Where do I start!! I guess lets start from the beginning. Our back yard has a two foot fall from our back porch, over a 40' area. The pool level was actually determined by "Judy" before one teaspoon of dirt was removed. My pool level is 4 inches above my back porch. Bottom line is the pool could have easily been 6" below our porch not 4" above it. Have no idea why, other than to push a lot of water towards my house to drain. Not good !!!! Our in ground pool is sort of like an above ground pool, being 20 inches above ground in the back, so it's really a little of both. Their 30 working day promise to complete hit 37 days, after taking off for holidays, and rain days and still counting. They made a disaster of our entire back yard. There was no planning to try to save any of our sprinkler system, or do as little damage to our yard as possible. It's all about what's easiest for Crystal Clear Pools.
Let's talk about the concrete now. If you think that the price Crystal Clear Pools gives you is a turn key price, you're dead wrong. Judy actually told me that they didn't know how to figure concrete other than as flat work, and that any other concrete poured would cost me $5.25 a square foot. Well, I assumed that meant that if I was going to add to the proposed area, then I'd have to pay for the extra at that price. Wrong !!!! They are actually telling you that they are so incompetent as a contractor that they really don't know how to figure concrete, and it's the home owners responsibility to pay for what they don't know how to figure. Yes, you read that right. Our extra was around $1600. The concrete work was horrible. Absolutely no attention to detail. In fact after most of the work was completed, we had a 2 hour meeting with Judy just to address all the problems, and she said it did not meet "her standards".
I had to get into a shouting match with the plaster guy because no one from Crystal Clear was around to supervise. The plaster companies equipment is a disaster. It took them about 2 hours of hammering and who knows what all to get their equipment to work. I'm guessing I'll have to have new plaster is a couple of years. I'm pretty sure Judy has never seen or supervised plastering a pool. In fact Crystal Clear even told us that they never supervise the plaster stage !!! The same company that did the plaster also did the coping. Our beach entrance looks like a couple of drunks put it in while they were still drunk. Once again, no supervision from Crystal Clear. Ask Judy, she will even tell you it looks horrible. Once again, it didn't meet "her standards".
The electrician is a moron. There actually hasn't been an electrician on the job, just a couple of helpers. I'm so thankful that we didn't have any extra electrical done. I can only imagine what a disaster that would have been. I better not say any more, as Yelp probably will not post what I really think of their work.
Part of our pool design included putting in a gas fire pit. We really liked that idea. Getting gas to the fire pit was 100% my job. They would not coordinate with the gas company for getting the gas line ran, and they gave no instructions as how to run the line, or what kind of fittings needed to be provided or how rigid it needed to be in order for it to work properly. I didn't know how it really needed to be done, so the result was 2 days of running all over town trying to find fittings to make it work, and kinked the line to the point that we almost had to start over. Crystal Clear could care less that it cost me at least double to run the gas line, because we had to put in twice the length of line. Like I said, it's all about what's easiest for Crystal Clear Pools.
The bottom line is Crystal Clear Pools doesn't do any of the work themselves. It's 100% subcontractors. They don't supervise their subcontractors, so the result is their subs can do whatever sorry job they want, and get away with it. I don't think we ever had a sub show up on the day they were supposed to have been here. No one let's you know of any schedule of when contractors where going to be here, other than maybe the day before. It's been 2 weeks since we had our meeting with Judy to express our concerns as she promised to fix things that could be addressed. Nothing has happened, and at this point, I doubt anything ever will. Very, very disappointing.
If you plan on using Crystal Clear Pools, please know that you need to plan on spending about $5000 more when it's all said and done. The sprinkler guy will have to all but start over with the system, any gas lines or electrical will cost you twice as much because there is no coordination with anything that is your cost. You'll have a extra for concrete. My headaches have just begun. The results of unsupervised contractors will haunt me for as long as I have this pool.
Clayton Luedtke read more
