Everybody wants a backyard pool, but the line is long
Eric Faulkner and his family — wife Stacy and sons Trevor, 17, Peyton, 16, and Maddox, 8 — are about a week away from being able to swim into their new in-ground pool in Kilbuck. Guess who will be the first one in?
“We are all excited, but [Maddox] is the most excited,” Mr. Faulkner said last week, a few days after concrete was poured.
With many public pools closed for this pandemic summer, lots of families would like to plunge into their own pools. But unless they were on a waiting list before COVID-19 struck, they’ll have a long wait. Even some on that list are waiting and sweating, because the factories that make the pool parts they need are just starting up again. And installers? Well, they’re just trying to keep up.
“You can’t go to the bathroom, you can’t get something to eat. It’s just crazy here,” Paradise Pools owner Randy Beals said.
When the new coronavirus hit Western Pennsylvania in midMarch, some area pool/spa companies were worried. Above-ground pools cost $3,000-$10,000, depending on size, and in-ground pools, including the finish work, fencing, patio and equipment, can easily cost $50,000-$100,000. Could anyone afford one with the stock market
plunging and unemployment rising?
Yes, as it turns out. Some installers are estimating a 200% bump over 2019 sales.
“Everybody has lost their minds this year, and I can totally understand it,” said Ellen Cole, of family-owned King Cole Pools.
The Irwin-based company has been around for 44 years. In a typical year, it might install 20 in-ground and 125 above-ground pools, with perhaps 75 liner repairs. By the second week of June, King Cole had done 40 aboveground pools with an additional 30 in the works.
The Better Business Bureau of Western Pennsylvania reports a 25% increase in inquiries regarding swimming pool-related businesses from March 1 to June 1 compared with the same months last year.
Jason Gilstrap’s family has had pools in previous homes, including Norfolk, Va., and another part of Moon, where they live now. His three daughters, ages 15, 7 and 5, will soon have a rectangular, 20-by-40-foot pool with a diving board.
“We knew when we bought this property three years ago we were going to be putting in a pool,” Mr. Gilstrap said.
But some luck was involved in getting it this summer. In March, the family visited the Pittsburgh Home and Garden Show, which features a half-dozen pool installation companies.
“We started the process the day before the world shut down,” Mr. Gilstrap said. “I don’t know what we were thinking, but we were thinking right.”
The standard rectangle is still a popular in-ground choice for most people, with ovals and circles more common for above-ground models. What is changing are the add-ons: rock waterfalls, “speed” slides and swim-up bars.
In Kilbuck, the Faulkners have a perfect setting for their new pool. They live on 13 acres, and Mr. Faulkner, a contractor, is building an outdoor bathhouse, garage, basketball court and elaborate patio. The pool will have a diving board, a “typhoon” slide and three metal, lightup palm trees in the patio area.
Sons Trevor and Peyton helped with asphalt on the project and say they are looking forward to cooling off and hanging out with friends.
“I run my own little landscaping business, and we do football workouts three or four times a week, so it will be really nice to relax and escape the quarantine,” Trevor said.
At Paradise Pools, Mr. Beals said he could tell the surge was coming.
“I think I was the only one saying this winter, around March or February, ‘This is going to be one hell of a busy year,’” he said.
The company has seen a 200% increase in business, he said.
“That doesn’t mean by the end of the year I’ll be 200% ahead, obviously,” Mr. Beals said. “My goal is if I can say by the end of the year we have a 20-25% increase, that would be great.”
Many companies in the business don’t just sell and install pools. Chemicals, maintenance and accouterments such as covers, diving boards and slides are an important segment of the business. Owners’ need for chemicals to open their pools is one reason pool/spa companies were considered essential businesses and remained open early in the pandemic.
Sales might be even stronger if pool companies could get all the parts and supplies they need.
“You cannot buy a pool in the United States right now. They’re all gone on the distributor level; they are all gone on the retail level,” Mr. Beals said.
Pool liners, which must be replaced or repaired after so many years, are made of vinyl. Liners and other pool equipment are often manufactured in New York and New Jersey, states that are just now allowing factories to resume operation.
“We just don’t know if they have a bunch of [inventory] ready to ship or if they’re just ready to start manufacturing,” Mr. Beals said.
Paradise Pools installs between 75 and 100 aboveground pools a year and between 50 and 60 in-ground. The company has already sold and scheduled 50 inground pools this year with four more on the books for 2021. Mr. Beals said he’s not taking any more orders.
Tom Esser, sales manager for Alpine Pools, has been with the company for 47 years. He said working 16hour days is not unusual this year at the company’s five locations because people are clamoring for pools.
“People are trying to buy summer. That’s all there is to it,” he said.
The common notion having a pool in Pittsburgh means only three months of swimming is a fallacy, he said.
“I don’t want to sound like an old [person], but when I was growing up, [pool season] was Memorial Day to Labor Day,” he said. “Honestly, with climate shift, we are something like six weeks later into the season.”
At his home in O’Hara, Mr. Esser’s family has a ritual of swimming on Halloween before closing the pool for the winter.
Alpine’s five crews install around 120 in-ground pools a year, he said, and most of the construction is in late summer through October. Above-ground pools sell at a rate of about 200-300 a year, but “I could sell 500 right now if I could get them,” he said.
“When this [pandemic] first started out, we were in shock. It was like they shut the lights off. Now it’s like a whirlwind. The only bad thing is we can’t get the materials quickly enough,” he said, adding that filters, heaters and pumps are on back-order.
“We have sold more product to date than in all of last year.”
If you are thinking about getting on a pool waiting list, know up-front costs vary by company. Some require deposits of anywhere from $50 to $1,000; others charge a percentage of the overall project cost.
It’s not just installers having a busy season. Katherine Longwell, who owns Sewickley-based Pool Girl, services high-end pools and spas.
“I’m finding my clients are staying at home and wanting to either fix, spruce up or improve their backyards and their pools,” Ms. Longwell said.
In a normal year, her company might replace or upgrade two or three heaters, she said.
“I’m on heater No. 6 for the season, and it’s only the first week in June,” she said.
Some people are asking for apps to allow them to control their pool’s filter and heater on their smartphones.
“So we are doing those kinds of upgrades in addition to weekly service,” Ms. Longwell said.
Pool Girl began opening pools in March and will be closing them until Thanksgiving, she said. She draws the line after that: “No more snow days for me.”
The company recently replastered an in-ground pool in the South Hills because the home’s new owners did not like the color. It was changed from white to “black pebble tech, so it was a huge change,” Ms. Longwell said.
Most owners don’t look at pools as “just” an added feature to their property, she said, adding, “It’s a vacation getaway spot. It’s the whole experience.”
Mrs. Cole said King Cole Pools has waiting lists of people who want to purchase new pools or have work done on existing pools. The lists are especially long this year, she said, and some people don’t want to wait. Do they try to bribe their way to the top?
“Oh yes,” she said. “But you just can’t do that. It’s not ethical or professional. But there are people with a lot of money who think they can.”