OHIO — Ohio Custom Pool & Patio is a business close to Marina Kennedy and her husband’s heart.
“We were installing pools for other people and kind of decided we could do it better,” she said. “It’s a family-owned business.”
While the business has been around for more than 10 years, she said it’s hard not to see the impact of inflation.
“In general, you’ve got the pipes that go on the pool which is your PVC,” she said. “In some cases, it’s doubled and tripled for pipe and for fittings. The pool shell, the raw materials, the gel coat — all of those prices have increased as well.”
She said supply and demand have also brought challenges.
“There’s a high demand due to COVID because people do not want to travel,” she said. “Everybody wants to stay at home. So, they’re taking the money that they would have spent on those vacations and vacation homes, and they’re putting it into their backyard.”
She said she and her team are working to navigate these inconveniences.
“We keep an open dialog with our customers and let them know that if there’s a price increase, that they will have to bear the cost of the price increase,” she said. “But It’s not based on labor.”
