Our initial design meetings went quite well, our sales rep was able to draw the pool we wanted…read morequickly and was very responsive when we wanted a number of changes over time. When we were ready to sign the contract in the first week of February 2021, we were told that it would take longer than normal due to the pandemic, which we understood. The estimate was that we would start sometime in the spring, but no later than early summer, and certainly, we would be complete by August 2021 in time for our daughter's birthday in September.
That, of course, didn't happen. Here we are in April of 2022, more than 15 months later and the pool is still not finished! I will concede that we have had water in the pool and the heater and equipment hooked up since November of 2021, so we have been able to swim. But once they got the final payment (which was due prior to completion, which should have been a red flag...) they lost interest in the project. We have effectively not seen any work from them for almost 6 months. We are still waiting on some work on the tile and deck, the auto-fill doesn't work requiring manual filling from the hose twice a week, there is a problem with the Venturi skimmer so leaves don't properly empty causing additional manual cleaning, and the main pump shuts off mysteriously about once a week with no error or notification from the monitoring system. We are also still waiting on the final electrical and pool inspection from the city. All of which are repeatedly promised, but never happen since they have requirements to complete first and haven't done them. About every few weeks I contact them again, and get more promises that they will be right out to take care of things...nothing happens...then repeat.
Here are some examples of communications via email and text.
Me (10/04/2021) - "Here is my list of the remaining items: ...(long list of remaining items)..."
Me (10/18/2021) - "No sign of anyone yet. The list is basically exactly the same as last week...."
St. John (10/20/2021) - "Josh is going to be out there today to begin most of the remaining things."
Me (10/21/2021) - "Again, no sign of anyone today, so same list."
Me (10/22/2021) - "Again, no sign of anyone today, so same list again."
Me (10/30/2021) - "Still no change. The only work done in more than two weeks is the auto-fill cover..."
St. John (11/04/2021) - "Josh will be out there to complete the rest of the items on the list tomorrow and Saturday."
Me (11/09/2021) - "As we have come to expect, no sign of him Friday, no sign of him Saturday, no sign of him Monday... so the list remains the same, except for the heater."
_(The heater guy came and started the heater. Josh' came and did a bit of the work, very poorly, ended up just going to Lowes, getting the materials, and doing it myself just to make progress)_
Me (11/21/2021) - "All the other issues are in worse shape than before Josh came, so we'll just take care of them ourselves. Should have just done them myself and saved all the waiting and extra cleanup..."
Me (12/1/2021) - "Are you still there?"
_The next communication we get is 2 MONTHS later..._
Me (2/1/2022) - "Hey, do you plan to send someone out to finish the work soon?"
St. John (2/1/2022) - "Sorry, I have been out of town since the beginning of the year. ...What is still on the list so I can get everyone on the same page?"
_I have sent the "list" many times over the preceding months, so nothing has changed...why is it my responsibility to keep sending it to them? I sent the list again_
Me (2/13/2022) - "Two weeks more and still no work done."
Me (3/9/2022) - "No sign of anyone, been another month..."
Me (3/28/2022) - "Almost another month has gone by, absolutely no sign of anyone since the beginning of December. What do we need to do to get these issues taken care of? Is there another person I should be dealing with?"
St. John (3/28/2022) - "We have put in the work orders for the appropriate subs to come out and take a look at everything. I will be calling with more specific dates on when everything will be fixed as soon as I know the schedule. Sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience."
Me (4/1/2022) - "Any movement on this?"
St. John (4/7/2022) -"We're working on the last of your punch list"
Me (4/7/2022) - "...Come on guys. This pool was "finished" last October, but 6 months later we still haven't finished the work. No sign of anyone since last year."
_Still nothing..._
All the work delays and some remaining mechanical issues aside, we have been generally happy with the quality of the work that was actually completed, initially at least for the pool and structure. Our issues are mostly with the follow-up and lack of service once they got their final check in October 2021.
The primary cosmetic issue is that there is concrete spatter all over our house, the back screen, the pool tile and coping, and our two AC external units. We have cleaned up some of this ourselves, but a lot remains.