I sat down with Scott Webb who is the editor of Aqua Magazine for the last 20 plus years and we talked about the 2021 pool season, a year in review so to speak. Of course, there are new things that Aqua is doing to enter 2022 sprinting including their updated website and their own trade show launching in October 2022 - https://www.aquamag.live/. We talk about these two things to start the show and then we jump into the high inflation facing the industry as well as the equipment shortage and the state of the industry.
Aqua is working on a revamped website and a pool show which is two new things on their plate for 2022. It is always good to see someone as big as Aqua evolving and staying up with the times. The pool show is probably the bigger of the two ventures as they have been out of the trade show business for about a decade now.
One very big thing that we addressed in our discussion is the runaway inflation in this industry, particularly in 2021. I don’t think we have faced such crazy price increases at any other time in this industry and the increase in the cost of chemicals and equipment may not be at an end when we enter the 2022 season.
Some of the obvious causes are just the general spiraling wage increases in every outlying field that affects this industry. For example, if HASA needs to pay their drivers 10% more to retain them, that 10% is passed on in the cost of the chlorine. Another factor is that chlorine and equipment were in short supply in 2021. This is basic supply and demand. More people wanted 3” tablets and since the supply was low, the prices skyrocketed.
The equipment shortage came about from a number of factors hitting at the same time. You had a back-up in production due to Covid-19 shutdowns, then came the container shortage, those metal containers that you need to put stuff in to ship things here from China. Then the backup at the ports. A freeze across most of Texas that took out 1/3 of all equipment pads in that state gobbled up any existing equipment leftover from 2020. Then with pool building at an all-time high and each of those new pools needing equipment, it created a perfect storm for the industry. It wasn’t just one factor but many that hit all at once in 2021.
Another thing we touched on was a chart that was published in the October (2021) issue of Aqua Magazine that showed the cities with the most pools. You can pull that chart up here: https://www.aquamagazine.com/digital-edition/775a9228#118
It is interesting that in an area like Phoenix Arizona, there are just as many pools now as in Miami Florida. I think that is a good indication that pool builders are in a “Golden Age” where there are just so many homeowners that want a pool that in some cases they are almost a year out on projects. With record home equity and no real end in sight, the swimming pool industry is expanding at the quickest pace on record.
Overall 2021 was a strange and chaotic year and as we go into 2022 I don’t see much of anything changing. Maybe we will be more prepared for it and hopefully, they will have more chlorine and equipment next season but I am not holding out too much hope.
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