As owners of two Summer Escapes pools, the question of differences between Intex and Summer Escapes products is of interest to us.
We bought our first Summer Escapes pool (10' x 30", 1000 gal) in the summer of 2007. We've had it set up for 4 or 5 summers (didn't set it up every year since purchase), and have never had any problems with the equipment. To be more accurate, we have had the usual problems with inadequate filtration (undersized pump/filter), as well as pool chemistry problems (due pretty much to our own ignorance), but have not had any equipment failure troubles. There was one small leak on the top ring this year, which was solved with the use of the patch kit. The original pump has now run for thousands of hours (usually runs 24/7 while the pool is set up). This pool is labeled as being a General Foam Plastics product (genfoam.com on the web), and GenFoam is a company with a US presence and address. We never had any warranty-type contact with GenFoam, but did order replacement parts (small stuff -- filter cartridges and pool wall plugs) a few years ago -- no problems with that purchase.
In short, we've been very happy with our older Summer Escapes pool, and purchased another larger (18' x 48", ~6000 gal) Summer Escapes pool at Sam's just a few weeks ago. I did notice that it said 'Polygroup' on the box and literature, but didn't think much about it at the time. You're right, there is no physical address to be found for this company anywhere in the documentation that comes with the pool. Somewhere it says that Polygroup is located in Macau. I've just been reading online, and came across a bunch of very negative reviews of Polygroup customer service from people who bought Summer Escapes pools in 2012 and 2013. So, maybe the brand passed from GenFoam to Polygroup around 2011? Those online reviews (from people who had problems with their Summer Escapes pool, and called Polygroup for help) are pretty discouraging (endless hold times on the phone, failure to ship promised replacement parts, 'losing' paperwork and emails from customers, etc.); enough so that if I had read them first, I would have had second thoughts about our purchase of this new pool. We did purchase the 2-year additional coverage from Sam's, so, if there is some major defect like a ripped seam on the pool next summer, we'll hopefully have recourse from there.
The GenFoam history of the Summer Escapes brand might be helpful in searching for replacement parts.
Regarding possible differences in equipment, I raised the question of different inner diameter on the filter in another thread -- the two Summer Escapes pumps we have both seem to expect a filter cartridge with 1 3/4" center openings.
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