Want a backyard pool for summer? So does everyone else in Canada

Homeowners across the country, stuck indoors and with money to spare, have been busying themselves boosting Canada's already-robust home improvement culture, renovating kitchens and ensuites, increasing energy efficiency and beefing up landscaping.

If it's become a challenge finding available kitchen counters and cabinets — and contractors to install them — just try buying a pool. Not even a bribe will work.

Now that we aren't spending discretionary income on vacations, restaurants and entertainment, we're looking to “improve our castles,” says Jennifer Gannon of Bonavista Pools in Toronto, and that has caused the industry to boom at an unprecedented rate.

There's just not enough time in a construction year — typically 40 weeks — to install all the pools and spas that people want.

From about March 2020, Gannon has seen “relentless demand” across the Greater Toronto Area to the point that her company had no winter downtime this year.

Typically used for review, analysis, attending conferences and just taking a break, this winter provided no relief.

“We had no break this year,” Gannon said. “No break.”

Even though her staff is working flat out, they're swimming against the tide, unable to make headway through the sales log because manufacturers can't supply raw materials and parts fast enough.

In the past, manufacturers may have retooled production lines to support increased demand, but didn't do so this year, given the pandemic-delayed supply chain behind the scenes.

As with virtually every sector, factories supplying the pool industry have had to either shut down for weeks, months or entirely, or even just to slow down to allow for physical distancing.

Because each of Gannon's products — pools, hot tubs, swim spas and the like — “are not just one thing, but an assembly of parts,” it means that even if one manufacturer is able to get material to her supplier, another may not, resulting in a unit that can't be completed.

Gannon is just now receiving shipments for orders she placed last August and September, and suppliers are telling her they won't be able to send more for 2021 — or even 2022.

Bonavista will have to fulfil orders with what is in its warehouse now, but being restocked on a justin-time basis leaves little scope for satisfying new customers who want a pool quickly installed.

In fact, she and Rhett Bradshaw, director of operations for Vantage Leisure scapes in British Columbia, say that some customers are so desperate they've even offered the companies bribes.

Gannon has had customers ask, “If I give you `xxx,' could you move me to the front of the line?”

She and Bradshaw have both declined, not only to maintain their reputations but also because they would in any case be unable to access the materials or manpower to fulfil such pleas.

B.C. is likewise experiencing a heated pool market: “Oh yeah, huge demand!” Bradshaw says emphatically.

The Langley-based company operates across the Lower Mainland, and has seen the number of online sales inquiries double in 2020 from 2019's non-pandemic summer.

Last year's 1,437 leads was a 100-per-cent jump from the 715 the year before — and this year is already going strong.

Though demand has skyrocketed, pool industry revenues have not seen commensurate growth, thanks to the slow supply chain.