With summer just around the corner, many of us look forward to spending some time by the pool. However, if you want to put a pool in your own backyard, you may have to wait until next year.
A local pool company says they’re all booked up this year, and pool prices are going up too.
what you need to know
- If you’re hoping to have a pool installed in your backyard this summer, you may be out of luck until next year
- Manufacturing and shipping of parts needed to install pools have been suspended or delayed due to the February Texas winter storm
- Local officials say that a 12% increase in manufacturing prices will not affect the already agreed cost of installing pools
The cause is actually related to the massive winter storm that hit the state of Texas in February. Many of the moving parts needed to install the pool were halted due to the storm, raising prices and slowing production.
Fiberglass manufacturing suffered a setback, pool heaters, PVC pipe, and even some of the chemicals needed to maintain pools had a production setback, and that setback was difficult to recover from. Similar to the struggling lumber industry, shipping prices have also risen, but the problem for local pool companies is that they can’t easily raise their prices when costs change in their industry.
Most of the installations they are doing this year were bought last year so the price was already agreed. A local pool seller says his company is having to shoulder much of the burden itself, taking less profit in some areas and changing with the industry to adapt where they can.
“Just because we get a price increase of say 12% from a manufacturer doesn’t mean we will increase our prices by 12%. We’ll do our best to isolate ourselves a bit, but across the board between last year and this year there’s about a 10% to 15% price increase,” said pool installation specialist Allen Jerabeck.
The representative said that the rise in manufacturing costs is unlikely to result in a declining year for local businesses. Demand for home pools has been so high in 2020 that the sheer volume of work should offset the price hike while it’s around, and hopefully things will even out as the year progresses.
Additionally, we’re told that it’s local practice to redeem every price quoted for a month, so if costs go up, you don’t have to pay more than what you originally signed up for.
