July 2023
Tap water is now over half a dollar. My wife and I took a break from distributing USA made swimming pool heaters and geothermal supplies when we picked up some food from the drive through at Burger King today for lunch. I am grateful that she is just as happy with a sit down expensive dinner or just some take out food that we can eat parked in the car in the shade at a local park. I asked for some water when I picked up my food as it is very hot today as anyone in the Northern Hemisphere is probably experiencing and we have been running a bit dehydrated. They said now it is .55 cents for tap water. Now I know they have a to pay for a plastic cup and straw, but in the interest of the happy customer experience that should be covered. We are paying more for everything on the menu this year and they could have added a couple of cents for that. We even used the app to order saving them the labor and the time of taking the order, collecting the payment and making change. Also we didn’t sit down in the store and cause a mess that they then would have to clean up. (I seem to knock over drinks and drop food lately) We didn’t even give them trash to dispose of. In my company we do everything possible not to nickel and dime our customers. I try to cover extra expenses if possible especially if it isn’t my clients fault. I even feel guilty sometimes when I suggest a winter cover for the heatpump or a chiller for aquaculture as I don’t like to pad the bill. I then did something that maybe someone with too much time on their hands might do. I drove across the street to a McDonald’s restaurant and got a large ice coffee and a large water for .99 cents plus tax. How could I resist. They have a closer business model to mine and seem to care. I don’t really know if they care but the person who took the money and the person who gave me my drinks were both smiling and seemed happy to see me, and I felt good when I drove out. If I feel good then I am better at my business and maybe that will rub off on my next interaction with someone. If your pool is too cold or too hot and you get a swimming pool heater or a geothermal heat pump from me this week then I promise I will cover all the drinking water you can drink and I will smile and will be happy that I have you as a new friend.
Be safe out there and have an amazing swimming summer.
Best,
Marcus
PS We recycled the cups and the vanilla ice coffee was really good. 🙂
PPS In the interest of insider trading and selfish self promotion I probably have McDonalds restaurant stock in an ETF in the retirement account. Come to think of it there is just as much chance I also have Burger King in there too. So ignore this paragraph.
PPPS Burger King just offered me a $5.00 credit today on my next mobile app order. That was kinda cool of them. Thanks BK. I wonder if I can use that to order 9 cups of water?
Some swimming pool contractors are heroes. One of my pool buddies that installs my swimming pool heat pumps was asked to resurface a pool that after 20 + years looked really bad. He hired a subcontractor that he had used for years to do the cement work. They drained the pool to condition and then resurface the walls. The drain was plugged while they worked. Then before the job was completed, they didn’t visit the site for a few days, and didn’t open the main drain. It rained very hard during that time and the water table rose under the pool and popped it out of the ground, destroying it. Pools turn into big boats when the water table gets too high and the pool has no water in it. The company that was responsible for opening the drain washed their hands and refused to take responsibility. My buddy then tried to collect from his insurance company. He had paid for pool popping coverage for many years and thought that his foresight was finally going to pay off, as now he really needed help. The insurance company refused to pay for some technicality. To pay for the new pool my buddy who is at a retirement age, raided his IRA retirement money to pay for a new pool out of his pocket and that guaranteed that he would have to work for a few more years to make back the money. I am sure it was close to $60,000.00. I didn’t want to torture him asking for an exact number. He had to tear up the pool and lawn to make it like new. That was some Florida pool magic. I think they kept the old Gulfstream HE125RA heat pump that was still working well. He is a stand up guy who took care of business and took responsibility to make things right, without having to get sued or waiting to sue someone else or dragging his feet while he looked for money or just disappearing, like I have seen over and over on other big jobs. I get calls every week from a new pool customers who are trying to finish a pool that somebody else started and then abandoned. They are learning real fast what parts they need and I try to help them if I can but I am mostly a pool heater, Aquaculture and Geothermal guy. Not sure what the lesson is here. It is good to hang out with honorable people. Standard advice I would say; don’t just take the cheapest quote without researching who you are doing business with and getting as many referrals and finding as many reviews as you can. That wouldn’t have helped my buddy but if you can at least check if your contractor has current insurance and sit down with them and see if you like them at least. If you want to know about me you can Google the words “heat pump” and my name to see what I have been up to. If you need a swimming pool heat pump from Key West to Haines City and from Haines City to Pensacola please let me know.
Be safe out there.
Best,
Marcus Miller Cell 360 348 7574
I have been selling swimming pool heat pumps for more than 30 years. That is pretty good for a 39 years old man. 🙂
I started out servicing them. I loved doing that as it was much more fun than crawling through 140-degree attics fixing air handler fan motors during a South Florida August. Soon I was selling pool heaters to people whose swimming pool heat pumps were not repairable. That was before most brands heat exchangers were made out of titanium and the copper or copper-nickel in them were very sensitive to PH issues. When they failed it turned the heat pump into a big boat anchor. I sold mostly EUS at first as they were a fair company that made a great product who stood behind their dealers, customers and service companies. That is the way it should be. They even invited me to teach service seminars to their dealers. I would have worked for food but they also paid me. They have since been bought out by Hayward after one of the owners was in a farm tractor accident. Now it seems I am getting lawyer letters and upset phone calls from some companies representatives that only want you to buy your heat pump from a someone who the manufacturer chooses for you, and you can be sure it isn’t an online company, even if that company has a “bricks and mortar store. They think they can turn back the clock to 1990 and stop you from doing your homework, comparing prices, specifications, size, efficiency, etc, and maybe saving a few thousand dollars. The wrong direction I think.
They forget it was the online companies that spread the word in the USA and the world about pool heat pumps in the late ’90s and early 2000s before their dealer and wholesale network caught up with the demand. The Chinese were paying attention though. They watched the industry grow and in the last 10 years, they have flooded the world with inexpensive heat pumps. Not my style, but consumers that only shop by price and are not educated about heat pumps, and who are blocked from buying the USA or Canadian heat pump that they should buy, but can’t because of a manufacturer who only wants to sell them with lots of hands in the distribution line, marking the price up too much. One argument some manufacturers use is that pool contractors can’t make a good profit if people can buy on the internet. I love pool guys. They are some of the most hardworking people that I have ever seen. You try cleaning pools and replacing a filter pump motor when it is 115 F in Arizona or Las Vegas. The temperature of the motor will burn you just from the sunlight. Or a swimming pool guy in Palm Beach, Broward or Dade County Florida working during a day with 100% relative humidity and 95F, behind schedule with lightning striking all around them. I saw that one personally. Most of my good friends are pool guys and I know that if they buy a pool heat pump wholesale and install it they can make a fair profit and everyone is happy regardless of what is happening on the internet. It is a different customer. Then the pool dealer can keep an eye on the heater and clean the leaves out of it every year, etc. There will always be plenty of business for them with that model. You are paying for someone local who is always around to remind you what valves to turn to use the spa and what buttons to press to program the thermostat. In cold weather states, you have someone who will drain the water, and put the winter cover on it. Not everyone wants to pay for that especially someone handy that can glue some pipes and call a licensed electrician to wire the heat pump. A manufacturer out of Canada got upset with me a couple of months ago when I listed their information on my site. I try to have information on as many heat pumps as possible so that pool owners can do all their homework in one place. Thermeau Industries out of Quebec City Canada told me to take all their information down on their heat pumps. They didn’t have the courtesy to call me directly as they know who I am because I sold 100’s of heat pumps from their former company called “Summit” that they sold a few years ago. When I e-mailed and then also called them to talk about that, I couldn’t even get one of the owners on the phone or to respond. I think that was a first for me not to be able to chat with a head engineer or owner of any pool heat pump manufacturer anywhere in the world. Why were they hiding?
I do believe that it is their right to sell to whoever they want. They can also try to control how and where their information is presented. I also believe they are on the wrong side of history and that this kind of behavior is an open door to the Chinese to start shipping containers of heat pumps here for half the price of North American heat pumps. Who are you going to call when you need service? I have no idea. Need a part. I doubt your local HVAC contractor has a part. Call me if you want some ideas on what pool heat pump companies are doing everything right, with long warranties, high efficiencies, and amazing reliability; some for over 35 years.
I am on your side.
Best,
Marcus Miller
