Pool Chemical Storage: Renting Space for Your Growing Business

At some point, every growing pool service business hits the same wall: the truck is full, the garage is overflowing, and you need a dedicated place to store chemicals. It's a natural milestone. As the Pool Nation Podcast put it in an episode on profitability: "You now have a storage unit or an office to operate out of. Your days start blurring together."

But figuring out what to rent, how much to pay, and how to do it safely isn't straightforward — especially when you're dealing with oxidizers and corrosives. This guide covers the practical options, real costs, and safety requirements you need to know.

Why You Need Dedicated Storage

When you're running 30–40 pools, you can keep most chemicals on the truck and restock as needed. But once you start buying in bulk to improve margins, employing techs who need to load their own vehicles, or servicing routes spread across a wide area, on-truck storage stops working.

Dedicated storage lets you:

• Buy in bulk from your distributor at better pricing (and have them deliver directly)
• Stage vehicles — techs can load up each morning without coming to your house
• Store equipment — backup pumps, motors, parts inventory, and tools
• Separate incompatible chemicals properly, which is nearly impossible in a truck bed

One operator on the Talking Pools Podcast described the progression: a depot in the next town for bulk salt, a shop in the middle of their service area, and a warehouse on the southern end of their route. As you grow, you may need multiple staging points — not just one.

Storage Options Compared

Self-Storage Units

The most common starting point. A 10x15 or 10x20 unit gives you enough room for chemicals, a few shelves of parts, and maybe a workbench. Pool pros on Reddit report paying around $200/month for this size, which tracks with national averages of $120–$250 depending on market.

The catch: most self-storage facilities explicitly prohibit hazardous or corrosive chemicals in their lease agreements. Chlorine products are oxidizers. Muriatic acid is corrosive. Both are classified as hazardous materials. Some operators have gotten away with storing chemicals in units for years, particularly those who signed leases before a corporate buyout tightened the rules. But if there's an incident — a spill, a gas-off, a fire — you'll be in violation of your lease and likely uninsured.

Storage units work well for non-hazardous inventory: calcium hardness increaser, sodium bicarb, soda ash, equipment, parts, and tools. For the hard stuff, you need a better option.

Renting a Shop or Commercial Space

This is the better long-term solution. A small commercial or industrial bay — 500 to 2,000 square feet — gives you room for proper chemical separation, ventilation, and a loading area. National average warehouse rent runs about $9/sq ft annually, so a 1,000 sq ft space averages roughly $750/month. In high-cost markets like Southern California or New Jersey, expect $1,500–$2,000/month for the same space.

On the Talking Pools Podcast, one guest running a larger operation described their setup: a 4,000 sq ft warehouse with MSDS sheets posted, an eyewash station, and fire extinguishers on every truck and throughout the space. That's overkill for a 2–3 truck operation, but it shows what a mature setup looks like.

Shared or Flex Warehouse Space

Co-warehousing companies now offer small warehouse bays (200–2,000 sq ft) with month-to-month leases, loading docks, and shared amenities. These are worth investigating if a full commercial lease feels like too big a commitment. You'll still need to verify that the landlord permits hazardous material storage.

Chemical Storage Safety Requirements

This is the part most pool pros skip — and the part that matters most. Pool chemicals aren't just heavy and annoying to move. They're hazardous materials with real regulatory requirements.

Separation and Layout

Per EPA guidance and NFPA 400:

• 20 feet minimum between incompatible chemicals (chlorine products and acids)
• Store chemicals in original containers with labels intact
• Keep chemicals on the lowest shelves — never overhead where a dropped container can cause a spill or mixing event
• Secure racking to the floor to prevent tipover
• Use secondary containment (bunding) that can hold at least double the volume of the largest container stored in it

A practical layout: chlorine products (liquid chlorine, cal hypo, trichlor tabs) on one end of the space, muriatic acid on the other end, and non-reactive chemicals (bicarb, calcium, CYA) in the middle.

Ventilation

Chemical storage areas require mechanical ventilation at a minimum rate of 1 CFM per square foot, or 10 air changes per hour, whichever is greater. Chlorine vapor is 2.5 times heavier than air, so return air inlets should be positioned low in the room. A storage unit with a roll-up door and no ventilation does not meet this standard.

Safety Equipment

A properly equipped chemical storage area needs:

• Safety Data Sheets (SDS) posted and accessible for every chemical on site
• Eyewash station — OSHA requires one within 10 seconds of travel from anywhere corrosives are handled
• Fire extinguishers — water or foam type only in areas with chlorine/bromine products (dry chemical extinguishers can react with oxidizers)
• Spill containment supplies
• PPE — gloves, goggles, and an apron at minimum

Insurance and Regulatory Considerations

Before you sign a lease, have two conversations:

1. Talk to Your Insurance Company

Your general liability policy may not cover chemical storage at a separate location. You'll likely need to add the storage address to your policy, and your insurer will want to know what chemicals you're keeping and in what quantities. As one pool pro put it: "If you're going to keep the hard stuff there, the insurance company is going to want to talk to you." This is a good thing — it protects you if something goes wrong. The cost of a chemical-adjusted policy is worth factoring into your overhead.

2. Talk to Your Local Fire Marshal

Fire code requirements vary by jurisdiction. Your local fire marshal can tell you:

• Whether the space you're considering is zoned for hazardous material storage
• What placarding is required (the threshold for many jurisdictions is 500 lbs of hazardous materials)
• Whether you need a hazardous materials storage permit
• Specific separation, ventilation, and containment requirements for your area

In some states (particularly California), the requirements are stricter than federal standards. If you're in a regulated state, check our guides for California, Texas, and Florida legal requirements.

Oxidizer Storage Limits

Under fire codes based on NFPA 400, storage of Class 2 oxidizers like calcium hypochlorite (50% or less by weight) is limited to 250 lbs in a building without an automatic sprinkler system, or 500 lbs with sprinklers. Exceeding these limits may require your storage space to be classified as a high-hazard (Group H) occupancy, which comes with additional building and fire protection requirements.

Factor It Into Your Costs

Storage rent is overhead, and overhead that you don't track is profit you're losing without knowing it. Add your monthly storage cost to your cost per pool calculation alongside fuel, chemicals, insurance, and vehicle costs. If you're paying $500/month for a small commercial bay and servicing 80 pools, that's $6.25 per pool per month — a real cost that should be reflected in your pricing.

Use our truck breakeven calculator to model whether adding a storage location (and the route efficiency it enables) justifies the cost as you scale.

Practical Tips

• Start with what you need, not what you might need. A 10x20 storage unit for non-hazardous supplies plus a separate small bay for chemicals beats leasing 2,000 sq ft you won't fill.
• Get deliveries sent to your storage location. Multiple pool pros report having their supply house deliver directly — this saves you a pickup trip and lets you buy in larger quantities.
• Plan for route geography. If your routes span a large area, a centrally located storage point saves drive time. Some larger operations set up satellite locations with just salt and a few high-use chemicals near the edges of their service area.
• Watch for price hikes. Storage facilities — especially corporate-owned ones — frequently raise rates after the first year. Negotiate a multi-year rate or be prepared to move.
• Don't store more than you can turn over. Chemicals sitting in a hot storage unit for months degrade. Liquid chlorine loses strength. Buy what you'll use in 2–4 weeks.