I rarely leave negative reviews, but after spending thousands on what was supposed to be a…read morestraightforward spa coping replacement, I think it's important to share my experience.
The project was estimated to take about five days. Instead, it stretched to nearly three weeks because one issue after another kept coming up.
What became most frustrating was that I felt like I had to constantly inspect the work and point out obvious problems as they happened. The new spa coping profile didn't match the existing pool coping, but even worse, one half of the spa coping had a different reveal than the other half (see pics), the bullnose was noticeably uneven, extensive patching was required after the initial pour, and the mastic installation had to be redone. Every time one issue was addressed, another seemed to appear.
The final, and still unresolved, problem involved the three spillways between the raised spa and the pool. During the project, the Castro team unnecessarily removed and discarded original spillway stone. They installed replacement stone, but after the spa was refilled, the spillways no longer functioned as they had before the project. Because of the way the replacement stone was installed, water that previously flowed fairly evenly across all three spillways now flows almost entirely through one, with little bit in the middle one, and pretty much no flow in the third.
What disappointed me most was what happened next. I wasn't asking Isidoro to immediately fix it. I simply asked him to come back, look at the spillways with me, compare them to the videos from before the project, discuss what changed, and come up with a plan to fix it.
Instead, after I had already given him the final payment, he told me it would cost another $1,500 to address the issue and he was too busy immediately to come fix it. He never came to inspect the work in person and on my last phone call with him, he told me to fix it myself and literally hung up on me.
I understand that construction projects don't always go perfectly. Mistakes happen. What matters is whether a contractor takes ownership of problems and works with the customer to resolve them. That didn't happen here.
If the workmanship issues had been the only problem, I probably wouldn't be writing this review. It was the combination of repeated quality issues, the need to continually monitor the work myself, and the unwillingness to come back and inspect a legitimate concern after the project was completed that left me unable to recommend Castro Pool Services.
