DO NOT hire them to clean your Salt Water Pool.
My three month nightmare is finally over, but a word of warning to everyone else. These people were outstanding--great when building my pool. Ryan & Robbie kept me informed, sent me text messages & pictures of the work each day. I'd definitely recommend them for building the pool. BUT, they hate salt water pools & will try to talk you out of one. I should have remembered that when signing up for service.
The guy who came out to clean my pool every week is one of their "best" pool guys. In the 3 months he maintained my salt-water pool, it was not chemically balanced ONE SINGLE day. Everything was off. I truly do not believe he knew the first thing about how to maintain a salt pool. And the guy at the shop, Ryan, that I complained to every week about my pool admitted that Richard "hated, HATED" salt water pools.
On the 2nd visit, Richard added half a bucket of calcium. It only partially dissolved & ended up leaving crystalized particles coating the bottom of my pool. I started going home on pool cleaning day to see what he was doing. Twice I caught him throwing chlorine tabs into my skimmer. For the next few weeks, I noticed he added not one single thing to the pool. Just complained to me that he had no idea why the calcium had crystalized and wouldn't dissolve.
After two months of swimming around in that stuff, I realized he had no idea what to do to mitigate it. I researched & found out that the problem was my pH was too high. On his next visit, he guessed the pH was 8.4. It should be around 7.5. I asked if he was going to add acid (which he should always have & be adding pretty much every week, although I'd never once seen him add any). He said that he didn't have any on the truck & he'd "get me next time." I told him he could use the acid the pool builders had left behind. He stared at it as if I was trying to hand him a snake. He had absolutely no idea what to do with it. He finally took it and mumbled that he'd figure out the calculation of how much to add back in the truck.
I wasn't able to make it home the next week Richard was there. My guess is he didn't add anything because the crystalized particles were still hanging around. The following week, he guessed my pH levels were 8.2. When I complained that I wasn't happy with the pool, the excuses came. And it was NEVER his fault. He blamed the calcium for crystalizing; he blamed the acid for not doing its job by lowering the pH. He even blamed his boss for lowing the percentage or the timer (or something) on the salt cell generator the week he was on vacation (because Richard kept telling me that chlorine was ONLY produced when the booster pump that ran the pool cleaner was on; Ryan told me three times that this wasn't true and he'd "talk to Richard about it.")
I now go to the shop every week to have water tested. Every week they show me how far off my pool was from balance and say they'll "talk to him." The first week I took water in, they showed the chlorine levels super high. I complained that it was because Richard had been tossing chlorine tabs into the pool. Ryan rolled his eyes, said "no, no, no," & turned to ask the woman behind the counter "why is Richard putting chlorine tabs in her pool?" To which she rolled her eyes & replied, "because he's Richard." This is just appalling to me. I'm stressed. I'm sick & tired of writing them a check for $245 a month & not getting what I'm paying for.
Every week for the next month I took the water in to be tested. Every week it was off, but Ryan started telling me "Well, it's not 'that' bad. The water 'looks' good." I asked to speak to the owner, but I'm always diverted to Ryan. Ryan agreed one week to go out & add something to bring the skyrocketing alkalinity down because he was worried about that. I asked Ryan if someone else could take care of my pool & I'm told that everyone loves Richard & always want him back if/whenever someone else is assigned to their pool.
At the end of August, someone (a manager???) accompanied Richard to stay and talk to me afterwards. He apologized for the issues with the pool & realized I was unhappy & they wanted a happy customer even if it meant breaking my contract. Of course he did slip in there that "I was stressing Richard out." (Gee, I'm sorry I wanted him to do his job properly.) I asked if I'd be refunded, at least part of what I paid (since I had to pay first & last upon signing the contract.) They agreed not to charge me the penalty fee for breaking the contract, but no way were they going to refund me anything. I, of course, believe that since I didn't get one dime of my money's worth for the past three months, an honorable company would have refunded me at least part of my money, but at least this nightmare is over and I can move on.
Hopefully, my nightmare can serve as a warning to others with a salt-water pool to consider someone else for your service needs. read more