Pool serviceman's million-gallon idea: recycle dirty water
Tom Pfingsten
North County Times
03/26/2011
After a decade and a half of designing, selling and building pools in local backyards, Escondido native Bruce Wettstein has an idea that he thinks could save millions of gallons of Southern California's most precious resource.
For $375, Wettstein will park his company's trailer in your driveway and recycle your pool water.
Diligent pool owners replace the water every few years, he told me, since severe calcium buildup voids warranties and decreases the effectiveness of chlorine to kill bacteria.
But every time the water in an average-sized pool is cycled, 15,000 to 20,000 gallons run down the drain or out to sea ---- and must be replaced with perfectly drinkable tap water.
"I am not a tree hugger. I'm not a big fan of the delta smelt ---- I think it's ridiculous," Wettstein told me as we sat at his dining room table, within view of his own 25,0000-gallon swimming pool. "But that's a lot of water. It's just stupid to watch 25,000 gallons of water go down the street."
The business that Wettstein founded two years ago with Bonsall resident Sal Paldino is called Pool Services Technologies, Inc., and so far the men have saved nearly 1.7 million gallons of water by filtering pools that would have otherwise been drained and refilled.
Friendly and down to earth, Wettstein, 51, has a firm handshake and deep Escondido roots.
"I've been in this town since the day I was born," he told me.
On Wednesday, he said that the company's first investment, a $100,000 trailer outfitted with a labyrinth of reverse-osmosis pipes and tanks, is capable of saving an average of 85 percent of the water in pools that need cleaning.
When water is sucked into the trailer, it could be laden with minerals, bacteria and algae, but on the other end it's fit to drink ---- and lower in calcium than what comes out of the tap, according to Wettstein.
"This ain't new ---- it's just reverse osmosis in a trailer," he said. "It's not like it's some snake-oil deal and I'm trying to convince everybody that it works."
Most swimming pool owners never replace the water in their pool, so half of Wettstein's job will be persuading suburban types that cycling pool water is beneficial.
Water companies, meanwhile, have informed him that they cannot endorse or refer business to his company, so he is relying largely on word of mouth, as well as his contacts as a pool-industry insider, to find jobs.
San Diego is swimming pool country ---- miles and miles of neighborhoods with plenty of backyard to go around.
And, like any entrepreneur, Wettstein has his goals.
He wants to eventually have five trailers and filter 500,000 gallons every week ---- roughly 25 million gallons a year. At that rate, his company would be saving about 21 million gallons of water annually, or enough to supply roughly 130 households, according to the San Diego County Water Authority's calculations.
