Historical Wisdom Meets Pool Maintenance

[Paul Rhodes] (0:00 - 5:37) In today's Maintenance Mindset, we're going to get some operational advice from someplace that we don't quite look for operational advice from enough, and that is history. More specifically, the wife of a historical figure. Not only that, we're going to be talking and getting in the weeds about taking care of a swimming pool.

Tips and tricks, standards and expectations, all that and more right after this word from our sponsor. Appwork is one of the founding sponsors here at the Multifamily Media Network. Much more than maintenance, Appwork is advanced business intelligence.

Streamline maintenance workflows and keep an eye on the leaderboard as your service teams enjoy the gamification of maintenance. Visit appworkco.com and transform your productivity today. Today's lesson on operating with a maintenance mindset comes from a very, very unlikely source.

That source is actually Nancy Kissinger, Henry Kissinger's wife. Now I guess I should back up a little bit there. It doesn't come directly from her.

It comes from a historian, a guy by the name of Neil Ferguson. Now Neil is a noted historian. He's written several books.

One of his most notable is A History of Kissinger. Now I am not a huge knowledgeable person about Kissinger and the Nixon administration and everything from that time period till forward. Kissinger passed away here within the past couple of years.

I became aware of Henry Kissinger when I was working on a book or doing some research for a debate on artificial intelligence because Kissinger teamed up with a couple of guys that began talking about and thinking about strategies for artificial intelligence. And it was quite fascinating. But actually this is a quote from or dealing with Kissinger's life that Nancy had some pretty pointed things to say.

And it's related from a story that Neil Ferguson tells. And I saw it on a YouTube video where Neil is being interviewed for one of his books, a book that I became aware of Neil called Doom, the Politics of Catastrophe. And this book is quite interesting.

It came out in 2021, right in the middle of the pandemic. And it's about catastrophe and how bad things happen historically. But what was really interesting was it was that particular book, Doom, was written in 2019.

So before the pandemic. But before I go down too many rabbit holes, the story that Neil tells about him writing the book and the illumination that Henry Kissinger's wife, Nancy, brings is what I'm really focusing on for our operating with a maintenance mindset understanding today. You see, the way the story goes, Neil had finished his first volume of the book, and he was very, very proud of a particular section that talked about the Vietnam War.

In 1967 and 1968, Kissinger was spending a lot of time in Paris trying to find a diplomatic solution to the Vietnam War. And there's a lot more that goes on around it. But Neil was going by a bunch of written documents and firsthand stories and found or got some diaries that Kissinger had made.

Apparently Kissinger was a profound journalist, so he journaled every day and wrote things. And Neil did a lot of research third hand. And then he got invited to go to dinner with the Kissingers.

And he relates the story saying that before Nancy left the room, when Neil was talking with Henry about what he had discovered and how Neil had written and the fact that he was very happy with how that particular section of the book came out, Nancy paused Neil's retelling to Henry about Henry's life and said, Neil, you said that Henry spent a lot of time in Paris working during those years. And Neil said, yes. And Nancy looked at him and he says, why do you really think that Henry was in Paris so much during that time?

[Paul Rhodes] (5:38 - 5:47) The war was in Vietnam. Why was Henry looking in Paris for his job?

[Paul Rhodes] (5:49 - 12:55) And Neil tells the story and he pauses because as a historian, his job is to look through documentation, look through all of the records and put together a story and then tell that story. That's Neil's job. You see, the reason why Nancy was pointing that out was the reason why Henry was in Paris those years is because that's where Nancy was working.

In other words, the real motivation for Henry Kissinger to be in Paris during that time was not his job. He wanted to be with his wife. And the moral of this story or the reason that this applies to our operations on a farmer community is that Neil only found out the details by going to the source.

He had all the documentation. He studied the documentation. That was his job is to study the documentation.

And yet he didn't find out the true story until he went to the source and talked to Nancy in person. Now, the application for us out of this lesson is how many times on the property do we hear from somebody who tells us something and we either take it as gospel or we completely disagree because it goes against all the documentation that we've seen. See, my story, the personal story application to this was I was doing some work in Houston, Texas at a property and we had gone and we were doing some inspections and some other things at the property with the swimming pool.

And it was about one o'clock, two o'clock in the afternoon, middle of summer. And I mean, it was it was rather hot. And I'm getting packing up and getting ready to go and head to a different property that I was working at for this management company.

And the maintenance supervisor stopped me and he says, he says, Paul, can I show you something? Sure. I want to I'm here to help.

He takes me to the model apartment, opens up the utility closet, and we take a look at the furnace. And instantly the problem becomes apparent because when you look at the furnace, the chimney coming out of the top of the furnace ended approximately 18 inches above the top. In other words, the exhaust duct ended.

And I looked at him and I said, where is it? It was a gas furnace. You've got to have that be vented out the building.

And he looked at me and he says, I don't know. I came in here after the roof was done and this is what I found. Well, the roof had just recently been done and I took out a flashlight, looked up there and sure enough, there was no vent between that the top of the 18 inch stack off the furnace and the roof.

We were upstairs in the apartment and where the hole that you could see in the roofing material, the OSB that was there, there was a membrane covering the hole. In other words, the only thing I could think that happened was the roofers who were up on the flat roof that were installing the membrane. They pulled out the riser, the shield, the flashing, everything that was up on the roof.

And when they did that, they took off the top section of the vent. So in other words, we've got a major problem. Real quick, we gathered the maintenance team around and we went around to the rest of that building and we found that in that building of 24 apartments, there were three other apartments that the vents were pulled and the membrane went right over.

We went over that whole property and come to find out there were 14 apartments at this community that the vent stack had been pulled and the membrane had been put over without the vents being run out the chimney. This is bad. Fortunately, for the summer, we could turn off the pilot lights.

You didn't have to worry about the furnace. So we were able to make the residents safe. But the really interesting thing and how this story applies to our premise of going to the firsthand source, I called the roofing company and good roofing company.

They provided good service. So when I was talking with their rep, their project manager, he said, nope, my guys, I've got pictures before and after that show they're all set. And I said, well, sir, you're going to need to come here to the property and look firsthand.

I'm sending you a picture. And I sent him a picture of my hand pushing up on the membrane from underneath where the chimney and the flashing and the vent should go through. In other words, on our properties, when a resident gives us symptoms of an issue, when we look at a budget, when we look at numbers, when we look at anything that we're using to make a decision, keep in mind that we may, if possible, go to the situation and get firsthand knowledge.

If we do, we just might find something different than what we're guessing by looking at the documentation and at the numbers. It's something to think about. What I really like about this story is that when Niall, Neil, pardon me, relates it, he tells it with the fact that Nancy has a twinkle in her eye for why do you really think that Henry was in Paris for that year?

After a word from our sponsor, we're going to come back and look at ways we can get a firsthand view of what's going on with our swimming pool to ensure that we're keeping the best care that we can during the summer.

[Paul Rhodes] (12:56 - 12:57) We'll be right back.

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[Paul Rhodes] (13:45 - 13:49) Welcome back. We're going to talk about the swimming pool next.

[Paul Rhodes] (13:50 - 25:00) I know we've already talked about the swimming pool a few episodes ago, but that was in light of how to manage it from a theoretical standpoint. It also gave us some values to use in why maintaining a swimming pool is important and why it's worth the time. Now we're going to talk about how, and fair warning, we're going to get a little bit in the weeds, but it's getting into the weeds that we will ensure that our maintenance technicians are able to take care of the swimming pool with excellence.

The first thing about operating a swimming pool is to where everybody has a clear expectation, meaning how often are we at this swimming pool going to be doing the things that need doing around the swimming pool. That begins in the morning before the pool is open. There should be an expectation needs to be set that the swimming pool will not be open until a certain time.

That means we, as maintenance, need to be in working on doing cleaning, adjusting, testing before anybody is in the water. That may mean the swimming pool doesn't open until 10 a.m. and we get there at 8.30 or somebody gets there at 8.30. The reality is that no matter what kind of system you have on your swimming pool to adjust or maintain the chemicals, a physical person must lay eyes on the swimming pool every single day. One time a day, minimum, a physical test using a test kit should be performed.

Now, this is not an endorsement. They're not a sponsor. But my preference for testing swimming pools is Taylor.

Their test kit is easy to use. I find it universal in its application. And the nice thing is there's a good cost benefit for it, meaning when you use the Taylor test kit, begin with RTFI.

Read the full instructions. In the case of Taylor, for those of you who are looking on video, the instructions are right here. They're color-coded.

They match the colors on the lids of the bottles. And it's very easy to do and use. Now, inside the Taylor test kit, there's two other things besides all the tests that can happen.

One is this book right here. This book is actually, from an application standpoint, a better reference to use than your CPO book. The CPO book is very, if I can say this in the best light, it's very long-winded.

It's a great reference. It's a good resource. It has a lot of science.

And it goes way in more depth of science than what we're covering here in the time that we have together. But from a practical application standpoint, this is a very, very good reference. Keep it on hand.

And if you have questions about what's going on at your pool, this does a very good introductory job into problem solving and explaining just what the chemicals we need are. The second thing besides the testing that's in the Taylor test kit, we're going to talk about in a little bit because there's some setup that's required in order to really understand how cool this particular tool is that Taylor gives us access to. So, this particular kit that I use is what is called the complete kit.

It has the tests required to maintain our swimming pools all within a nice box that's easy to store and easy to use. As a matter of fact, from our suppliers, you can purchase the individual chemicals in their bottle form as they run out. Oh, and by the way, if you are testing appropriately, you will run out of these chemicals two to three times over the course of a full summer season here in the South.

And the reason why I say that is because we go back to that expectation. You know, the expectation is a minimum of once per day, no matter what kind of system you have, we are testing the chemicals. The chemicals that we test on a daily basis is chlorine and pH.

Now, chlorine, that's a sanitizer and an oxidizer. That is what kills germs and it also helps keep the water nice and pretty crystal clear. pH, that's Latin for protens hydrogen, which basically in non-scientific, all roads terms, how much hydrogen is in the water?

Yes, hydrogen ions. It's a bunch of science-y stuff. In the end, national, per the Model Aquatic Health Code, we want maximum of 10 parts per million of chlorine to be in the water.

Any more than that and nobody should be in the water. Not only that, we want our pH to be between 7.2 and 7.8. Any lower than that and the water is classified as acidic, too acidic for our eyeballs to be comfortable. Anything above that, above 7.8, the water is too base, too alkali and our eyes again are uncomfortable. As a matter of fact, it's a common misconception that people think that when your eyes get red from swimming, that it's a chlorine issue. More common than the chlorine is actually that it is a pH issue. In other words, the pH in the water is far enough away from our eyeballs that they become irritated and they can get quite irritated if the pH is off.

So every day we test chlorine and pH. If the chlorine is too high, shut down chlorine and let it drop back down. If the chlorine is too low, add some, whatever kinds of chlorine you have.

pH. Now pH is a little bit more challenging. The reason why pH is important is twofold.

One, it's a comfort level for our eyes when we're swimming. The second reason why is the level of pH determines how effective the chlorine is at doing its job. The lower the pH, the better chlorine works.

The higher the pH, the less effective the chlorine is in the water. But the challenging part is that pH as a measurement is actually what accountants would call a trailing indicator, meaning that pH is actually a part of water balance. In other words, pH should be, if we're maintaining our pool correctly, should be the last thing that we make an adjustment to.

We need to adjust the other factors of pH in order to get the pH we desire. Those other factors I'm talking about are alkalinity and calcium hardness. You see, where swimming pool is concerned, water balance is made up of a few things.

It's made up of pH, alkalinity, calcium hardness, the temperature of the water, and total dissolved solids. Now that last one, total dissolved solids, there's not a test for that found in our test kit. And that's why it's a good idea every month, month and a half or so, take a sample of your water in a plastic water bottle.

You can take whatever water bottle that you bought from the store, drink it, especially because it's hot outside now, and then fill it back up with pool water. Take that to your local neighborhood pool store and let them test. Run a full battery of tests.

They will tell you what the total dissolved solids are. Now, in general terms, if you're backwashing your water, if you're draining and you're vacuuming to drain, you should be okay where total dissolved solids are concerned. But it is a factor in water balance.

Now, the other segments of water balance, which pH, alkalinity, the water temperature, and calcium hardness. Water temperature, generally during the summer, you don't even worry about it because there's nothing we can do. The air outside determines what the temperature of the water is going to be.

So that becomes something we don't adjust. We adjust for it. And the reason why I say we adjust for it is because it is based on the temperature of the water that the water determines how much calcium hardness it needs to have.

See, calcium is a mineral in the water that is expecting to occur at a certain amount. But calcium is actually backwards than almost everything else that you and I deal with. And by that, I mean like this.

You see, I live in the South. And down here in the South, we drink iced tea one way.

[Paul Rhodes] (25:02 - 25:04) That's right. We drink it sweet.

[Paul Rhodes] (25:05 - 25:54) And if I travel up north and I order iced tea, it doesn't come sweet. Matter of fact, the server, quite frequently, when I ask for sweet tea, they look at me and they point to the other side of the table and they say, oh, you got sugar right there. The problem is, have you ever tried to put sugar into iced tea?

All you get is crunchy tea. I mean, the sugar doesn't dissolve in iced tea. Down South, if you're familiar with it, how do you make sweet tea?

That's right. You put the sugar in while the tea is still hot. Why?

Because the sugar dissolves in a higher temperature.

[Paul Rhodes] (25:56 - 26:11) Calcium in pool water is opposite. By that, I mean calcium actually dissolves better in cold water.

[Paul Rhodes] (26:11 - 30:06) It actually has a temperature reaction, chemical reaction to it. If you go to dissolve calcium in water, the calcium heats up the water by the process of dissolving. This is why calcium is one of the primary ingredients in ice melt.

Don't go using calcium to melt ice on your sidewalks. Pure calcium, you'll ruin the concrete. But I digress.

Back to swimming pools. So calcium hardness is a measurement that we really should be paying attention to roughly once a week or so. That is the expectation for a measurement of calcium.

And that test is in the Taylor Complete Test Kit. There are other test kits. In some cases, there are what I refer to as the aquarium strips.

Those are the ones that have the little pads on them. You take it out. It's like, oh, about a four or five inch piece of tape that has little chemical pads on it.

You dip it in the water, let it sit for three or four minutes, and then you compare the colors. If I'm honest, I'm not a fan. They work.

I've misread and have had technicians misread that in the past. So I'm not really a fan of them, but they work. They're available.

So pH and chlorine, we get a reading of at least once a day. By the way, you do those twice a day if you don't have an automatic chlorine feed system or an automatic pH testing system on. Those are minimals, depending on where you're at in the country.

I mean, if I remember right, Colorado's code has you testing it five or six times a day in order to be compliant with city or state code out there. So pay attention to what the standards are, what your health department says that needs to be tested. So calcium, we need to test approximately every week.

Another test that we need to do is that last factor for water balance, and that's alkalinity. Alkalinity is the final part that helps to maintain the pH where we need it to be. Now, if all of these terms are swimming around in your head, that's all right.

I get it. We're really far in the weeds, and that's okay. That's why we have references.

We have books to do it. Calcium, we want that to be somewhere between two and 500 parts per million. Alkalinity, we want that to be between 80 parts per million and 120 parts per million.

All of these depend on the situation, which is why I strongly recommend use references. Many city and county health codes tell us what the standards are for their area. Now, all of those test measurements, we go into what is classified as water balance.

And we need the water to be balanced to help us maintain the chlorine, that sanitizer, and the oxidizer at appropriate levels, which that and the effectiveness of that helps us to keep our swimming pool looking its best.

[Paul Rhodes] (30:08 - 30:14) But there's one other factor involved where chlorine is concerned.

[Paul Rhodes] (30:15 - 32:39) And that is a little factor called stabilizer. Now, stabilizer is a chemical additive that is given to chlorine that acts like sunscreen. It prevents the ultraviolet radiation from having a bad effect or, in essence, burning off the chlorine in the swimming pool water.

And that is one test that, in my experience across the country, is not done enough. See, the problem is, is that calcium, alkalinity, pH, and chlorine will always vary based on the conditions that you have going on. Those numbers can go up or down, depending on what's happening.

Stabilizer, which the chemical additive is called cineric acid, the stabilizer, if you're using the sticks and the bricks, the pucks, the solid, compacted form of chlorine in your swimming pool, that stabilizer is going to constantly rise and increase throughout the summer. The problem with that is that if it gets too high, it actually stops chlorine from doing sanitizing and oxidizing. In other words, you could have a swimming pool that has 20 parts per million, twice the amount of chlorine that we are supposed to be accepting in our swimming pool.

And if the cineric acid is up over 100 parts per million, that chlorine is just sitting there. It's not sanitizing anything. It's not cleaning the water.

As a matter of fact, it's doing nothing. And the problem with that is that we'll have maintenance technicians, we'll go out there and we'll do tests on the pool and we'll start scratching our head going, I've got a lot of chlorine in here. Why does this place look like a swamp?

[Paul Rhodes] (32:40 - 33:11) The answer, you have chlorine in there. It's not doing anything. Case in point, we go all the way back to where we started.

Have and execute an expectation. My recommendations from experience, daily, chlorine and pH, weekly, you measure alkalinity, calcium hardness, and you document the temperature.

[Paul Rhodes] (33:12 - 34:26) About every month and a half, you take a sample to your local pool store and there you get a measurement of the total dissolved solids. At that same time, monthly or every month and a half, measure the stabilizer. Perform the cineric acid test.

Now these tests that you're performing, they get done or they get made in a comparator tube. And that comparator tube, essentially what you're doing is you're taking chemicals and you're dripping and you're changing colors in there. The problem is that if you do it right next to the pool while it's occupied or while people are out looking and seeing what you're doing, it can get alarming.

I mean, you take water from the pool and then you change its color just by adding drops. The pool water starts out as clear, then you add some drops and you turn it green. Then you add some different drops and you count it how many drops it takes to go from green to red.

[Paul Rhodes] (34:28 - 34:45) Here's the thing. If mom or dad sees pool water changing colors from green to red, what do they think? The reality is it might be perfectly fine and good.

[Paul Rhodes] (34:46 - 38:53) But remember, perception matters. And if our residents think, if they perceive that there is a danger, then perception is reality, whether it's true or not. What I'm getting at here is begin with the expectation.

Chlorine and pH every day. Alkalinity and calcium hardness once per week. Document the temperature at that same time, once per week.

Once per month, measure stabilizer. Cineric acid once every month and a half, two months. Take a water sample to your swimming pool store and have them find out how much or test for how much total dissolved solids there is in the swimming pool.

Oh, one last thing. When we're looking at swimming pools, be sure that you do read all the instructions in that book if you do the Taylor test kit. And the reason why is because if you're maintaining a pool the way that the Model Aquatic Health Code says, there is a mathematical formula found inside the Pool and Hot Tub Alliance Certified Pool Operator book that is actually taught as a part of the certificate program.

And that mathematical formulation is actually quite lengthy and you have to complete it in order to do the exam. It's actually a part of Appendix B in the back of the book. It's this page here, just in case, page B5 in the CPO manual.

But the thing about the Taylor test kit is it gives you a tool, what is called a water gram. This slide rule actually gives you what the long mathematical calculation does just by matching up numbers on the wheel itself. It gives you what the water balance is to maintain your pH where you want it to be so that your chlorine can do and provide the best service.

That is the ultimate end of following through on what the expectation is. I hope you're still with me, even though we did go into the weeds quite a bit on how to maintain your swimming pool. For more information, I would recommend the Taylor Pool Water Chemistry book or the Pool and Hot Tub Alliance's Certified Pool Operator book.

If there are questions or there's anything you would like me to cover in regards to a swimming pool, tips or tricks or things to look out for, do me a favor and head over to the Multifamily Media Network page. We have the ability to where you can record a comment or send a direct message to me and I'll be happy to provide specific information if I can. I'll do everything I can to keep it anonymous unless you want me to tell who you are.

Otherwise, thank you very much for spending your time with me today. I don't take it as a small thing that you spend some amount of time with me today. Do me a favor before you leave.

Smash that subscribe button and click on the notification of whichever service you're listening to this on. That way you'll be notified when we drop a new episode of either the Maintenance Mindset or the short episodes of Maintenance Mindset Minute.

[Paul Rhodes] (38:54 - 38:58) Beyond that, thank you again and I'll see you somewhere.

[Paul Rhodes] (39:04 - 39:30) Thank you again to Appwork for sponsoring today's episode. Imagine carrying a digital make ready board in your pocket with work order tracking and maintenance technician leaderboards designed to gamify the process and bring out your team's competitive best. Appwork offers solutions to headaches that have plagued the multifamily industry for decades.

Visit www.appworkco.com today.