pool_route_service_operations v1.0.0

name: pool_route_service_operations description: "Running a weekly pool service route: stop order built for drive time and chemical load, per stop water testing and dosing records, equipment notes that catch a failing pump before the customer calls, green pool recovery run as its own priced workflow, and the weekly route report customers actually read. Use when planning a pool route, writing a per stop checklist or service record, pricing or running a green pool cleanup, diagnosing pump or filter warning signs, or writing a customer service report."

Pool Route Service Operations

Purpose

Run a weekly residential pool route as one system: the order stops happen in, what gets tested and written down at each stop, how equipment warnings get caught early, how a green pool leaves the normal route and becomes its own priced job, and what the customer reads at the end of the week. Route software can hold addresses. This skill holds the judgment the software does not ship with.

Workflow

1. Build the stop order

• Group stops by tight geographic clusters first. A route day is one cluster plus its edge stops, not a zigzag across town.
• Inside a cluster, order stops to cut backtracking: start at the far edge and work back toward the shop or home base, or run a loop that ends near the next day's first cluster.
• Put heavy chemical stops early while the truck is fully stocked, and put known problem pools (low chlorine history, heavy shade, heavy bather load, dogs that swim) early enough in the day that a return visit the same day is still possible.
• Keep green pools and repairs off the normal route order. They get their own blocks (section 5), because one recovery stop can eat four normal stops.
• Load the truck in reverse stop order: the first stop's chemicals and parts sit at the door, the last stop's sit deepest. Note the load on the route sheet so a mid day restock run is planned, not improvised.
• Cap the day by work, not by stop count alone. A stop with a cartridge clean, a salt cell check, and a heater fault note is not equal to a skim and dose stop. When the day is full, it is full.

2. At each stop, in this order

Work the same order every time so nothing gets skipped when the day gets hot and long.

1. Look first, test second. Water clarity, color, surface debris, water level at the skimmer, and anything floating that should not be there. Photograph the pool on arrival. That photo is the proof and the report image.
2. Check circulation before chemistry. Pump running, prime held, return flow by hand at a jet, skimmer and pump baskets emptied, filter pressure read against the clean pressure written in the stop record.
3. Skim, brush walls and steps, and vacuum as needed. Brushing is not cosmetic: algae lives in the biofilm on the surface, and chlorine dosed into an unbrushed pool underperforms.
4. Test with a drop kit, not strips, for any pool you dose from the reading. Test free chlorine and pH every stop. Test total alkalinity, calcium hardness, and cyanuric acid on the rotation in the stop record (alkalinity and CYA at least monthly, sooner after heavy rain or a refill).
5. Dose from the reading, in this adjustment order: alkalinity, then pH, then chlorine. Record what went in before you leave (section 3).
6. Walk the equipment pad last and write the equipment note (section 4), even when the note is "all normal." A blank note and a checked note look the same in a record. Write the words.

Targets and the dosing formula live in references/targets-and-sources.md. Working targets: free chlorine 1 to 3 ppm, pH 7.2 to 7.8, alkalinity 80 to 120 ppm. The calculator in scripts/pool_ops.py does the dose math:

python3 scripts/pool_ops.py dose --gallons 20000 --current 1.5 --target 3.0 --strength 12.5

rise: 1.5 ppm

dose: 30.7 fl oz (0.240 gal) of 12.5% liquid chlorine

python3 scripts/pool_ops.py volume --length 32 --width 16 --avg-depth 5

volume: 19,200 gallons

3. The per stop record

One record per stop, filled in at the stop, never reconstructed at the end of the day. Fields:

• Date, arrival time, tech, weather note if it rained since the last visit
• Arrival photo taken: yes or no
• Readings in: free chlorine, pH, plus any rotation tests due that week
• Filter pressure, and clean pressure baseline for that filter
• Work done: skim, brush, vacuum, baskets, backwash or cartridge clean
• Chemicals added: product, strength, exact amount, and where it went in
• Readings after dosing when a retest was needed, stated as a retest
• Equipment note (section 4)
• Flag for next visit: one line the next tech, or future you, acts on without rereading the whole record

A record with readings and no chemical amounts is half a record. The amount is what makes next week's reading explainable.

4. Equipment notes that catch failures early

Read the pad like a set of warnings, and write what you heard and saw, not just what you fixed.

• Screeching or grinding that gets louder over days points to worn motor bearings. Flag it as a repair quote now, while the pump still runs, not after it seizes.
• A sudden rattle that changes with motor speed points to debris in the impeller. Clear the baskets, then check the impeller before calling it a motor fault.
• Humming with no spin on startup points to a failed capacitor. Cheap part, fast fix, and a pool with no circulation goes green while it waits.
• A leak between the motor and the wet end points to a failed shaft seal. Water reaching the motor shortens its life, so this note outranks cosmetic leaks.
• Air bubbles in the pump basket or at the returns, weak flow, or a pump that keeps losing prime point to a suction side air leak: lid O-ring first, then suction fittings.
• Filter pressure 8 to 10 psi over the recorded clean pressure means clean or backwash now. Check it with the tool:

python3 scripts/pool_ops.py filter --clean-psi 15 --current-psi 24

rise: 9.0 psi

action: CLEAN_OR_BACKWASH_NOW

• Hot motor housing, a burning smell, or a breaker that trips on startup means stop and escalate to repair. Do not keep resetting a breaker as the service plan.
• Salt cell, heater, and automation get one line each when present: cell output setting and any scale seen, heater fired or fault code read word for word, automation schedule confirmed.

Diagnose in this order when something is wrong: power, flow, pressure, then chemistry. Chemistry cannot fix a pool with no circulation.

5. Green pool recovery, as its own priced workflow

A green pool is not a long normal stop. Pull it off the route and sell it as a recovery job before work starts.

• Quote it separately, in writing, before the first dose: an assessment and first treatment visit, a stated number of follow up visits, chemicals billed as used or bundled with a stated cap, and the exit criteria below written into the quote. Name what is not included: drain and refill, acid wash, and filter media replacement are separate lines, quoted if the assessment finds they are needed.
• Assess first: test CYA before anything else, because CYA sets the whole job. If CYA is over about 70 ppm, quote a partial drain and refill first, since the chlorine needed to hold shock level gets wasteful. Check that the pump and filter actually work. A dead filter turns a recovery into a drain job, and the customer should hear that from the assessment, not on visit three.
• Run the SLAM method: balance pH to 7.2 to 7.5 first, raise free chlorine to the shock level for the CYA reading with liquid chlorine, and hold it there. Liquid chlorine only: cal hypo adds calcium and dichlor adds CYA, and both work against the job.

python3 scripts/pool_ops.py slam --cya 40 --gallons 18000 --current 1

slam_fc: 16 ppm free chlorine, hold until all exit criteria pass

initial_dose: 276.5 fl oz (2.16 gal) of 12.5% liquid chlorine

• Retest and redose back to the shock level several times a day at the start. Brush the whole pool daily, run the pump around the clock, and clean the filter whenever pressure climbs, which can be daily while dead algae loads it.
• Price and schedule the follow up visits as part of the job, usually daily or every other day until the exit criteria pass. Each visit gets the same per stop record plus the SLAM readings: current free chlorine, amount redosed, filter state, and how the water looks against the last photo.
• Exit only when all three pass: combined chlorine 0.5 ppm or less, overnight free chlorine loss 1.0 ppm or less, and water clear with no visible algae. Then rebalance to normal targets, hand the pool back to the weekly route, and say so in the report. A pool that looks blue but fails the overnight test is not finished, and calling it finished is how the algae comes back on your route and your dime.

6. The weekly route report customers actually read

Short, specific, and built from the stop records, sent the same day as the visit.

• Open with the state of the pool in one plain line: clear and balanced, clear and dosed, or recovering, with the day count on a recovery.
• Give the readings that matter in plain words: chlorine and pH in range or corrected, and the numbers. Skip the full panel unless a number is the story that week.
• Say what was done in one line: brushed, vacuumed, baskets emptied, filter cleaned.
• Include the arrival or finished photo. One photo beats a paragraph of assurance.
• Name any equipment flag as a decision, not a worry: what is wearing, what happens if it waits, what the repair costs or what the quote step is, and by when it matters.
• Close with the next visit day and anything asked of the customer: keep the water level mid skimmer, keep the gate unlocked, keep dogs in during the visit window.
• Never send a report that claims a retest, a photo, or a filter clean the record does not show.

Worked example, one stop out of the report:

> Tuesday visit. Pool is clear and swimmable. Chlorine was low on arrival at 0.8 ppm after the weekend heat, dosed to target, pH 7.4. Brushed, vacuumed, baskets emptied, filter pressure normal. One flag: the pump is starting to screech, which usually means motor bearings wearing. It runs fine today. A repair quote is attached so you can decide before it stops on a hot weekend. Next visit Tuesday.

Output Contract

• A route plan returns: cluster order for the day, stop sequence inside each cluster, truck load order, and any stops pulled off the route into recovery or repair blocks, with the reason for each pull.
• A per stop record returns every field in section 3, completed at the stop, with chemical amounts stated exactly and equipment notes written in words.
• A green pool quote returns: assessment findings including CYA, the drain decision, visit count, chemical terms, what is excluded, and the three exit criteria, all stated before work begins.
• A customer report returns the six parts in section 6, in order, built only from what the stop records show.

Operating Rules

• Never dose from a guess or from last week's reading. Test, then dose, then write the amount down.
• Never mix pool chemicals together, and never add water to a dry chemical when the label says the reverse. Store and carry chemicals dry, separated so a leak cannot mix acids and chlorine products, and follow the safety data sheet for each product. Trained handlers only, with eye and skin protection when handling concentrates.
• The product label and local code beat this skill and beat the calculator. When they disagree, follow the label and note the disagreement in the record.
• Do not swim or clear a customer to swim at free chlorine above normal operating range after a shock dose. On a recovery job the pool stays closed until readings return to normal range and the exit criteria have passed.
• A failing pump that still runs gets a written flag and a quote path the same week it is first heard. Silent notes that only the tech reads do not count as a warning given.
• Photos and records stay factual: arrival state, readings, amounts. No stock photos, no reused photos from a prior week, no rounding a reading into range.
• Keep customer details (addresses, gate codes, names) in the route system they belong in. This skill is the method, not a place to store a customer list.

Worked route week

One tech, one cluster per day, 6 to 9 normal stops a day. Monday holds the heavy shade cluster where chlorine demand runs high, so those pools get tested first in the week and any low reading has four days of route left to recheck. Wednesday carries the one recovery job of the week as a morning block before normal stops: CYA 40, shock level 16 ppm, visit three of the job, redose from the morning reading, filter cleaned for the second time in the job, water cloudy blue and improving against the day one photo. Friday closes the week: reports go out from the records the same day, the pump screech flagged on Tuesday has its quote attached to that customer's report, and the flag list for next week (one high CYA retest, one salt cell inspection, one suction leak check) is written from the stop records, not from memory.