Recently, America’s Swimming Pool Company
(ASP) announced that it will
become a fiberglass pool
builder as well as a pool service
provider. (The company was one of the
original service franchisors, and built
a large and growing network of pool
maintenance companies, with locations
from Michigan to New Mexico, and
coast to coast.)
As anyone in the pool construction
business can attest, starting up as
a builder is a big job all by itself, but
why fiberglass? For the same reasons
fiberglass is expanding each year in
terms of market share, with dealers
adding the pool to their portfolio of
options. It’s a swift and efficient build
and systematic build — well suited for
the business model of a franchise.
“If somebody was asking me for
advice on where to start if I wanted
to ease into pool building, I would
definitely say fiberglass,” says John
Hutchinson, a veteran builder who
owns ASP of Nashville. “It can be the
fastest way to build a pool.”
As Hutchinson points out, with
fiberglass, support of the pool shell is
the key. Once you get that down, the
build can proceed at a brisk pace.
There’s a couple of things that
you’ve really got to hone in on: the
grade, the compaction and the backfill
around the pool. The good thing with
fiberglass is there’s not as many parts. There’s just not as many things that
could possibly go wrong, and it’s
usually a quicker install — so less time,
less risk.
“But the beauty of fiberglass is if you have everything right underneath
the pool, you go from no pool to a
pool in one day.”
GROWTH BEGETS GROWTH
The move to construction for a service
franchisor is a big one, and the reason
is simple: growth. In the history of
the pool and spa industry, different
periods have seen sector expansion, but
especially since the boom, construction
has been on a tear.
That level of growth varies over
time and by region of the country,
says Shaun Hurley, ASP’s director of
renovation and construction. “Some
locations are up over the last year,
some are flat and some are right there
in between. They’re still growing, but
they’re not growing as fast as we’ve
seen in the past couple years. Looking
back on the Covid growth numbers,
they were 18, 20% growth for that two-year
time period really.
“I would say we’re on track for 10
to 12% right now, which is good when
you look at the large growth that took
place during Covid.” Growth was
more shallow from 2018 to 2020, then
steeper with the surge, he adds, but if
you were to draw a straight line from
2018, it would be about a 15% slope.
NEW HOMES, NEW POOLS
New housing starts, driven by a
blistering market for residential
housing, has helped fuel the expansion.
Hutchinson works with local builders
in his Nashville area to add pools to
houses going up in the suburbs.
He’s seen a real shift in attitudes —
very much for the better — over the last
few years.
“Pre-Covid, there were a lot of
speculative home builders that would
say to us something like, ‘Hey, if we
close and the guy wants a pool, we’ll
recommend you.’ But they’re like, ‘We’re
definitely not spending the money in
our spec home budget to build a pool.
You take care of that afterwards.’
“Whereas now, a large portion of the
pools we’re doing are for spec homes,
and we’ve heard from appraisers and
real estate agents alike, saying, ‘People
are looking for houses with pools, and
it almost detracts from the value if you
don’t have a pool in your backyard.’
“Before Covid, home builders
thought that building the pool as part
of a spec home basically limited your
buyers because some people had to
have them, and some people absolutely
never wanted one. And now we’re
seeing a whole lot more people in that
‘have to have it’ category.”
STORY OF TWO HOMES, SIDE
BY SIDE
Hutchinson drives home the point with
a funny story about a builder who built two speculative homes side by side,
and contracted for a pool behind the
one on the right. ASP Nashville built
that pool, and the house sold before the
pool was even finished.
“He built an almost identical house
on the left, and it did not sell. It just sat
there for a year. Finally, he called me up
and said, ‘Hey, can you build me a pool
for the other house? I’ve got to get rid
of it.’
“So we went in, and we built a
pool, and I don’t know if it was luck
or coincidence or a shift in consumer
demand, but before we were finished
with the pool, he sold that house, too.”
CHANGING ATTITUDES
Fiberglass’ attributes played a big role
in ASP’s plan. It’s a testament to how
the perception of the product has
changed over time.
Twenty years ago, fiberglass pools
were fixed in the mind of consumers
as a poor-man’s pool, mostly because
of the limitations in shape. But that
image has drained away like pool water
into a surge tank, as consumers have
figured out that it’s not really the shape
of a pool that makes it pop, it’s what’s
around it. The actual shell is just that
— a shell. It may have an interesting
or attractive form, but in the context of
the backyard, that quality is secondary
in importance, even in terms of
aesthetics.
On the upside, however, there
are a number of qualities that
make fiberglass a good fit for many
traditional concrete-only builders and
ASP. It’s made in a factory to precise
specifications using a mold, instead
of in the suburban wilderness where
most pool shells are made, subject to
weather conditions.
So, unlike the weather, it’s more
predictable and schedulable.
In terms of ongoing functionality
of the shell, fiberglass beats gunite/
concrete and plaster by a large
margin. Its smooth surface provides
little refuge for algae, and thus needs
less chemical maintenance, and when
supported properly, the shell material
does not admit cracks for the lifetime
of the pool.
These are some of the reasons
ASP made this strategic decision.
Implementing it, and specifically training
people for the high-level skill of pool
construction, will be a worthy challenge.
THE TRAINING WILL BE THE
INTERESTING PART
“Our goal is to train our people based
on manufacturer specifications on how
it needs to be done. They’ll also be
backed by that manufacturer for onsite
and ongoing training once they sell their
first one or two pools,” says Hurley.
A big cost driver for fiberglass is
shipping the shell from the factory.
They’re huge and ungainly, you can’t
just pop them in a FedEx envelope.
It can require special permits and
ancillary vehicles and of course, big
flatbed trucks.
With ASP locations spread out across the map, the proximity of a
manufacturer is a big consideration.
“We’re shooting for 50 locations total
for next year that are actively building,”
Hurley says.
“So right now, we’re kind of
in a phase of exploring manufacturers
and franchises to see who can handle
the logistics of getting a pool from
the manufacturing plant to the jobsite
without spending a crazy amount of
money on freight.
“So there’s some strategic
partnerships that are taking place
with different manufacturers, where
we can offer some exclusive training
opportunities for our locations to do
the whole build.
“That will be the most interesting
part, the training. The plan is once
they finish training how to install a
fiberglass pool, they’re ready to have
that conversation with the homeowner,
and sell it. And now they’ve got the
support behind them, not only from the
manufacturer but also from our office
where somebody’s going to be there
onsite with that franchisee while they’re
installing that pool.”
That’s Hurley’s job, he assists
franchisees that are currently building a
pool. “So if they come across a situation
that they haven’t seen yet, they’ll reach
out to me and say, ‘Hey, here’s my
situation. What do we need to do?’ I’ll
walk them through that construction process wherever they’re at, whether
they’re just starting the pool, or maybe
they’re midway through, and they misread
a blueprint or something like that.
“So my job is, more or less, to
keep them out of trouble, keep the
project on schedule. If they need a
subcontractor, okay, let’s go find a
good one. We work through things like
that to help them complete the project
and stay on schedule.”
A LOGICAL MOVE
The logic behind ASP’s move is sound.
With pool and spa stores across the
country doing service and retail, and
money to be made at the construction
end, adding that to the mix makes sense.
“So obviously with the Covid
boom in construction,” Hurley says in
summary, “and some builders being
12, 18 months out for new construction,
we had franchisees that said, ‘I want to
get in on this.’
“Going forward, we don’t want to
just be known as the swimming pool
maintenance and repair company. We
want to be a swimming pool company —
whether that’s the homeowner looking to
install or the homeowner that has a pool,
and they need a new pump.”
