A cavat for anyone buying a new pool

[Simmons99]

Luvtlee,

I don't think your pool company is all that bad - 9 days late to start the dig? That can happen really easily since they don't subcontract. You have a couple of people quit or get sick and it can put a small builder that does everything inhouse back a week and a half.

Personally - I have had friends that the pool builder wouldn't come out to start the plumbing without being paid another 20%, and then they wouldn't come out to do the electrical without another check - it took them 15 months to get done and they never came back to clean-up.

A few weeks late I would expect from any builder - even the best ones. Who knows maybe they ran into something unexpected during a dig for another customer - you wouldn't want them to run from your house if they hit a sewer line because they promised another customer they would be there tomorrow.

[Luvtlee]

This is true, Simmons, it is nice to know that they don't just leave behind their customers to get to the next on time. A few weeks behind schedule won't be bad, compared to the horror stories I've heard from some. We're just concerned that ours is going to turn into one of those horror stories. For instance, our designer highly recommended the Dichlor system and told us that it costs the same as the SWG. We went Dichlor since he so highly recommened it, and he told us that if we changed our minds and wanted to go back to the SWG that it would be no problem at all since they cost the same, approximately $1600. Well, now our super is telling us that if we want to switch to the SWG it's going to cost us an extra $1200. Where is the integrity any more? Why are we being told one thing from one person and something different from another? It's incredibly frustrating.

[Simmons99]

I would talk to the person that you originally got the quote from about switching. Other buyers be aware that construction companies (don't know if this also applies to pool companies) usually charge more for work on a change order than under the original projec. This may be because they have to deliver again to the job site or change the plans and resubmit to the county or they just figure they've got you.

Hope everything works out. We are about 1 1/2 weeks behind. You can see my "neighbors" post in off topic - they have been a pain. The first inspector was late, we had a lot of rain and a cave-in that needed to be repaired.

[Luvtlee]

I don't even know how many weeks behind we are now. Best guess, about 3-4 weeks behind. They dug our pool on June 1st and 2nd, and here it is the 21st of July and we just had our gunite completed. They haven't even started on tile, decking or coping. The contract completion date is July 24th (3 days from now). We aren't even getting a big pool done, it's a rather small "pool only" job. Originally they said that it would be done in 6 weeks, 10 weeks at most, due to it being a small job. Here we are 7 1/2 weeks into the project and no end in site yet. How it normally works with this company on our job is they do one day of work and about 10-14 days of nothing.

Anyway, they're a member of "Aqua Tech", that is one reason we hired them (it sounded good), but we are now wondering just what that means? Does anyone here know anything about them? Anyone that had any personal experiences with a member of Aqua Tech, and anyone have any advice? Thanks in advance from this newbie.