obviously, communication is big. And anything that we do e-mail our customers, we also call our customers and let them know, hey, we're coming out to open the pool. You know, the big thing is on those got pools, know, we take the water level down to the bottom of the skimmer. So we want them to jam the hose under the covers before we come and fill the pool back, because we want the water level in the middle, the tile of the skimmer so that we can run the skimmers. We ask them to get there, the bag to cover the skimmer baskets, ladder 18 rails. We do ask them to bring all that stuff out. Whether it happens, you know, that's a whole nother animal. But those are different conversations for different times.

Greg Villafana:
Yeah. So I have two more questions on this topic that we didn't put in here. But now that we're talking about this, I'm like, oh, my gosh. Like, I really have no idea what any of this stuff is. So one that I have is where are you pressure washing the pool cover? Are you doing that with the cover on top of the pool? And you're just kind of kicking everything often, pressure washing it right there?

Chas Bogardus:
That's a great question. So it really depends on the cover. It depends on the yard. It depends on where you have space. Right. So most pools around here, you know, they're shallow and generally is where people congregate. So there's usually a little bit more deck area in the shallow end of the pool. And I say usually I'm not. Generally speaking, there's you know, you get five, six feet deck on the show and it's usually enough. So what I like to do is if I'm going to fold the cover to the shallow end, I'm not a big fan of walking on the cover and cleaning the cover. There are people that'll do it where they'll just walk out on cover with the pressure washer and they'll just clean the pool. It's great until there's a little hole in the cover and then you make a big hole and you cover it. But some guys do clean the cover right on top of the pool. They'll get, you know, like duck future concrete boots and they'll just walk in and do that. I'm not a huge fan of that. But sometimes if there's no room to work, I really just need four or five feet at the end of the pool. And what I do is I take the cover and I'll obviously take all the springs off. Cover, I don't take the springs off, Rebekah. I take the take the springs off the anchors. Right. So that I lower all the anchors in the deck. You guys know what I'm talking about with the brass anchors? Nope.

Chas Bogardus:
So the brass anchors are so safety covers have webbing that go across the pool and that, you know, basically there's a strap that goes every three feet vertically and horizontally across pool. Looks like a big tic tac toe board. Right. So as the strap goes all the way across one side to the other, there's anchors, there's like three quarter inch brass anchors that are about two to three inches big. They have a little brass ring at the top. So you drill a three quarter inch hole on the deck and then you set the anchor. You literally hit it down with the mallet. And now you have a strap that's connected to two anchors that are in the deck. And then you cinch it with a pole and you literally pull that anchor. And what you're doing is you're compressing the springs. And then that strap that was laying on the water now comes up and is nice and tight across the pool. But when you go to open the pool, you need to take her springs off the anchors and then those anchors just thread down into the deck. So they're totally flush. So the anchor itself will basically look, you know, always like the size of a brass nickel. I mean, that's what it looks like when they're flushing the deck. So I take all the springs off the anchors, then we lower all the actual anchors. So they're flush with the deck. The end that I'm not working with, which for me is usually the diving board or the deep end.

Chas Bogardus:
We'll take that cover and we'll fold it back on itself. Right. Because what you don't want is you don't want to cover that, then just kind of sink into the swimming pool. So you fold the cover on top of itself. Now, the cover is floating as it's coming across the pool. If that makes sense. The area that I'm working on, I've pulled the cover six feet off the pool. How pressure wash a six foot section, then I'll sand fold it as a fan. Fold it. Now I've got another six foot section to clean. That makes sense. And then you just kind of keep holding on top of itself. So that's that's the idea of a you literally fold it on the shallow end deck and kind of clean as you go. Some guys will take the cover off if there's not enough room. And we'll do this, too, if there's enough yard area. You can take it off, drag it into grass, open it up, and then you could just walk on the cover. Pressure washing, folded up and do that. Some people don't have that area. Go to the driveway. I don't want to move the covered in that covers heavy. I want to do as I want to move it as little as I can. So I would tell you that ninety five percent of the time I'm open in the pool. I'm trying to clean it right at the water's edge.

Greg Villafana:
Right. Thank you.

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Greg Villafana:
Real quick, I just wanted to know what, since we don't do that here in Scottsdale, Phoenix, Arizona. How does this look from a businesses perspective? When and how are you adding the pool opening to marketing it to customers in the area? What does that look like? I really have no idea.

Chas Bogardus:
Great question. You know, opening swimming pools and closing swimming pools. You know, we call that program service. It's a it's a big part of the service business. The problem is, you know, you had this stretch of time. You can open all these pools, then you have to be able to facilitate, you know, fixing the things that are broken, which is what we're struggling with right now. I mean, I guess, you know, you get opens up his pool and it's down and I got to go fix it right away. But then I got however many more openings that I got to do the next day. So in reference to getting ready for the season, you know, we have people that call generally people start calling us radio to the first of the year and there are cool customers. So they kind of know the routine. And the first you know, the earlier the call, the better chance you have an opportunity to getting the time that you're looking for. Right. So I would tell you for us, the month of May. Generally booked up for pool openings. They say the month of May, really from the last week, April through Memorial Day that month stretch. They're usually booked up for us sometime in probably the end of February, early March. Right.

Chas Bogardus:
So we are proactive with our weekly service customers where we are calling them and saying, hey, listen, when did you open? Last year. You open this time. And we even go as far now as when we get a deposit for the opening, we actually get a deposit for the closed to hold their spot and set the date. So, you know, people with their phones now, I mean, they give calendars and they're like, yeah, when it closes day and and it works because, you know, you're you know, they want their specific dates and people are crazy about, hey, know, I need to be open. I want to I'm having everybody in my house for Mother's Day. Right. Or, you know, whatever that looks like they want from home. So it works out and there's people that don't and don't think about it. And then they're calling us the last minute. And that's the hardest part, because you get these customers whose pools we know open or closed and they haven't called and now I can't open their pool until first we could. Do you know, and you you want to be able to facilitate that customer. But the problem is it's great to open as many pools as you can. At same time. What do you do with all the guys? What's a Bullsbrook? So I'd love to open more pools, but then, you know, I got 30 guys and what am I going to get 30 guys to do? You know, I can only have so many people doing weekly service, so trying to keep the guys busy between the crazy times and usually eight weeks of crazy time in the spring and eight weeks. Crazy time in the fall.

Chas Bogardus:
Like I just did payroll today. And I will tell you, my my standard guy in six days, you know, they were getting between 60 and 70 hours last week. Right. That's what we do. You know, I mean, you guys started seven. You could get done in five. But, you know, you may get down to seven or eight. You get into one of those pools of pumps down or you're having trouble or it's a train wreck. You've got to do what you can try and get it running. So standard opening goes from an hour to two hours. Now you're you know, you're a little bit behind, but it's great for them to have all those hours. But then once, you know, mid-June happens, it starts to slow down. And certainly after for the July deadline, August, you know, the guys are we're trying to do some things to have the guys work for 10 years and have three day weekends and transferred the workout. Guys, you're taking vacation. But the biggest problem that we have, as you know, seasonal, is, you know, what do you do with all the guys over the course of the summertime because you don't want to you know, you're going to lay those guys off because then you need to get in in the fall. So we kind of you've got almost a little bit more of a you know, you can only grow so much. But then what are you going to do with them? You know, all summer long. But sorts of customers go up here. They kind of know when they need to call and they know when they need to get book.

Tyler Rasmussen:
Yeah, definitely. It's a it's something to juggle for sure. So thanks for sharing all of that. What do you think are some of the most common mistakes people make when opening a pool?

Chas Bogardus:
The biggest mistakes that happen now are with that. I guess I see more times than I care to think about or the pool spa combinations with actuators. If you guys don't set the actuators correctly or, you know, when you're close in a pool, sometimes you put them in the opposition you're seeing and push down the to get it fully open or fully closed for when you're pulling out a pool. So we're the most common issue is that when people go to hit the spa button for the first time and the actuating don't turn to the spa Turin's. Right. That's a problem. Or obviously the suction actuate or change. But now I'm sucking more water than I've put back in. Right. So that's a that's a pretty common problem. That happens more times than I want to think about a quick fix. But, you know, the customer is trying to heat up their store. They go after their response. It's empty. That's that's not a pleasant quality. Right. Sometimes the guy's trying to get the heater started. And I know this sounds ridiculous, but it happens. You know, the guys, you're they go to press the buttons, they go to turn the heater on. But if you don't have, like, a little bit of a protocol, how are you going to do it? You know, you can there's the gas valve inside the heater. There's a shut off valve outside the heater. And then sometimes they have a shut off valve over by the meter next to the house.

Chas Bogardus:
So that's an embarrassing call that you get sometimes that, you know, the heater is not working. And sure enough, there is a gas valve that was still off and was never going to work that way. Right. Same thing. You know, we get heaters here that propane and propane tanks empty. You know, we're setting up a heater service going. Unfortunately, the you know, it can happen. But, you know, they just need a propane tank. So little stuff like that. I will tell you, some of the other things are just miscellaneous gaskets. You know, rings obviously have any kind of gas going to ring that's bad on the on the front side of the pump. That's going to create a suction. I'm pretty big. I'm not big on lube in Luban. I just think that when you lube a pump or ring, all you're asking is for all the dirt and grass in the back yard to get caught up on that loop. As you're taking out, pump it on and off. So I'm a much bigger on replacement within your guest as gas gets to flatten out. No doubt I would say that not replacing gaskets or, you know, we talked about earlier briefly, you know, we take those tanks apart and clean the grids. If it closes when you're close and close and it's raining, that's nasty.

Chas Bogardus:
I know that these things happen. But if you don't take the time to clean the O ring and clean both sides of the tank, you go to fire the system up and, you know, guy out of D. which makes it worse. And now all of a sudden, you got a belly band that's leaking on a deep shelter and you're already out of the. I mean, it's though because, you know, now you're back watching the system because you've got to get that out. You know, you got to take Tank apart. You got to clean it out. And, you know, and then I mean I mean, there's full blown arguments on the dock in the morning because there's got to like, uniquely in this folder. And, you know, guys get upset about it. And I get because it's a pain in the neck. If you do it right when you're close in the pool, then it's an issue people come back to. All right. The things that we, I think industry wide probably struggle with is it's about information. Right. And I get, you know, the girls who come up to me like, hey, this. Here and I'm like, I read their notes of the paperwork and they're not giving me Delli Barnsley. And I'm like, well, kind of fillers. And it's like, if I don't have the or I don't have a picture, then then we're going out there. We don't have a car.

Chas Bogardus:
No. And then, you know, so we've got to close it. Close it, you know. So getting information is big. People don't have their water level up high enough for us. So when we start the pool, maybe we have to run it off of manging out here. And I don't know how it is for you guys, but seems like got here. A lot of the builders don't bring the main drains, the main drain lines. They don't bring them all the way back to the pool liquid. You guys ever seen that out there? They'll take the main drain line. And, you know, in the bottom of the skimmers, just a regular, you know, it doesn't really matter who skimmer is at the bottom of here. There's two holes in the bottom of the skimmer. You know, I'm talking about most of the time the front hole is closed off with a plug, like a thread to plug. You just see the square not on the top, right. Or it's closed off from the bottom. You see that the inside of that plug. But out here, there's a lot of builders that. Instead of running that main drain line another 40 feet where the pool equipment is, they'll run that main drain line into the bottom of the skimmer. And then the skimmer itself will have a diverter, whether it's a it's called a tendency to vote bad. It looks like a little bit like a submarine that covers both holes.

Chas Bogardus:
And then there's a plate on the top so you can get a boat valve that it'll basically is like a diverter right in the bottom of the skimmer. They have these other ones that are out for the 10, 70 skimmers. They look like lily pads. You know, I've heard of called flying saucers, so I can't tell you how many people I got that may drink on work on, like, you know, I don't have a diverter down there. It's definitely not going to work right out of the murder. So the idea is, is there is a diverter that will close off so that you don't pull as much. Obviously, the pump is going to pull from the path of least resistance. Right. So he's got to pull from the main drain. And you got to be able to close the skimmer. All right. And if you close the skimmer, all right, then the pumps just gonna pull from the skimmer and it'll never pull from the main drain. So having those diverters in there. I've had the guys put the diverters in backwards. The idea is you put that thing straight up and down when you vacuum, it should be straight through the hole with straight down the skimmer. But if they do it the other way, they backing stuff up and then we'll get caught on that little diverter vessel. So I. You get that. That happens sometimes.

Greg Villafana:
Right. Thank you. So how does a pool opening different from your standard type of pool from maybe an elaborate one? Because, you know, the pools are being bill designed much differently now than maybe, say, even the early 2000s, 90s, 80s. They're getting bigger. You know, a lot of free form. But how does that switch up your process and the way that you all do things when you get to a pool that is not rectangle or a basic free-form pool?

Chas Bogardus:
So I told you, I'm a service guy at heart that's working for a builder. I used to be the guy. How am I going to cover that?

Chas Bogardus:
So we'll build this beautiful pool. And I'm like, how am I going to cover that? How am I going to make a cover to go over top of that pool? I'm always looking to try and figure out how I'm going to put a cover on and what that's gonna look like. And making custom covers for some of these swimming pools. You know, they have this beautiful, gorgeous backyard all summer long and into the fall. And then also and it's time to put a kind of close the pool now. And it looks like a train wreck. Right. Because now you've got this cover that is nowhere near as attractive as what the pool is. And sometimes I just don't think that. Well, it's sometimes there's who's just are not designed to be close. Sometimes they go you the big things, Russ, are the big boulders and the waterfalls and you know the problems and you know those kinds of things. I mean, making a cover to fit inside of those sometimes can be tricky. Then it's another thing to make it and then it's another thing to put that cover on and take that cover off. Right. Because right now, that pool water that we're open enough pools are probably gonna be over 50 now. But, you know, you're open and pools, not water, is 45, 50 degrees.

Chas Bogardus:
And nobody want to go in, you know, to take the cable off to get the cover out of the pool. Right now, it's a little bit of a problem. But the big issue, I guess, to answer your question would be not every pool is just a straight up flat deck anymore. And the more elaborate the pool, the more elaborate the pool cover, the more elaborate the pool cover. You know, these people are spending, you know, one hundred fifty two hundred thousand on a swimming pool. I'm not covering that pool for twenty five hundred bucks. I mean, the pool cover for that pool is going to be they give me ten, twelve, fifty thousand dollars. You know, you know, you have all these boulders, you've got to have further padding. You can do a cable you're going to cross over. Don't give mad the service guy. You built this gorgeous pool and now I've got to try and protect it. Right. It's open for four or five months. I've got to protect it for seven or eight months. And now you've got to spend a little money on the head. What I find, I guess too many times people don't think about closing the pools and they don't realize the covers could be wrong.

Greg Villafana:
Right. One of the craziest things I've ever seen was we got to a house over here in North Scottsdale and there was actually a gentleman there that this is what he does for a living. Is he actually he had a sewing machine by the pool and he was making a custom cover by the pool. Like, that's what this dude does. And we just thought that was the craziest thing. Like, what are you. Were you making a, like, a big, big tease? What do you do? Man A lot of fabric you got there, you know. And he's he's making a custom cover. He this was a free-form pool and he got all the dimensions and he's feeding this. And, you know, it's an industrial, obviously sewing machine and he's just feeding this stuff through it. But I was just like, damn, that is that is really something I've never heard of anybody, you know?

Chas Bogardus:
So I do know that there are some I have heard of people going out with, you know, with a sewing machine like that and making repairs to a cover. I've never heard of anybody actually making a cover up there. But, you know, you get repairs on covers. It is a train wreck. You know, you get it. And it happens here. Right. You know, you get a branch or some fall through the cover. And now what are you going to do with it? So we have to that's something that we do facilitate at the opening. It's such a mess. So imagine in one of the panels in the pool, you know, a tree or a branch falls through and you've got this patch, that hole that's six, eight inches or whatever it might be. The right way to fix that is to send the cover back to the manufacturer.

Chas Bogardus:
What manufacturer that does is they'll take that actual panel out and then they'll show a new panel back in that place. But the cover manufacturer does not want the cover to be dirty. They don't want the springs on the cover. So now we've got to clean the cover. We normally would anyhow. Now we got to clean the cover. We got to take all the springs off of the cover. And then we've got to send the cover back to the manufacturer. Right. She got the shipping to get it back there. Then the manufacturer has the cover that they give me a quote on what it's going to be to fix the cover. Now, I got to call the customer, say, hey, listen, it's gonna be X no dollars the fix to cover it. You know, usually Panama costs 150 bucks, but I got more cost and taking springs' off shipping, getting it back, then putting it back on. I mean, that's a pain in the neck. You know, you sent a cover repair out. It's or five hundred bucks easy. The other thing that happens we didn't talk about it is, you know, you've got to be careful where you store those covers. You know, you store those covers in a shed and you get mice or aunt to get into cover. Well, that covers all folded up. They chew one little hole through the cover that's folded up. There's a hole in every single part. Yeah. Right now, you're not talking about big holes. Maybe you're talking about quarter sized holes or something like that. Cover repairs are a mess. We didn't talk about the fact that these guys, they open five or six calls a day. They got pressure washers. They want to get it out of the truck. You throw a 250 pound cover that's about the size of a charcoal grill that you got to now work around the entire day getting in your truck.

Tyler Rasmussen:
So the guys, General, you're not that stuff or any of the customers leaving those pools running all year round and hitting them, you know, there's some there's more elaborate type pools.

Chas Bogardus:
I have one in particular that I do service twice a week, and he's got a huge five. Forty five foot vanishing edge, infinity edge. So we have the water goes right up to the deck. It's a gorgeous pool and it's just not made to be closed. I mean, it's the masterpiece in the backyard. I mean, you look great at a rally. So that pool we do we do maintain we got twice a week as far as the water temperature. Now he has. Now, on the bottom side, it's gorgeous. And so he does use the spa, which I think is great, but again, we'll maintain the water. It's that 50 degrees warm all winter. So they got to four hundred thousand BE2 heaters. And you know, that pools 50 degrees and he's having a party on New Year's. Or, you know, you can let me know he's right on the lake. So we'll get through a windy. I need to you know, I'm concerned like, hey, you know, you're having a party. Let me know I you to get the temperature up for you. And for whatever reason, I keep trying to tell them, like, when it's 40 degrees outside, 80 degree water is going to feel like a bathtub. But they're like, no, we got to have an eighty eight there swim in temperature. So but it takes a couple of days to get it out. You know when you're that cold, you know you're that windy. And obviously they don't have a solar cover on the whole. So I mean you just I pulled up to that house. It literally looks like the pool's on fire. There's so much just moisture and humidity coming up off the top of that pool. But so the more elaborate pools, sometimes they will not stay open, but sometimes they will actually put a cover. Right, which then you get into that whole massive is it a wooden yard? And, you know, then the opening becomes a real nightmare.

Greg Villafana:
Right. So earlier in the episode, you were talking about some homeowners actually like to open the pools themselves. Maybe they're just eager to open it up. Or the other thing is, you know, some people just want to save some money. So how can companies best explain that they should use a professional for that type of service?

Chas Bogardus:
So it's actually a little bit tricky for us because, you know, we close so many more pools than we open. And when people call and they want service or they have a problem, you know, the first thing we look at is that we open the swimming pools. That's going to take a higher priority than the next thing we've got to look at is did we close the swimming pool? And if we closed the swimming pool, there's still my customer, too. They just chose to open themselves. So now I got to find time to fix that pool. And then it's somebody else that hasn't used us for service. Now you want the new customer, but at the same time, I can't put that new customer ahead of these other people. Right.

Chas Bogardus:
So they got a call they wanted to fix. I would like to do that for them, but it doesn't always work that way. And I maybe 10 days out before I get out to fix a problem. But to answer your you know, to answer your question specifically about you guys, I can cut my own grass. I choose not to. Right.

Chas Bogardus:
So I pay somebody to cut my grass because this time of the year I'm busy. Right. And so somebody else spots my grass. So I certainly could do it myself if I wanted to save the money. But it's all about where you're putting your money. Obviously, if you have a professional over the pool, you know you don't. Most of the time, you're not going to come up to a situation where you're going to have some kind of catastrophic failure, you know, or something that's going to go bad. Right. Unfortunately, I just think that it's I think it's our business in this region. If you're opening the pool yourself, I just don't know that anybody's going to get out there.

Chas Bogardus:
Twenty four hours and 48 hours to fix a problem. Now, if we open the pool, I mean, I'm trying to get out there and get that thing running in 24, 48 hours. I think that's part of the part of what we do and that's part of the benefit of having those open swimming pools. We also do some stuff where we you open and close. We built their swimming pool and we open and close the swimming pool. We'll give them an underground plumbing guarantee. So we're the ones blowing up the lines. Right. And then they are also having us open the pool. That's something that we can extend to our customers. I think is that has some value to open in the swimming pool. I have all these customers I've been I've had for 20 years now, and they know me. They call it, hey, I'm having problems, you know, and my phone's blowing up and, you know, hey, can you help me with this? And now there's face time and say, hey, can I face time? I don't know what this is and go in there now. And basically they open the pool. Right. And now you've got to be nice, finance the phone and talk to him. And then, you know the problems that they're having. I'm pretty much fixed over the phone and I'm friendly enough with some of them. I got this and I sold on them. I got to set the timer because he said, I'm starting a billion right now. So now we're into the service. Also, the service call includes the first 30 minutes. All right, let's go. What do you got? So I thought, come on.

Chas Bogardus:
Why? You know why you bring my balls and like, no one time do you better start talking like you want me to fix your problem. But you didn't pay me to open your pool. Right. So it's a pain.

Chas Bogardus:
I mean, it's it's one of those things that you've got to, you know, I mean, you've got to toe the line, right? I mean, you've got you've got to try and help you. You can help. You know, there's only so many phone calls I can make in a day. Right. There's only so many emails you can do. And, you know, I tell the guys on family guys, you know, I mean, I got to prioritize. And my priority are the people whose pool I open. I prioritize that because if I do a good job open and pull that, I'm always going to be the one Kosner. All right. So I think that's important.

Tyler Rasmussen:
So basically saying if you want your pool to open without problems, you should have us do it. Because if you open and there's a problem, you're gonna it's gonna take you a few weeks maybe to get something fixed. Right.

Chas Bogardus:
Yeah. Yeah, I would tell you that that's I think it's going to take a bit and and I don't think that's just the Budd's pool thing. I think that's an anybody thing. Certainly, if you have a startup company in your you know, you're starting you don't have the customer base, you know. I mean, they're going to want to jump on that. Right. So but they're a new company. And I'm sure there's good new companies that start up at the same time, you know. You know, you get which paper? You know, I got a guy who's been working here open and pulls for us for 20 some years. There's really nothing that he hasn't seen. There's nothing he can't fix. There's not many times that he can't get past that. I mean, I just had it today. I mean, the guys called me and they had this one customer that actually has two different polls, one house that he used to be at that he rents out. He still pays for the opening. And I got a call. He's like you said, so-and-so, this pool. This is Bob. Here, some big eccentric pool. And I said, the guy who's been open a pool for me for five years, but it's probably not the right guy in that yard. And I go, I realize, you know, that kind of stuff happens.

Chas Bogardus:
You want to have the right guy in the right vacuum. So when I'm doing the schedule every day, I want to do the schedule geographic and I want the guys to do around that same time. You know, when you're breaking up the rule, I want guys I want the pools that are a little bit more special, that are a little bit more difficult. I want the guys that had been around doing it and they're not going to be overwhelmed. They're not going to miss anything. Right. I mean, you got a customer that has a you know, a standard 16, 32 rectangle, no bottle and pool their backyard. Their house is worth 150 or 200 thousand dollars. I want to open that pool, too. And I want to service them the best that I can. But I don't need to send the guy who's been doing this for 20 years. Right. Then they're opening the pool. That's one hundred fifty thousand dollars that 750000 our home. Right. I mean, you have to pay for that. Now, I've got to get that young guy into that back yard so he grows. But there's a real balance in how you're doing a schedule and the customers to to make all that kind of mesh together. And given that opportunity.

Greg Villafana:
Right. So are there any good resources that the listeners can check out for pool openings? You know, is there any classes, books, you know, anything that you can recommend for, you know, anybody that wants to get into this because they're not, you know, maybe taking full advantage of this service in their business. Sure.

Chas Bogardus:
Professionals. Yeah. I mean, I've been. And that's what I mean, we have multiple opening classes. We have multiple closing classes. I thought those basis for years having for a couple of years because I'm on the board now. So that's when my time goes. But I love teaching classes. I love teaching classes for those guys. You know, you get a room full of thirty people. You know, there's been guys I mean, closing pools for ten years, guys, we haven't closed the pool.

Chas Bogardus:
So getting a closing class or an opening class, you know, we have pool school for rookies that do something very similar to that. Obviously training the guys. We know we have a pool yard, so we have four grab pools in the pool yard here. But so for us, you know, we can teach an opening class right here on site. But I don't think there's any better way, you know, the a mechanic to be teaching them in the backyard. So what we'll do here at Budd's is I have the opportunity a lot of times to to bring guys in and just have a third guy on that crew. Right. So you need really two guys open the pool, take care of the cover when you bring a third guy in. Now, it's nice because that third guy, whether I'm bringing third guy in, is a helper who's never been in the back yard.

Chas Bogardus:
So now I have a guy who can essentially teach that helper what his responsibility is and what he needs to do in the pool. And if you're teaching him five or six times on a given day on the basically the same thing, if he can't pick it up by the next day, you should probably be looking for another guy for that. But it always works out that way. And then the same thing happens if I hire like I hired a guy today and, you know, you work for another company. Tell me on grading is and I'm just like, yeah, I'm like, well, you're not going. And one of my trucks, so I need to know what you can do and how you can do it. So, you know, his first day is going to be with basically with one of my more senior technicians. Right. So I got to set up another truck, but he'll you know, they'll have two trucks and they'll go around and essentially, you know, he's learning doing it. And there's somebody watching, seeing what he's doing, asking questions. And and I just think that's the best way to do it. But not for a group. If you can facilitate, you know, sometimes with small companies, I think the closing classes and the only classes are great. I love the when I taught them, I used to teach all kinds of little tricks, you know, different things you can do shortcuts.

Chas Bogardus:
I mean, that's where you learn stuff. You learn stuff from people that have blown it. You know, I actually open a pool with a guy from our own company this year. A couple of guys go out stuff with the virus, getting guys, you know, the guys who want to come back. And so I owe them quite a few polls this year that I haven't in the past. But so we go out. But this water bag covered. I was told you guys out, you know, and there's water on the cover. And I had my backpack lowered my truck. And it's like, I hate these covers and, you know, put the pump on my I will blow the cover up and I should just put it down at that end. Is it pretty neat? So you have a water bag cover if you put a blower, doesn't have to be a backpack blower, can be it a blower that we use to close the pool. But if you put the blower underneath a. OK. And you turned it on. I mean, it just starts blowing the pool up and now the cover starts to look like a like a parachute. Right. And it as it fills up with air, it automatically pushes the water right to the other end of the pool, which is where you have your pump.

Chas Bogardus:
Right. In a great pump of the water. And I mean, this guy looked at me like I had five heads, like, what are you do? I'm like, I'm OK. And I just start crying. I don't even think about it. He's like, no. And then all of a sudden he got done. He looked at me. It's like, I can't believe I didn't know that. And here's a guy, you know, that. I mean, you working with me for how long? And it's just like, well, how do you not know that? Like, what are you doing to get the water off, you know? So there's different things like that that I think you can always learn and, you know, asking guys questions and definitely the different classes. I will tell you. Nescio, what ends up happening is we'll set an opening classical set of closing class. And inevitably, you know, we set it up on a Tuesday or Wednesday because we end up adding a second or third class right on back to back days because, you know, a lot of times they will sell out and you want to try and do as much as you can. But at the same time, you can't have you can't teach. Well, if there's 50 or 60 people, you know, you're going to do something.

Tyler Rasmussen:
Hands on this. Yes. But actually has a pool in the back. I know when I taught for years, I taught the opening class. I'd bring a couple of covers with me. I'd go in the back parking lot. We'd open them up. I was teaching guys have a say in food. Same thing blowing pools out. You know, you set the blower up and you just let the guys go. So I could plug it, put in plugs in a pool when the blowers blowing. I mean, there's a little bit of in that, too. You know, you're going to get wet until you know how to do it. Well, you know, getting to the closing class and I'm sure a lot of the chapters, especially up here, you know, Nesta does it. Our chapter of Néstor Pen Jersey, we do it. We do it in somebody's back yard. If you're involved, everybody's teaching. I would want to speak for everybody, but I'm sure all of our chapters are teaching, opening and closing classes. I think they're worth it. They're not expensive. I mean, I know what we have in charge of it. You know, it's 50, 60 bucks. You know, they give you lunch, but it's a time of networking pick. There's a lot of fruit to come down.

Greg Villafana:
All right. Thank you. And, you know, you've had a very good career in this business. What are you most proud of? I mean, you've been doing this 30 years or so. What are you most proud of?

Chas Bogardus:
I guess I'm there's a few things that I guess I'm I guess I love the relationships that I have with customers. I've had customers that I've worked on there pull 20 years from now. And, you know, I play cards with them once a month. He's one of my closest friends. You know, I mean, you get to know people, right. And so many people that are start off as business associates, I'm working for him are doing this and doing that. And we've just kind of close over time. And you know that I would consider friends. I think that's cool. I think it's neat to I guess maybe I'm old school. I still am. I'm still proud when somebody, you know, somebody calls me, it's like, hey, so-and-so want me to call you? I'm their cool guy. You know, you're their full guy. I'm like, oh, it's cool. You know, I guess I'm a lot of people's cool guys, you know? I mean, I have people's who's, you know, my phone, you know. I mean, customer service for me is a big deal. I you know, you want to do the best that what you can do. And certainly when you stop some of these problems and giving good service and obviously a happy customer is probably one of the things first and foremost that I'm proud of. I guess the other thing, I guess when I was growing up and I was in high school, I never thought I'd be a fall guy.

Chas Bogardus:
I just. You guys heard the story, right? I mean, I don't even like to swim. I don't I mean, my kids tease me. I haven't been on my own swimming pool, my own backyard the last two years. So I just don't like to swim. But being a pool guy, everything that I have right. Everything that I have financially is because of what I do in this industry. So I do feel in everything that I know. I mean, I can point to and I can give you I can't tell you how many guys I'm afraid I get so many, but. Well, you guys know, I mean, you guys mentioned how great Garrett's been a mentor to you, but. Right. So, I mean, there's people like that that, you know, go into different conferences and go into different events. And I tease guys all the time. I got this one guy, definite gal. You're up here by me and Pete Lucy. And we go to these board meetings and I could give a rip about what goes on half the time. I don't care about the golf outings or the different things. I mean, I'll go and do my go to the board meetings to sit next to these guys. And I'm like I said, I gotta sit next to you because I got to learn just Ross Moses, I'm sitting next to you because this guy knows so much.

Chas Bogardus:
You've been doing it for so long and I love spending time with you, you know, networking and talking with different people. And so I just feel that everything I have is because of our industry. And I I want to give back to the industry. And I love teaching. I do love teaching classes. I'm I'm gonna be really excited to get back into that aspect, because now being on the board, that takes a little bit more time. So kind of shift my time doing board stuff. I love teaching. I love going and, you know, just sharing. I you know, I just think you've got you've got to share on. Right. I mean, these guys have shared and taught me and I just feel like I need to do that moving forward to the next group. Right. But there's nothing better than talking to somebody that, you know, you know, going down and you guys are in Atlantic City, you know, I mean, there's a lot of people there. There's proud moments when I'm walking around and I got a guy that I talked five years ago that, hey, man, maybe you talk I talk to class, but I'm like, oh, hey, how you doing? You know, and that's a cool moment that he remembers a class that I taught five years ago. Right. That's that's cool. And I just think that, you know, that's that's something to certainly. I think to.

Tyler Rasmussen:
You know, I guess I'm proud of you. You definitely should be. That's awesome. Great, Gary. I live, you know, multiple people that I never thought highly of you. And obviously, you know, your stuff. So I really appreciate you taking the time to be here on the podcast with us.

Tyler Rasmussen:
And you want to give out your phone number, you know, so you get more face time calls or, you know, if anybody is watching this, I don't think it's going to face based me.

Chas Bogardus:
So they may want to break my chops over something they said. I'm sure there's lots of things that would probably be controversial.

Tyler Rasmussen:
Now you're good. Yeah, yeah. A lot of really good information. So thanks for joining us. Chaz, really appreciate your time and us. Thank you.

Chas Bogardus:
Thank you guys so much. From ask me. I really. I could talk about polls for a long time. So I do appreciate it. And I guess this will go in a proud moment as well. We asked to be on your show, so. Thanks so much for that. Very welcome. All right. See you guys.

Tyler Rasmussen:
Hey, pool chasers. Thanks for checking out this episode. Did you know that each episode has its own page on our Web site? This is where you can find more information about the guests and episode topic, as well as all the resources that we discuss throughout the show. To get to the Web page, click the link below. Also below, you will find links to the sponsors of the show, as well as links to follows on our social media channels. On our channels, you will find some of our favorite clips. And bonus material, please follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Our tag is pole chasers. We also have a Facebook group for the Poor Chasers community. Here you will find like minded professionals all looking to make each other better. One last thing. If the episode has brought you value and please check out our patrie on page show. Support us. And if you could, please write and review the podcast. We would love to hear what your favorite topics are. Thank you for your time and your ear. See you out there, Pool Chasers.

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