Recently, Horwood was working with a builder who installs smaller pools on elevated decks, again, on very sloped land overlooking the water.
“Unfortunately, the homeowners got tired of having tradespeople coming through their house to access the back elevated patio,” he says. “So, by the time we got there to install the auto cover, they wouldn’t let us through their house.
“Therefore, the only other way to access this suspended, elevated deck on stilts, was to have a tall ladder propped up against the deck so all the components could be carried up to the job site.” On this project, the team was lucky as the pool was not overly large, so the components were not too big to carry up the ladder.
“By the time I heard what my crew was doing, they were just about done,” says Horwood. “Otherwise, I would have told them to stop as it was unsafe. Losing your balance on a ladder while carrying auto-cover supplies could have resulted in someone getting hurt.”
There is also an area in British Columbia called the Sunshine Coast which can only be accessed by public ferries. There are always projects being built in this area, mostly vanishing-edge pools, and Pool Patrol is called regularly to install auto covers in this area.
“Unfortunately, you can’t make reservations to get on the ferry. You just have to wait in line,” says Horwood. “So, you can imagine the challenges involved just to get your crew over to the job site to measure the pool, and then back again with all the materials. In this case, you definitely don’t want to forget any parts when working on one of these projects.”
Horwood says his crews need to anticipate anything they might need for the job, or they will spend days going back and forth. Further, in some cases, these jobs are on exceptionally large properties where crews cannot drive their trucks up to the location of the pool. As a result, they may need to walk half-an-acre with all the supplies from their trucks to the site.
High rises, elevators, parking permits, and traffic
More than 4829 km (3000 mi) away from the Sunshine Coast, another cover installer works around other challenges in and around one of the biggest cities in North America. Eric Kietsock is the regional technical manager of Cover Care and has been installing automatic pool covers on pools in New York City, Long Island, New Jersey, and southern Connecticut for more than 20 years. Due to the density of these cities, Keitsock must seek out additional permits and certifications, not to mention parking permits, just to install automatic pool covers. Additionally, he has had to develop specific systems to navigate tight hallways, elevators, parking structures, and traffic to install covers on penthouse pools, mansions in the Hamptons, and indoor commercial pools in basement high-rises.
“I work long days during the height of the season in our area, but the time isn’t all spent poolside,” says Keitsock. “In fact, much of our time is spent planning and preparing… doing things like arriving at the job site prior to the installation to measure the size of an elevator, hallway, or staircase. We always need to do a walkthrough before bringing in our materials.”
