BEAUMONT, Texas — We're always looking for ways to cool off from the summer heat, but if you've been saving up to put in a pool, you may be in for a shocking surprise.
Installations are backed up, and chemicals to treat pools are in short supply.
It's a wild time to be a pool owner right now with installments on delay and chemical and equipment shortages.
Here's a deeper look at what's causing the issues.
If you're looking to get a pool installed to help beat the summer heat, you better be prepared to wait.
"They’re just not coming in. The material for the metal walls has gone through the roof, so what you can find is typically way more expensive than what it was just a year ago, and that's if you can find one," Steven Case with Cases Pool Care said.
Not only getting a pool installed but getting one repaired or cleaned might cause you to run into some problems this season.
"From the equipment side, to the whole goods, cleaning pools with chlorine there's just a lot of factors that are going into it that are creating problems," Case said.
Reasons for shortages are wide ranging from the pandemic, to ice storm over the winter. A fire at a chlorine plant in Lake Charles happened last summer, which caused a shortage in chemical supplies.
Bruce Hinds owns Tallman Pools. He took steps to get in front of the chlorine curve.
"We have a large supply of chlorine right now,” he said. “We made these purchases in October of last year," Hinds said.
The word is getting around that they have plenty of pool supplies, Hinds said.
"We have clients from Houston every day come to Nederland, TX to buy chlorine,” he said. “We've never seen that before. It's something that is unheard of."
It's a problem that is forcing pool owners to buy in bulk as supplies diminish.
"I had heard that there was a shortage, so of course we bought up a supply of chlorine and shock to make sure we don't run out, ‘cause I like my pool looking good. I don't want to swim in something green," pool owner KK Gloede said.
Some homeowners are waiting up to six months to get pools installed, but that was during the worst of the pandemic when workers were out due to COVID-19 safety precautions.