Our pool was installed in 2007 and I'm still finding new things wrong with the construction. The sales person seemed very knowledgeable. And I had a simple pool design in mind: A Rectangle. Yep. I didn't want a tropical scene. We went with a 40x15 with a deep end and a 7x7 spa, flush with the pool deck. So, simple. The only feature we decided to add were "pencil jet fountains".
The primary issue was a lack of oversite. Our supervisor only showed up to collect checks. He was not overseeing the construction. And the workers? Sub-contractors. In fact, some of the sub-contractors subbed the work out to sub-sub-contractors.
Digging went OK, except the construction equipment destroyed the neighborhood sidewalk. If an 8x4 piece of plywood had been placed over the sidewalk, it would have been fine. Nope.
Piping, Rebar and concrete seemed to go OK. And then, the pool cracked. Yep, it cracked about dead center at the 20 foot mark. At first they said everything was OK, just let the plaster fill it in. I forced them to inject repair epoxy into the crack. It was from the top of one side down to the bottom, over to the other side and up. No idea what could cause this.
On to installation of the tile and coping. Some of the tile was installed upside down. The contractor was chatting with my wife in Spanish and said "Do you think they owners will notice?" Yeah. Nice. It was fixed.
Then after installation of the tile and coping, I noticed "hollow" sounds tapping on the tile and coping. Let me stop here and first state that when they say "Flag Stone", they mean Sandstone. Yep Sandstone that continues to flake and dissolve 13 years later. I had them redo the tile and the coping to fix the voids behind them.
But looking at the coping, it was HORRIBLE. All the pieces were mismatched. Instead of a smooth ring around the pool, all of these thick and thin pieces were mismatched around. And everything had machine marks from the cutting. On the mismatch? Oh, that is natural rock. Too bad. On the machine marks? I personally spent days with heavy duty sanders to remove the marks. I had to take time off from work.
Then came the pouring of the pool deck. I looked at the square box pencil-jets and noticed they were not straight. I called our supervisor, no response. I called our sales guy, no response. I put up a sign to not pour the deck until we had these fixed. It was ignored and the deck poured with all 6 of the jets turned and twisted in various directions. They-looked-horrible!
Finally, with ALL of these problems, the owner (who lives in the neighborhood!) finally came over and also could not believe all of the things that went wrong with the pool. He offered to jackhammer the deck and fix the pencil jets. That would have taken weeks, and we were already getting to summer! I agreed to covers to hide the poor installation. I should have let him fix it properly.
Equipment worked OK and we got it started up. Hot tub didn't work, broken automatic valves. Then a month later, the primary pump failed. It was 1/2 hp. I did not realize they replaced it with a full 1 hp pump. My "boost pump" was only 3/4 hp...Over the years, that 1 hp pump cost me thousands of dollars in electricity costs.
And I've found out that several items my sales guy pushed to include in my equipment are garbage. The only thing the Pool Frog did was give me enough space in my piping to install a Salt Water Chlorine Generator (this year). And don't get me started on the "ozone generator". Worthless junk! And the "mineral cartridges" are actually detrimental to the pool! Never add metals to your water, unless you like stains!
Again, the coping has flaked and disintegrated and dropped sand and flakes into the pool. For years. And still is doing this to this day.
What else is wrong? The pool light niches were not straight (screw should be right at the TOP!). The main drain is not straight. Come on, man! That should be the simplest thing to do. Well, the pencil jets were not straight either, so what should I expect...
And this year? 13 years later, I was draining and refilling the pool (CYA Stabilizer block from the STUPID trichlor tablets). As I filled the pool, I noticed the flat block leading into the skimmer at one of the pool was higher than the other. They should be EXACTLY the same height. The top of the block should match with the bottom of the tile. It does at one end. At the other, they made the bottom flush with the tile.
Again, a lot of this was fixed, sometimes after repeated attempts. And the pool has generally held up. Normal equipment repairs.
What went well? Quartzite (Diamond Brite) plaster. Still looks good after 13 years. And the Sundek coating (Bullion Coatings) has done very well. Oh, and I have great stories to tell people about the adventure, like the crazy girlfriend/boyfriend stories we all have.
Please consider any other "builder". They are not a builder. They are a design and contract out shop. And not a good one. read more