GENIE POOLS & OUTDOOR LIVING - MIAMI, FLORIDA

I contracted in late April with Genie Pools for a pool and deck renovation. The salesperson was very nice and promised all work would be done in a professional manner. After waiting two weeks to get on the work schedule and having not heard from anyone in the company, I began to pursue the salesperson. I called and emailed to no avail. I was promised time and time again that the contractor would call me but this never happened. Two men were dispatched to my home on May 15 and worked for 2 hours. After calling again and again and again being told that the contractor would call me and this not happening I figured I was in the wrong place. I have been trying to cancel my contract for over 3 weeks. Excuses and more excuses, lack of responsiveness and willingness to terminate this contract amicably. The company pretents to take over half of a $6800 deposit for two hours of wrok performed. Looking now at their record on Angie's list the best advice I can offer if you are looking for a pool contractor is: find another company. dont fall for their song and dance as that is all that it is. If there was a rating lower than F, that is what I would give them for their total lack of customer service, work performance, transparency and zero work ethic.

After a thorough research and careful consideration, we decided to use Genie Pools for the building of our new pool because they gave us a good price and promised what appeared to be a professional and good quality work. From the moment we signed the contract, our experience with Genie Pools went downhill really fast. The absolute lack of supervision by the construction manager, Gabriel Guardia (who is also the owner's son), resulted in many issues both during and after the construction. Describing all of them would require a book, so here are just a few of the bigger headaches. About two months after the pool was finished it started losing 3 inches of water a day. Genie Pools had their plumber fix the problem and told us that the original work was so bad that it was against code and it should have never passed inspection. I presume that statement was meant to put the blame on the inspector, but whether the inspector should have caught the problem does not change the fact that it was a result of bad quality work and lack of supervision by Genie Pools. Also, they did such a horrible job compacting the backfill that they had to come back every other month for almost the entire first year after completion because the pavers were sinking in around the pool. Actually, the pavers still have to reset about once  a year as the pool is settling in. Again, had the job been properly supervised, this should and would not have been an issue. Genie Pools outsources their construction work because they do not have their own crew, but that should require more supervision and not less. After the Diamond Brite was put on, my entire back yard was blue from the residual trash the work crew poured out and it even overflowed to my neighbor?s lawn. The construction manager was so lazy that it took me many phone calls to convince him to come out just to take a look. On the phone he said that some blue is inevitable. Once he came out he said: ?yes, this is really bad, I would not accept this at my house either.? Again, I guess he did not realize that it was his company that created the mess and his lack of supervision that allowed it to happen. As far as phone calls are concerned, the construction manager is screening his phone and does not return voicemails. As a result, the only way to get a hold of him when asking to fix something they did incorrectly is to call from a different phone line every time. It is very childish and clearly a sign of being lazy and unprofessional. I even had to report them to the Better Business Bureau for false advertising because they did not honor an advertised 3 year warranty on all equipment. My pool timer broke after about two years and they said that it is only covered by the manufacturer's 1 year warranty. Their documents clearly showed that all equipment is covered for 3 years without any exceptions. They have a healthy amount of other Better Business Bureau complaints and negative feedback on various sites. Interestingly, on the yellow pages website, after every negative feedback that reduces their overall rating, there are many five star feedbacks in rapid succession with very short descriptions. Although I have no proof, given the dishonest and unprofessional attitude I have received from them, I would not be surprised if those positive feedbacks were posted by the company owners and affiliates. Doing fake damage control after the fact seems to be their preferred method over doing the job well in the first place. 

The spa area is falling apart. The sand compacting was done incorrectly, and the pavers are starting to sink. Everything is falling apart and now the spa is leaking. They specifically stated that there would be a ten year warranty, but they have not fulfilled that.

We will never use Genie Outdoor Living again. They ended up breaking the threshold to our back door and we had to call a plumber to fix a pipe they broke when they were removing our original old cement walkway and patio. Our initial contact with Genie Outdoor Living was with Carlos Jimenez who came out to our home to provide us with an estimate for paving our backyard which was approximately 950 square feet. Carlos was very nice, punctual, and professional. But we ended up with a much narrower walkway leading from our front yard, thru our fence and to our backyard, than we initially had. When I brought these issues to their attention, Gabriel, the construction manager, refused to repair the broken threshold and we had to pay the plumber out of pocket. Our main concern though was our narrow walkway. During our initial meeting with Carlos, the architect, we asked for the same dimensions as we had before. They were to remove our cement walkway and replace with nice concrete pavers. but we ended up with a walkway that is much too narrow and that you can barely walk on. They didn't care if we were happy with the work they had provided or not. I guess since we were not spending $25,000 on a new pool, they figured we were not valuable customers. We tried contacting the office manager, Liz, Carlos, and Gabriel, many times, but no one ever returned our phone calls. They ended up taking the final payment from a credit card we had used to pay for the material previously, but the final payment was without our authorization.

Great Experience done in 2 months start to finish as promised. Always helpful,easy to deal with.Great company.

I used Genie because they had the best initial price without stunts like beating other quotes, out of the gate they gave me a great price and delivered the finished pool within a short time. My first quote was in July and I have my pool in October including weather delays and my own travel delays. They kept in constant contact throughout the process and even provided referrals for electric that THEY assumed responsibility for, and all thier subcontracted people were responsible to them and were all quality craftsmen. For an imperfect task they are as close to perfect as I can believe is possible!

The construction was quick and on schedule, initially. It began 4 weeks after signing the contract. The excavation, framing, plumbing, shotcrete, tile and coping was completed in 5 weeks. The county inspections were scheduled efficiently. The only delay was due to the electrical work. There was a 4 week gap before the electricians arrived and they had to come five times to complete the work due to poor planning. There was a 3 week gap before the diamond bright plaster finish was scheduled. The only unexpected problems I encountered were removal of a fence for the excavator,the electrical panel upgrade, a cut bell south cable and I'm still waiting for removal of a leftover pile of rocks in the front yard.

OUR SWIMMING POOL IS ABSOLUTELY PERFECT. IT IS THE PERFECT SIZE FOR OUR WHOLE FAMILY. THE DETAILING WAS DONE BEAUTIFULLY. I COULD NOT HAVE ASKED FOR A BETTER COMPANY TO BUILD IT FOR US.

I DID NOT LIKE THE WORK THAT THEY PERFORMED FOR ME. THE COMMUNICATION BARRIERS WERE REALLY HARD TO DEAL WITH. THEY DID A VERY POOR JOB ON THE INSTALLATION. THEY ONLY CAME AND WORKED ON IT FOR A LITTLE BIT EVERY TWO WEEKS.