This project did not go well. This company was unable to follow a professionally designed landscape plan. Specifically, the pool location was detailed in the plan, and despite having access to this plan, they installed our pool both out of line with our house, and out of line with a set of stairs meant to lead from a patio to the pool's stairs. Initially, Mike was friendly and pleasant, however, once this issue occurred, he became very unprofessional, and extremely unwilling to compromise at all in order to work with us to resolve the problem. Do not be deceived, you learn a company's the true nature when you see how they handle a problem. We were initially very upset about the pool being installed improperly as we had spent a lot of time and money on a landscaping plan to create a nice outdoor space. Instead of squaring the pool with the house, they chose to square it to our woods line. Not only did this result with an obviously crooked pool, but it also completely messed up our landscaping design. They had made an obvious critical error, and instead of owning up to it, they blamed the crookedness of the pool on our house not actually being square. We measured this, as did an independent contractor, and the house is definitely square. We tried very hard to work with them to come up with a way to mask the problem, since the only way to truly fix the problem would have been to move the pool (which we never contemplated doing). Ultimately, we realized that in order to mask the problem, we needed to need to use pavers around the pool (instead of concrete) whose lines would distract the viewer from the crooked nature of the pool. This was where this company's true colors came out. This change in our plan, to go with pavers around the pool, led to even more problems with Mike. While trying to come up with a solution for the pool, we had mentioned to him our decision to go with pavers around the pool, and it then came to light that they had performed extra work on the project, NOT contracted with them, under the assumption that they would be installing a large concrete deck around our pool. We had never committed to any such work, and were actively interviewing other contractors for the work, and had explicitly told Mike on a prior occasion that we did not like his concrete work that we had seen on his other job sites. The extra work included additional digging around the pool and filling with crushed stone that he performed in preparation for this deck work that we had NEVER agreed to, NOR EVER DISCUSSED HIM DOING. At this point, Mike became visibly upset with us, declaring that he had to get paid for the extra (non-contracted) material and work. This change in Mike's behavior occurred despite that fact that we had never suggested that we would not pay him for that work. However, the actual pool itself was not yet finished. The liner, lights and other accessories still needed to be installed. Also, all of the electrical work needed to be completed. We had decided at this point that we wanted to finish the pool, and a few days later inquired about the liner, and were told that once the additional crushed stone and labor was paid for in full, we would "talk about the liner." Basically, the company was not going to finish their contracted work until they were compensated for work that we never authorized, that amounted to an extra $7000. They were, in effect, attempting to extort us for the money. Once this happened we realized that there was no way to resolve this amicably, and we had lost trust in their ability to finish the project. We wanted to have another pool company finish the job, and asked for a refund for the work not yet completed, including the cost of the liner that had yet to be ordered, as well as labor involved in installing it and other accessories. They refused to compensate us in any way. They remained hostile, and petty, and were never able to admit any fault in the disaster that this project turned out to be. In addition to the extra money we had to spend to cover their mistake, we also ended up paying for the completion of the pool installation twice, as we had not been refunded for the work not performed by Del Gallo Country Pools. Not only did they cause us severe distress with their work and unwillingness to compromise anything in an effort to resolve the problem with the pool, they also systematically harmed our personal reputation with multiple other contractors and pool product distributors while we were trying to complete the project, all in an effort to protect their own reputation. We would strongly discourage anyone from working with this company in the future. read more
