My wife and I were looking for a pool to be inspected at a home that we were buying in North Andover this past summer. I contacted Stuart, he walked me through the details of what his inspection would be and it sounded great, he quoted $450 and we scheduled it, and met on the agreed date and time. He essentially walks around the pool and looks at the equipment as if to simply check if its all there, 10 minutes. He then uses another 25-30 minutes of my time to rub shoulders with the owner, a predominant builder in the area. They talk shop for just about the whole time he was there, discussing future builds etc and clearly trying to get the chance to build a pool for this guy. At some point I successfully steered the conversation back to the pool inspection and start asking questions. He answered some of them and simply said, in front of the home owner, that the pool is only 4-5 years old, is in perfect condition and he gives it what he called an A++ rating and that we should have no concerns surrounding the pool, mind you there was a leak in the basement on a pump, but he gives it an A++ rating and suggests the pump should be addressed. Fast forward to after we close and when we hire a pool maintenance company. They tell us pretty much right away that the pool has significant issues. Repairs that followed and took almost 2 months and multiple contractors included: Cracked lagoon under a waterfall feature leaking water into the surrounding pool foundation, $3400; Polaris pool cleaner not operating due to its internal mechanism having freeze damage, $380; due to lack of maintenance and the calcium not having been maintained the plaster surface was significantly pitted and cracked in most areas of the pool requiring it to be resurfaced, $8800; salt cell was running maxxed out at 100% and only achieving a 1.4ppm chlorine level, salt cell was junk, $1750; broken pool skimmers, broken skimmer door, $125; bypass valve for pool heater found to be closed and after looking back at photos I took on the day of inspection see it was closed then as well, heater jacket was cracked and when we opened the valve and turned on the heater it poured all over our basement floor the night before my 40th birthday, no hot tub, no warmed pool for our guests, just a $4600 bill for a new heater to be installed. His only intention was to get in front of the previous owner, get in his good graces and take our $450. This guy is a crook. Stuart you should be ashamed of not representing us the way you were hired to do. Your selfish act cost us close $20k. It isn't the issue of paying $450 and getting incompetent service, its the blatant disregard for anyone else's welfare but your own, steer clear folks. Go to Family Pools, incredible service, incredible crew, incredible pricing, patience for questions, you name it they've got it. read more
