Questions, answered straight
Most of these come from people who have just bought a house with a pool in the listing photographs and have discovered that nobody explains what happens next. No sales answers, and where the honest answer is that you do not need us, that is the answer.
New to this
For the person who has just bought a house with a pool in the photographs, or has decided this summer is the one they stop doing it themselves.
- I have never owned a pool before. What does a pool service actually do?
- Once a week somebody comes to your back yard and does four things: tests and balances the water chemistry, cleans the pool itself by skimming, brushing and vacuuming, empties the skimmer and pump baskets and checks the filter, and looks over the equipment for anything starting to fail. It takes under an hour on most pools. You do not need to be home, and you get a report with photographs and that day's chemical readings afterwards so you can see what happened without having been there.What a weekly visit covers
- Do I actually need a pool service, or can I do it myself?
- You can absolutely do it yourself, and plenty of people here do. It is roughly two to four hours a week in summer, plus knowing what to add and when, plus a garage shelf of chemicals. The cost-of-ownership calculator prices both versions from your pool's real dimensions rather than from an average, including the lines nobody puts on a quote, so you can see the actual gap before deciding. We would rather you saw that number than took our word for it.Price both ways for your pool
- How quickly can you start?
- Most new customers get their first visit the same week they call. It depends on where you are and how the route looks that week, and Austin will give you a straight answer rather than a maybe. A pool that has already gone green is a recovery rather than a first visit, which takes longer than a day, so those are quoted separately.Ask about this week
- Do I have to be home when you come?
- No, and most customers are not. We need access to the back yard, which usually means a gate we can reach or a code. The photo report is the point: it exists so that not being home never means not knowing what was done.See a real photo report
- Do you come out my way?
- We cover 24 cities across DFW, with Plano as the home base. If your street is on the edge of the map, call and we will confirm it rather than guess, because a route that does not quite reach you is worse than an honest no.Every city we serve
What it costs
Every figure here comes out of the same table the price cards and the structured data read, so it cannot drift from what you are actually quoted.
- What does pool service cost around here?
- Weekly maintenance runs $120 to $225+ a month, set by the size of your pool and nothing else. A one-time clean starts at $150, filter service starts at $125, and emergency call-outs run $95 to $195+. Those are published rather than quoted over the phone, which is unusual in this metroplex and deliberate: a price you have to ring up for is a price that changes depending on who is asking.The whole price table
- What makes one quote higher than another?
- Two things. The size of the pool, which sets the labor and the chemical volume of every visit, in three bands: small at up to 10,000 gal, medium at 10,000 - 20,000 gal, large at 20,000+ gal. And, for a one-time clean only, the shape the water is in when we arrive, because algae is the difference between a clean and a recovery. There is no fuel surcharge, no chemical line, no callout fee, and no summer rate.How a quote is built
- Are chemicals included, or billed on top?
- Included. The monthly figure is the whole price for a standard weekly visit, chemicals and all. This is worth asking every company you call, because a chemical line billed separately is the most common way a published rate turns into a larger invoice.What the price covers
- Is there a contract?
- No. Month to month, cancel any time, no fee and no paperwork, including in the winter when a pool needs less of us. We would rather keep your business by doing good work than by locking you into something you regret in October.The terms, written down
- How do you take payment?
- Cash, Check, Credit Card, ACH bank transfer. You are invoiced for the month, and the invoice itemises what it covers.
Something is wrong with my pool
The four things that send people looking for a pool company at nine o'clock at night, and what is actually true about each one.
- My pool has gone green. Is it ruined?
- Almost never. Green is algae, and algae is a chemical and filtration problem rather than a structural one. Adds algae shock treatment and repeated filtration over the visit. Most green pools are swimmable again within a few days. The exception is water nobody can see the bottom of, which we look at in person rather than pricing from a web page, because it can need work a clean does not cover.How a recovery works
- My water level keeps dropping. Do I have a leak?
- Probably not. A pool in a North Texas summer loses a real amount of water to evaporation alone, and that is the single most common reason somebody pays for a leak search they did not need. A bucket test tells the two apart in a day and costs nothing, and the leak calculator will do the arithmetic on the result and tell you plainly which one you are looking at.Run the bucket test
- A storm just went through. What do I do first?
- Get the big debris out before it sinks and stains, do not run a pump that has been under water until somebody has looked at it, and do not drain the pool to clear it. Emergency and storm call-outs run $95 to $195+, and weekly members get priority response with no rush fee.Emergency call-out prices
- Can I just drain my pool and start over?
- Not here, and this is the one piece of advice on this page that can save you a pool. The expansive clay soil across Collin County holds groundwater that pushes up against an empty shell and can lift or crack it. The local answer is a staged partial exchange, which costs water rather than risking the structure. Anybody who offers to drain your pool in this soil without a hydrostatic check is worth a second opinion.Why the soil here matters
How we work
The parts of this that are a promise rather than a service line.
- How do I know the work actually got done?
- After every visit you get a report with photographs of the work and that day's chemical readings. You never have to take our word for it, and you never have to be home to find out. It is the reason this business exists in the shape it does: the complaint people have about pool companies is almost never the price, it is not knowing whether anybody came.A real report, explained
- What if I am not happy with a visit?
- Pool not swim-ready? We turn around and fix it, no charge. If your pool is not swim-ready after we have been out, tell us and we come back and fix it at no charge. The standard is deliberately your judgement rather than ours, and the guarantee page writes out what counts, how fast we return, and what happens to a missed week.What the guarantee promises
- Who actually shows up at my house?
- Austin, on every job. That is the whole operating model and it is the reason the route has a ceiling on it: the person who quotes you is the person standing in your back yard on Thursday, and there is no crew rotation to explain why this week's visit looked different from last week's.Who runs this
- Do you handle repairs, or only cleaning?
- Equipment gets inspected on every weekly visit and anything starting to fail turns up in the report while it is still cheap. We handle filter service and the common equipment work; the jobs that need a licensed specialty trade get handed to one rather than attempted, and we will tell you which is which.Everything we do
Questions about a particular job
These are gathered from the service pages rather than rewritten here, so there is one answer to each of them on this site and not two.
Weekly Service
The full weekly routine that keeps your pool ready to swim in.
- What is included in weekly pool service?
- Every weekly visit includes chemical testing and balancing, skimming, brushing, vacuuming, basket and filter checks, and a full equipment inspection. You also receive a photo report and recorded chemical readings after each visit.
- Do I need to be home for service?
- Nope. As long as we can get to the pool, you can be at work or out of town. The photo report shows you exactly what was done and that day’s readings.
- Can I cancel if it isn’t working out?
- Sure can. We run month to month with no cancellation fee. We’d rather keep your business by doing good work than by locking you in.
Chemical Balancing
Careful water chemistry for water that is safe, clear, and comfortable.
- What are the ideal chemical levels for a pool?
- Free chlorine should sit between 1 and 3 parts per million and pH between 7.4 and 7.6, with alkalinity, calcium hardness, and cyanuric acid kept in their proper ranges. In peak Texas summer we aim for the higher end of the chlorine range because heat and sun burn it off quickly.
- Why does my Texas pool get scale or cloudy water?
- NTMWD describes its treated water as moderately hard, and a pool concentrates it: every top-off after evaporation leaves the calcium behind while the water leaves. When calcium and pH climb too high, those minerals fall out of solution as white scale or cloudiness. Keeping both in range on every visit prevents it.
- Can you balance a salt water pool?
- Yes. Salt pools still need their chemistry monitored and balanced, and the salt cell needs to stay clean, especially once calcium has built up. We check and maintain both as part of service.
Equipment Inspection
An experienced eye on your pump, filter, and automation.
- Do you inspect equipment on every visit?
- Every single one. The pump, the filter, and any automation get looked over on every weekly visit. Catching a failing seal or a packed filter early is what keeps you from a green pool and a much bigger bill.
- Will you try to sell me a pump I don’t need?
- No. This business runs on word of mouth, and that dies fast if we sell people parts they don’t need. If a repair fixes it, we say so. We only call for a replacement when it truly is the right move, and we explain why.
- Can you help protect my equipment from a freeze?
- We can. Before a hard freeze we’ll walk you through running the pump, wrapping exposed equipment, and relieving pressure if the power drops, so you don’t wake up to cracked pipes.
Leak Detection
Find the water loss before it hurts your pool or your yard.
- How do I know if my pool actually has a leak?
- A simple bucket test tells you a lot: float a bucket of pool water on a step and mark both levels. If the pool drops noticeably faster than the bucket over a day or two, you likely have a leak rather than just evaporation.
- How much water loss is normal?
- More than people expect. An eighth to a quarter inch a day is typical, but a hot, dry, windy Texas summer day can take half an inch on its own, and local utilities quote about that as the summer average. So a quarter inch is not the ceiling. Consistent loss well beyond half an inch a day, especially if your chemistry keeps drifting or the ground stays wet, is what points to a leak worth investigating. The bucket test is the reliable check, because it measures your pool’s evaporation on the same day under the same conditions.
- What methods do you use to find leaks?
- We use a combination of bucket testing, pressure testing of the plumbing lines, and dye testing at the shell and fittings to isolate whether the leak is in the structure, the plumbing, or the equipment.
Green Pool Recovery
From swamp to swim-ready, and kept that way.
- How long does it take to clear a green pool?
- A lightly green pool can often clear in 24 to 48 hours. A deep green or swamp pool can take three to five days of repeated shocking, brushing, and running the filter around the clock. Severe cases sometimes need a partial drain.
- Will one shock treatment fix it?
- Shock kills the algae but does not remove it. Clearing a green pool also requires brushing every surface, running the filter continuously, and vacuuming out the dead algae. Skipping those steps is why a pool often turns cloudy gray instead of clearing.
- How do I keep it from turning green again?
- Steady weekly service is the best prevention there is. Keeping sanitizer and pH where they belong, brushing regularly, and running the pump enough hours a day stops algae before it ever blooms, especially through the hot months.
One-Time Clean
A full reset for a pool that got behind.
- When does a one-time clean make sense?
- It’s the right call when you just bought a house with a pool, got back from a long trip, or need the water right before company comes. It resets the pool without signing you up for anything ongoing.
- Is a one-time clean cheaper than weekly service?
- Per visit, no. A one-time clean costs more, because bringing a neglected pool back takes more labor and more chemicals. Weekly service is cheaper per visit, because the water never gets that far out of line in the first place.
- Can a one-time clean turn into regular service?
- It can. Plenty of folks start with a one-time clean and stay on weekly once they see the difference. No obligation either way.
Not on the list?
Call Austin and ask. He does every job on this route himself, so the person answering the phone is the person who would be standing in your back yard on Thursday, and he will tell you if the answer is that you do not need us.