Who doesn’t want to take a dip in the water in this weather? This summer, swimming pool builders have something to smile about: with the successive heat waves, their order books are filling up at full speed. Notebooks already full for several months due to the post-Covid effect.
“While the summer period is usually quite calm, it’s true that this summer, we don’t really have the impression of having a vacation-related break. Even when they go on vacation, customers don’t hesitate not to call us to make an appointment at the start of the school year”underlines Eva Machicoane, commercial assistant at Mondial Piscine, in Carquefou.
An already “exceptional” year 2021
According to the Federation of Pool Professionals, this year should follow the trend of 2021, an exceptional year with a post-lockdown boom: a 32% increase in turnover in construction of swimming pools, and a 22% increase in orders.
“This year, the market has become reasonable again, but at a very high level since we are consolidating the market at the level it was at last year. We are not going to be able to go even higher than in 2021, but it was the exceptional year of the swimming pool market for ten years”, develops Joëlle Pulinx, general delegate of the Federation of swimming pool professionals.
– Mondial Pool
“The phone keeps ringing” – Aldric Ordronneau, from Grand Ouest Piscine
Those last weeks, “let’s say the phone won’t stop ringing”smiles Aldric Ordronneau, commercial director of Grand Ouest Piscine, a company based in Couëron. “We are on two, three or four appointments for new projects per working day the whole month of August, and practically the whole month of July. The winter will be busy in terms of installing swimming pools!”
The commercial director estimates that in periods of high heat, the request is “4 to 5 times” more important “than normal”. But if the heat wave is good for business, the drought can put a big stop to it, he recalls. Indeed, in the event of a new water restriction order, construction sites that had not yet started must be postponed (because the first filling of a swimming pool is prohibited).
Drought-related uncertainty
“Today, we are on the lookout for the elements that are given by the prefecture to see how we can arrange our schedules. Because it is a drought that will last a little bit over time, the time that the water tables are replenished. We will surely have a delay also in the autumn part and from that moment, we will see how to arrange our schedule in relation to that”explains Aldric Ordronneau.
And the consequences are significant for these companies, often SMEsnotes Joëlle Pulinx, of the Federation of Pool Professionals. “It can have impacts on the organization of the company. It can also have impacts in terms of cash flow, because if the pool is not finished, not put in water, companies will not receive their money at all immediately. You have to be careful because swimming pool specialists are small structures.”
On Monday August 8, the Loire-Atlantique prefecture extended the heightened alert level concerning water consumption throughout the department.