A huge surge of Arctic weather is headed for Texas this week, renewing concerns of another Texas pool freeze as an extended stretch of unusually cold temperatures settles in toward the weekend.

While the cold will be felt statewide, forecasts now indicate that Houston and San Antonio are likely to narrowly avoid freezing temperatures — a fortunate break for two of Texas’ largest pool markets. That relief, however, does little to shrink the overall risk footprint for the pool industry.

By Sunday, freezing temperatures are expected across large portions of North and Central Texas, including Dallas, Fort Worth, and Austin. Those cities represent some of the most equipment-dense and service-heavy pool markets in the state, making this cold event especially consequential for pool professionals.

For the pool industry in Texas, this is more than just another cold snap. It’s almost becoming a familiar yearly stress test.

Why This Week’s Weather Matters to Texas Pool Owners

Pools don’t care about daytime highs. They care about overnight lows, how long temperatures stay below freezing, and whether water continues moving through exposed plumbing.

Texas pools are largely designed for heat, not cold. Above-ground plumbing, exposed equipment pads, and heavy reliance on automation and circulation leave many systems vulnerable when overnight temperatures dip below freezing for extended periods. Wind only increases the threat by stripping residual warmth from pipes, valves, and pump housings.

That concern becomes more pronounced as the coldest air is expected to arrive closer to Sunday. Homeowners often relax when early-week cold feels manageable, only to be caught off guard when temperatures drop lower and linger longer toward the weekend.

Texas Is One of the Largest Pool States in the Country

Texas consistently ranks among the largest states in the nation for residential swimming pools, both in total installations and per-capita ownership. Rapid suburban growth and a backyard-centric lifestyle have made pools a standard feature rather than a luxury in many communities.

That scale fuels a massive service and repair economy, but it also magnifies risk when freeze conditions impact multiple major metro areas at once. When markets like Dallas–Fort Worth and Austin experience freezing temperatures simultaneously, demand for technicians and replacement parts spikes almost immediately.

Even regions that avoid freezing temperatures can feel the ripple effects. Parts availability tightens, schedules fill, and lead times stretch as resources are redirected to the hardest-hit areas.

The 2021 Texas Pool Freeze Still Looms Large

Any Arctic cold event in Texas inevitably brings the industry back to February 2021, when a historic winter storm crippled infrastructure and devastated thousands of swimming pools statewide.

Sustained sub-freezing temperatures combined with widespread power outages caused pumps to crack, filters to split, heaters to fail, and plumbing to rupture — often overnight. Entire equipment pads were destroyed before homeowners even realized what had happened.

The aftermath lasted far longer than the storm itself. Pool companies faced months-long repair backlogs, severe parts shortages, and homeowners sidelined well into the following swim season. While this week’s cold is not expected to reach those historic extremes, the vulnerabilities exposed during that freeze still exist.

Pools Freezing Solid Is Not a Myth

Every winter, at least one viral video surfaces showing a Texas homeowner ice skating across the surface of their backyard swimming pool after it has frozen solid. It looks absurd until you realize the possibility becomes real once the power goes out and stays off for a day or two.

That kind of freezing doesn’t require weeks of Arctic conditions. It requires sustained overnight freezes combined with a loss of circulation, often caused by prolonged power outages. When water stops moving and temperatures stay low long enough, ice forms, expands, and locks in.

Once that happens, damage can be costly, extensive, and not immediately visible. Underground plumbing can crack, tile and plaster can fracture, and equipment components can fail internally long before leaks appear.

Power Is the Biggest Wild Card

Thankfully, these days most modern swimming pools are equipped with freeze protection, but it’s important to note that freeze protection systems only work if electricity stays on.

Automation, pumps, heaters, and sensors all depend on uninterrupted power. Even brief outages during the coldest overnight hours can allow water to sit motionless long enough to freeze inside exposed pipes and housings.

This is why grid reliability matters as much as temperature forecasts. A moderate freeze with power can be manageable. A moderate freeze without power can become destructive rather quickly.

Pool Companies Shift Into Freeze Mode

As forecasts begin to come into focus for the rest of the week, pool companies across North and Central Texas have already begun shifting priorities. Routine maintenance is giving way to preventive preparation, system checks, and homeowner outreach.

This often includes verifying automation settings, advising clients on pump run schedules, insulating exposed plumbing, and identifying older equipment that may be more susceptible to cold damage. Suppliers are already seeing increased demand for insulation materials and commonly replaced components.

The industry isn’t panicking, but it is definitely paying attention. Experience has taught pool professionals how quickly conditions can escalate once freeze warnings are issued.

What Pool Owners Should Be Thinking About Now

Homeowners in freeze-prone areas needn’t panic, but they do need to be proactive in their preparations.

Keeping water circulating during the coldest hours is the single most effective defense against freeze damage. Automation settings should be verified, not assumed. Exposed plumbing should be protected where possible, especially at the equipment pad.

Homeowners should also understand what happens to their pool if power goes out. Again, freeze protection does not function without electricity, and knowing when to call for help can limit damage if something goes wrong.

Preparation needs to happen before freezing temperatures arrive. Once ice forms, the window for prevention has already closed.

When President Donald Trump proposed a credit card rate cap of 10 percent, the national debate quickly centered on consumers and Wall Street. Supporters argued it would ease the burden of sky-high APRs, while critics warned of unintended market consequences.

“Please be informed that we will no longer let the American Public be ‘ripped off’ by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%, and even more,” Trump posted on social media Friday. He later told reporters that companies that ignore the proposed cap would be considered to be breaking the law.

A 10% Credit Card Rate Cap: How It Could Impact the Pool Industry If Markets Begin Adapting

For the pool industry, the issue is less about politics and more about how changes to credit flow affect homeowners and contractors alike.

Pools live at the intersection of discretionary spending and credit availability. New builds rely on loans and home-equity products. Repairs, renovations, and service calls are often paid with credit cards. On the contractor side, business credit cards function as working capital. When the rules of consumer credit change, every part of the pool ecosystem feels it.

The Risk of a Credit Freeze

William Stern, Founder of Cardiff, believes the biggest danger of a rate cap is not expensive money — it is disappearing money.

“It’s basic economics: Price controls create shortages. If you cap credit card rates at 10%, banks aren’t going to just smile and take the hit. They’re going to stop issuing cards to anyone who looks even remotely risky. The intention might be to help the working class, but the reality is it’s going to cut off their access to credit entirely. We’re going to see a massive credit freeze where you’re trading ‘expensive’ money for no money.”

Credit cards are not just payment tools. They are the backbone of consumer credit scoring. Banks use revolving credit history to determine who qualifies for personal loans, HELOCs, and contractor-financing programs. When issuers tighten card approvals or cut limits, the ripple effect reaches far beyond the card itself.

For pool buyers, that shows up as:
• Fewer financing approvals
• Smaller loan amounts
• Larger required down payments
• More deals falling apart late in the sales process

To understand why a 10 percent cap would represent such a dramatic shift, it helps to look at how today’s credit-card market actually works. Current rates vary widely depending on risk, but across the board they are far higher than the level being proposed.

How a 10% Credit-Card Cap Compares to Today’s Market

When you put those numbers side by side, it becomes clear just how radical a 10 percent cap would be. It is not a small adjustment — it would require lenders to slash rates by more than half for the average cardholder and by even more for anyone with less-than-perfect credit. That kind of compression doesn’t come without consequences. Instead of simply making credit cheaper, it changes who gets access to it at all — which is where the pool industry begins to feel the impact.

New Builds Feel It Through Financing

Most new pool projects are funded with home-equity loans, personal loans, or third-party financing — not credit cards. But those products rely on the same credit data that credit cards generate.

When revolving credit disappears or shrinks:
• Borrowers’ utilization spikes
• Credit scores drop
• Loan approvals become harder
• Risk pricing increases

That means fewer homeowners qualify for large projects, and those who do may qualify for less. A customer who could once finance a full backyard with a spa, automation, and water features might now only qualify for a basic pool — or nothing at all.

Pool Service, Repairs, and Renovations Take the First Hit

Where credit cards matter most in the pool industry is not construction — it is ownership.

Service contracts, emergency repairs, equipment replacements, automation upgrades, resurfacing jobs, and renovations are routinely paid with credit cards. When a pump dies or a heater fails, homeowners often rely on short-term credit to approve the work immediately.

If access to cards tightens or limits are reduced:
• Repairs get delayed
• Homeowners choose cheaper fixes
• Renovation projects shrink
• Preventive maintenance is postponed

That hits service companies, repair technicians, and remodelers long before it shows up in new-build statistics.

The Contractor Liquidity Problem

The other side of this story is what happens to pool businesses themselves.

“People forget that for Main Street, the business credit card is the working capital loan,” Stern says. “A plumber or a contractor lives on that float to buy materials. If this cap goes through, issuers are going to slash credit limits overnight to protect their downside. A business owner relying on a $20,000 limit might wake up to find it cut to $5,000. It’s going to pull the rug out from under millions of small businesses that rely on that liquidity to keep the doors open.”

Pool companies depend on credit cards to:
• Buy equipment and parts
• Pay subcontractors while waiting on draws
• Cover payroll
• Handle emergency jobs
• Manage seasonal cash-flow swings

When that float disappears, companies do not collapse overnight — they slow down. Fewer jobs run at once. Inventory gets tighter. Growth plans get shelved. That quiet contraction is how credit stress shows up in the trades.

Why Consumers Might Not Actually Save

Supporters of a credit card rate cap assume lower APRs equal cheaper credit. But Stern says that misunderstands how banks operate.

“You can’t legislate the price of risk. If the government caps the interest rate, the banks are just going to move the cost somewhere else. We’ll see the end of cash-back rewards, the end of airline points, and the return of massive annual fees. The consumer isn’t actually saving money; the bank is just changing how they bill for it. It’s a political shell game, not an economic solution.”

For pool customers, those hidden costs matter. Rewards programs, promo rates, and deferred-interest offers reduce the psychological barrier to approving a project. When those disappear, homeowners hesitate — even if the headline interest rate is lower.

Industry Insiders Say It Will Never Happen

Greg Powell, a longtime pool-industry lender and principal at Viking Capital (PoolLoan.net), reacted with incredulity to news of Trump’s 10% credit card rate cap, stating that it is fundamentally unworkable.

“My take is that there is a zero percent chance credit card rates get capped at all, let alone at 10%,” Powell says. “Every credit card issuer would stop extending credit, or 80% of the cards out there would be shut down. You can’t lend 10% money to 550-credit-score borrowers. They’d revoke every card that’s over 10%—which is the majority of them. It would shut down the entire economy. It’s just another distraction.”

Powell compares it to other headline-grabbing financial ideas that generate buzz but never make it through the realities of capital markets.

“It’s like the 50-year mortgage Trump floated a few months ago. Everybody speculates on it, but it’s obviously never happening.”

What Pool Pros Should Watch

Stern warns about what a cap would do. Powell says it won’t ever get that far. But both agree on one thing: the mere threat of price controls changes lender behavior. Whether or not a cap becomes law, builders and service companies should continue to monitor the following in the coming months:

• Financing approval rates
• Credit-limit reductions
• Changes in lender behavior
• Consumer hesitation on upgrades
• Cash-flow pressure inside their own businesses

The Bottom Line

A 10 percent credit card rate cap might sound like consumer relief, but it risks triggering tighter underwriting, shrinking credit access, and creating liquidity stress for small businesses.

For the pool industry — from weekly service routes to six-figure backyard builds — that matters. Credit is not just how people pay. It is how projects begin, how repairs get approved, and how contractors stay afloat.

That’s why this debate deserves close attention from everyone in the industry.

If it feels like everyone is suddenly talking about silver, you’re not imagining it.

Silver has gone from a niche commodity many ignored to something that’s been dominating market headlines. Copper, meanwhile, has joined right in, breaking records of its own. Together, these two metals are rewriting price expectations across multiple industries—and the pool industry is no exception.

You don’t need to be immersed in the market for this story to matter. If you install, service, or sell pool equipment, silver and copper are already a big part of your world—embedded inside the circuit boards, control boards, motors, wiring, and internal electronics that make modern pool equipment function.

Precious & Industrial Metals

For years, silver and copper were present in nearly every piece of pool equipment, yet they were rarely part of the greater conversation. Their availability and cost were largely taken for granted, baked into products without much second thought.

Today, both metals have become variables instead of constants, and that shift is now working its way through pricing and the broader pool equipment supply chain.

Silver prices have climbed dramatically since 2020, breaking records most people thought were impossible just a few years ago. Copper has followed its own historic trajectory, driven by demand that mining supply simply hasn’t been able to keep up with. These aren’t speculative spikes built on hype alone. They’re rooted in structural changes to how the modern world consumes materials in 2026 and beyond.

Those shifts don’t just affect electric cars and solar farms — they flow downstream into the pumps, heaters, and smart controls pool pros install and service every day.

Why Silver and Copper Prices Exploded

There’s no single reason behind the surge. It’s a convergence of forces that all started accelerating around the same time.

First, industrial demand has surged. It’s become essential in electronics, solar panels, medical equipment, and data centers. Copper runs neck and neck—used in wiring, motors, transformers, control boards, and virtually every electrified system built today.

Second, supply has not kept pace with demand. New mines take years—sometimes decades—to permit and bring online. Environmental restrictions, geopolitical uncertainty, and aging infrastructure have all hindered production growth. That imbalance matters when demand keeps rising regardless of price.

Third, macroeconomic uncertainty has pushed investors back toward hard assets. Inflation concerns, geopolitical tensions, and shifting interest-rate expectations have all increased appetite for precious and industrial metals. When investment demand stacks on top of already-tight industrial demand, prices don’t move gently.

The result is what we’re seeing now: silver and copper trading in ranges that would have sounded absolutely absurd back in 2019.

The Pool Industry’s Exposure to Rising Prices

Many pool products are directly tied to silver and copper pricing, not indirectly, not theoretically—directly.

Silver plays a critical role inside the circuit boards and control electronics used throughout modern pool equipment. It’s commonly found in solder, high-performance electrical contacts, and relay surfaces where reliable conductivity and corrosion resistance matter most. As equipment becomes more automated and electronics-heavy, silver’s role inside pumps, heaters, automation panels, and smart controllers has quietly expanded alongside copper.

Copper is virtually everywhere inside pool equipment. Pump motors rely on copper windings. Automation systems use copper traces running throughout circuit boards and control boards. Heaters, power supplies, relays, transformers, and wiring harnesses all depend on copper for conductivity and heat management.

Precious Metals Inside Electronics

Silver and copper aren’t the only metals quietly shaping costs. Gold plays a big role too, even if it’s measured in fractions of grams.

Gold is commonly used in electrical contacts and connectors because it resists corrosion and maintains reliable conductivity over time.

Ultimately, all of these precious metals are essential for reliability—especially in outdoor environments where moisture, heat, and chemicals are constant threats.

As equipment becomes smarter and more connected, the amount of electronics per product increases. That doesn’t mean prices rise dollar-for-dollar with metal markets, but it does mean manufacturers have less wiggle room to absorb volatility without adjusting pricing upward.

Which Pool Product Categories Are Likely To Be Most Impacted

Not all pool products are equally exposed to metal pricing. The biggest pressure shows up in a few key areas.

Mineral sanitizers and ionization systems feel the impact first, because silver and copper are both core consumable ingredients. Automation systems and control panels follow closely, driven by copper-heavy circuit boards, wiring, and connectors. Pumps and motors are heavily influenced by silver and copper pricing, particularly as energy-efficient designs require more refined materials. Heaters, sensors, and smart equipment combine electronics, wiring, and control components that all rely on these metals.

In many cases, metal prices aren’t the sole reason costs increase—but they’re a meaningful contributor layered on top of labor, logistics, and other material increases.

What Pool Pros Should Take Away From Booming Prices

For pool pros, right now it’s about understanding the forces at work so conversations with customers stay grounded in reality.

Pool manufacturers rarely publish line-item breakdowns explaining exactly why individual components cost more. But the connection is straightforward. Modern pool equipment relies heavily on circuit boards and electronic controls, and those boards are built using copper, silver, and other metals that have seen dramatic price increases since 2020. As electronics suppliers adjust pricing to reflect higher material costs, pool manufacturers absorb those increases upstream — and over time, they work their way into equipment pricing across the industry

When a homeowner asks why some components cost more than they did a few years ago, there’s a real answer to that question. When prices creep up on these products, there’s plenty of context behind it.

For builders and service companies, it also reinforces the importance of knowing which products are commodity-sensitive. Plenty of SKUs will remain relatively stable. Others will continue to track global metals markets more closely than most people realize.

The Net Net

To be clear, the surge in precious-metal prices is only part of the story. Freight, labor, energy, plastics, and other raw materials have all risen significantly since 2020, acting as force multipliers that are pushing prices higher across the board.

Silver, copper, and gold are global commodities. When their prices rise, any industry that relies on them eventually feels the impact. For the pool industry, what’s happening in metal markets is no longer abstract—it’s a real pricing pressure that will continue working its way through the supply chain in 2026.