American Pool & Spas

I would like to share my experience with this company, I am going to start by saying that they need to change their slogan to "Thank you for your patience" because certainly, you are going to hear this a lot from them. Here is what happened: September/22: After a research we ended up choosing American Pools and Spas to build our pool, the company seemed more reliable, but I think it was because of Matt, the sales person, he is professional and very convincing, unfortunely he is the only one who provided a good work for us. We signed the contract in 09/26/22. October/22: they started working on the permits within the County. By the end of November (11/22/22) all the permits were approved. Nothing happened in December and after asking them for a start date they came up with an internal deadline for the construction, that we were not aware of it (they did not mention that when we signed the contract). January/18: they started sending emails asking for changes in the project but never said a word about when the work would start and kept saying: "Thanks for your patience". January/27th: we received another fake promised that our project would be released to construction the following week and of course, it never happened. February/5th: we decided to cancel the project, we lost our faith in the company. They have no accountabilty, no commitment, only vague promisses that they never honored. They tried to convince us to keep the project, the owner called us, but they still did not provide any dates, we never heard an apology from them, just the usual: "Thanks for your patience". For canceling the contract we were penalized losing our entire deposit and on (February/9th) they promised to return our payment for the turf, that we added later, in 2 weeks (February/23rd) and it was another fake promised because, after the 2 weeks passed by we did not received anything, so we had to send another email (February/27th) and the answers was: "That check is being issued today and should be in the mail tomorrow. We thank you for your patience." The icing on the cake, to close this terrible experience with this company, today 03/06/23, an Orange County inspector visited us to check the pool, because they did not canceled the project with the County and of course, I had to contact them AGAIN to inform that and ask them to do THEIR job. I really don't recommend this company, they are good to sell but they don't deliver. They act like amateurs, they give you nothing but promisses, they never acknowlegde their mistakes and they never keep their promisses. All in all, we ended up without a pool and without our initial deposit.

This is the initial review I left with the BBB three months ago. Nothing has basically changed, so I can literally just copy and paste it. Avoid this company. I really do not want to leave this review. My experience with this company started out good. However, to say we are unsatisfied with their work would be a severe understatement. Structurally, our pool appears to be fine, although based on my current experiences, I question what surprises are in store for us, down the road. To me, this project looks like they felt like they did "just enough", and we would take care of the remaining items. Here's some examples: 1.) Our pool and spa both have this blue powder all over the place. I don't know what it is. I have asked about it, and gotten no response. Some of it has gone away - perhaps into the plumbing? I don't know, I am not a pool expert. 2.) Our concrete pad already has an area that is chipping off. After a month. Sure, things happen. I get it. But instead of ignoring my inquiries, just please come fix the work that we paid you to do. 3.) Perhaps most frustrating is the way they left our pool tiles. There is grout everywhere. The grout lines look like somebody did them while half asleep. It looks tacky, and I think it's really unacceptable. 4.) When they placed our fence, they put it in the wrong location. Okay, things happen. After a while, they did come back and fix it. I give them credit for that. But it would have been a nice gesture to offer to repair the grass from where the fence was initially. If the other issues weren't ongoing, I would probably just forget about this. But here we are. 5.) Back to our concrete pad - there are several low areas where water just collects. Eventually it goes away, and I understand there will be isolated instances where things like this happen. But water sitting repeatedly in the same area can't be a good thing. I'm pretty handy around the house, and I understand things happen. But there is really no excuse for this. I am a web developer, and this would be the equivalent of me building a site that was functional, but looked like it was built in the early 1990's. I hope I am tasked with updating this review after they make this pool area look amazing, just like the photos they push on their social media channels. There's a reason my pool isn't featured in their social media posts. Because it's sloppy. If I produced this kind of work, I would expect to be peppered with criticisms like this, too.

Construction went fine, few snags and some repairs after construction, main problem pavers on raised area have sank. Paver patio is only guaranteed one year. Poor workmanship on paver construction, shouldn't collapse after 2 years. We are now left with having to find a paver company to repair our patio. The one company we called asked $1800 minimum to come out.

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They put my pool in and I am not happy with them. I had a million cracks in the concrete, they came back and fixed it a couple of times but that was it. They're not coming back to repair them and repaint. They came to my house twice, repaired what they could repair and said they weren't coming back again. I wouldn't recommend them.

This was our 2nd in-ground pool since 2007. I felt the pricing for our project was fair, and we enjoyed working with our salesperson, Ed. There were minor issues through the construction process, and more minor issues within the warranty period. But, nothing major, and they always responded (although sometimes it took several calls and emails to get a response), and addressed any problems we had. The one issue that would prevent me from recommending them is that we specifically chose this company after we were told that they didn't use any "subs" for their pool projects, with the exception of the gunite process. That was not true. We love our pool, and haven't had any major problems with it. Our biggest disappointment is the interior finish. It is not consistent at all, and when compared with our first pool (done by Champagne Pools), it is definitely sub-standard work. We have rust stains appearing 2 years later, where the metal forms are around the steps. It's a beautiful pool.

There were several missteps with the installation of the pool. First, there seemed to be communication issues between what we were told by the salesperson and what was actually ordered. When errors were found, they were very slow to respond and correct. There was at least 3-4 weeks where nothing was done on the pool which caused a delay in our ability to close. We had the CO from the county before the pool was completed. Our lender would not close without the pool being completely done.
Some of the subcontractors were very good. Others were sloppy. We had a leak and it took four trips out for them to fix it. One guy left ink spots on the spa ledge where he put down the tool used to test for the leak. We have a granite spillway which was cut in a rectangle to place on a round spa. It looks very sloppy. There was an issue with one of the doors for the screen enclosure that took them two months to resolve. The pebble finish has gaps in it where the pebbles have come off. I expected some loss but there are some spots that are larger than I would consider acceptable. The guy that did the finish coat of paint on the deck and pool edge left a large paint smear on the granite.
We used this company because it was the only one allowed by our builder to be on-site while the home was under construction. If we were to do it over again, we would not use this pool company.

He didn't give me a quote. They never called me back, how would you want to deal with somebody that tells you they're going to send you something and they said they would call you and they never did.

They are great. We had one little problem that needed to be addressed immediately - I called the president of the company and the issues were resolved quickly.

I should start off this report that we were very satisfied and pleased that we chose American Pools and Spa's to build our pool and spa.

From start-to-finish, they were very helpful, professional and communicated regularly and proactively with us.

We started with our pool designer (Pete Starks -- ask for Pete!), he was very patient as we changed the design several times. They are very helpful in working within your budget.

If any issues arose during construction (which they were few), then they were addressed right away.

The contract was between American Pool and Engel Homes. It was a lease back by the developers who had the pool installed. My property manager notified me that there was a hose constantly in the pool. We wondered why this was and she made several visits to the property and it was ALWAYS in the pool. My property manager, Randal Baker, called several leak detection companies, and none of them knew what to do. I called the president of American Pool and Spa, Ben Evans, and he assured me that the problem would be resolved. Additionally, he also advised me that the pool only had a 1-year warranty. It is just ridiculous for a $65,000 pool to have such a short warranty. Ben Evans explored and looked at the pool, but wouldn’t tell us what was wrong. Nobody can figure-out where the leak is coming. There has been nothing but problems with the company. No one in his company responds to calls. We have tried to contact them in many ways, and they are so unresponsive. I would just like to know how we should solve this problem. If he can solve this problem, I may use him again in the future and adjust the grades accordingly.

WE DEALT WITH BEN AT AMERICAN POOLS AND WE WOULD RECOMMEND HIM AND THE COMPANY TO ANYONE LOOKING FOR A POOL AT THEIR HOME. THEY DID AN EXCELLENT JOB FROM DESIGN TO INSTALLATION.

THEY USED GOOD POOL EQUIPMENT. SEMINOLE EXCAVATION DID A GREAT JOB! THE PEBBLE TEK FINISH (GREAT JOB)! I WAS ALSO PLEASED WITH THE SOLAR COMPANY ON THE INSTALLATION AND INSTRUCTION OF HOW TO USE THE SOLAR. CONCRETE SUB IS FAIR (HAD TO COME BACK AND FIX SOME OF THEIR MISTAKES). I WAS DISAPPOINTED WITH THE WATERFALL/LIGHT FIXTURE AND ESPECIALLY UPSET THAT IT CANNOT BE REPAIRED. I AM VERY IMPRESSED WITH GATOR MCNEIL, THE CONSTRUCTION FOREMAN. HE DID A GREAT JOB IN SPITE OF SOME OF THE PROBLEMS THAT OCCURRED THAT WERE OUT OF HIS CONTROL.

I CALLED AMERICAN POOLS & SPA (WHO ORIGINALLY PUT IN MY POOL) AND THEY SAID THEY WOULD SEND A SERVICE GUY OUT TO SEE ME. HE CAME THE NEXT DAY AND HAD ALL THE PARTS TO FIX THE PROBLEM WITH HIM. IN A MATTER OF AN HOUR OUR POOL WAS UP AND RUNNING.