Stay far, far away from these guys. I don't know who their fan club is - but it isn't us. Our experience was that Ryan Hart / Waterline Aquatics took our (substantial) deposit, made a bunch of excuses, and then literally vanished with our money. We spent over a year chasing him, taking him to court (won), and garnishing his bank account to get our deposit back.
In summer of 2022, we signed a contract and gave a deposit to Ryan/Waterline for a pool to be built by the following Memorial Day 2023. Ryan assured us that it would be a simple job. Over the Fall/Winter of 2022, we reached out numerous times to check that Ryan had what he needed. Ryan was prompt, responsive and led us to believe he had filed the permit, had what he needed, and that everything was on track.
In Spring of 2023, he blew his scheduled start date. No sign of him, or any of his crew. Calls to him went to voicemail. Emails took over a week or more to respond. When he finally did respond, it was with excuses. Something was off.
In mid-April he sent an email to inform us we would not have a pool by our agreed-to date because of "permitting issues". Turns out he hadn't actually filed for permits when he said. He then made more excuses, saying with the 'new' information he received, it would be - at best - late September 2023 before the pool would be completed. His lack of responsiveness and careless behavior throughout this time was unprofessional. We lost faith, and at that point no longer believed what Ryan was saying. So we fired him.
According to the terms of his contract since nothing had been done it was possible to terminate and get a full refund of our deposit - and that's what we asked for. It was then that Ryan completely vanished. We called. We emailed. We sent letters. We engaged a lawyer who attempted contact. No response. Ryan was just (poof) gone. Our money? Also gone.
We were left with no option but to take him to court. Even then, he never once showed up or responded to any of the court proceedings. It was like dealing with a ghost (yet his social media accounts showed high activity from him). We easily won our case in court, but had to actually garnish his bank account in order to get our money back.
When we reflect on our experience, we believe that Ryan must have been struggling for money, and probably decided that keeping our deposit was the cheapest business loan he'd ever get. Covering our court fees (which the court required him to do) was far cheaper than paying current interest rates. :(
It was a long, costly and painful ordeal. We post this in order to save others from our experience. read more