By Mae Frances Bing
Preserve Pools, a local residential and commercial pool maintenance and repair company, started a new business venture in Walterboro.
The owners, Kristen and Michael Melo, started Preserve Pools four years ago. They’re a family-owned business located in Summerville. Kristen and Michael are national certified pool chemists, members of the Pool and Hot Tub Alliance ( PHTA), certified with the National Plasterers Council(NPC), BBB accredited, fully licensed and insured. Kristen has also been named 2021 Pleatco’s Perfect Pool Gal.
“My husband been doing pools for 25 years. He’s seen just about everything in the industry you can possibly imagine. He also wanted to have his own company and I was out of work due to an injury. He said to me one day, ‘Why don’t we just start a pool company?’ I was like all right, sure. We decided we wanted to run it completely different from everything he experienced in the past,” Kristen said.
And the couple did just that. The goal of their company was to make sure customer’s investments last. “We preserved everything. It wasn’t just an idea of getting money from their pockets to ours. That’s why we called it Preserve Pools. We want to preserve customers’ investments. We will make sure the pools have perfect chemistry and we would maintain the pools during our weekly visits to make sure everything stays in good shape,” Kristen said.
Kristen and Michael opened up retail store, “The Pool Store,” the end of May. “Preserve Pools is on a new exciting venture here. We are here to meet your pool care needs, one way or another. We offer free water testing with a purchase or subscription. We have every chemical needed to balance your pool water. We want to welcome everyone to our store. We just really want to make the customers happy.
The owners decided to establish the store because they we’re only able to service in-ground pools with their equipment at the moment. They received serval calls for above-ground pools. “We couldn’t accommodate them. We were like, so we have to be able to help them with their specific pool needs as well. Everyone was driving to Summerville for pool chemical and supplies. That’s when we noticed that there was a need and we have to open a store here. We are looking to expand some more, but right now we’re focusing on helping as many as we can,” Kristen said.
“The Pool Store” is located at 543 Bells Hwy., Unit B. They can also be reached at (843) 494 2907.
