ST CYR'S POOL & SPA

Hire this company at your own peril!
St. Cyr's was supposed to open our pool and perform weekly cleaning services. Unfortunately for us, their incompetence and poor communication (amongst their employees) resulted in them ruining our filtration system. To add insult to injury, after they tried unsuccessfully to repair the damage they had done, the owner J.R. refused to take my wife's call and had his receptionist tell her "J.R. thinks your expectations are too high and doesn't want your account anymore, you don't have to pay your bill". Seriously?? The coward refused to speak with my wife himself. Disgraceful.
Here is what happened:
Apparently St. Cyr's breaks up the pool opening responsibilities. The sent out crew to our house to take the pool cover off and start the filtration system. During this process one of their teammates decided we should have our filter acid washed, so he removed it from the filter housing and switched the whole system off (including turning off the circuit breaker). Neither my wife our I saw this and only pieced it together later when the guy who did this came back out to try to fix it.
The next day another team member came to the house to add chemicals, skim the pool etc. This time I was home and decided to greet him personally. Within two minutes of meeting the guy he start to tell me that this isn't his real job, his real job is selling tobacco or something like that and he only does this because they pay him a butt load of money to work part time because "he can hold an intelligent conversation with customers and most of the team can't". He must have referenced his "real job" five more times, clearly feeling that cleaning pools was beneath him. First, I could care less if this is or is not his real job, honest work is honest work as far as I'm concerned. Second, he was so focused on bragging to me about how accomplished he was in his other job he didn't bother paying attention to what he was doing.  At some point he notices the system is off and THIS IS KEY instead of calling the office to find out why, he simply turns the breaker back on and starts up the system. I watched him do this with my own eyes, but thought nothing of it, because I didn't know they had removed the filter from the system. Captain America then adds diatamatious earth to the system, which flows right through the system into the pool creating a powdery residue all over the pool. I later learned that this should have told him the filter wasn't in the system, but did god's gift to pools make the connection? Nope. Again, I didn't either, but that's why I hired a pool company, it was our second season with the pool and I didn't know much about it. So, this guy says he'll call the shop and get someone to take a look at the system and leaves (leaving the filter system going). We didn?t' hear from St. Cyr for three days. We later learned from one of their employees that Mr. I'm too good for this job lied to the owner and said he didn't touch the system that the timer started it on its own. He knows full well he flipped the circuit breaker and is simply lying to cover his mistake.
By the time they did come out the system had built up so much pressure that the seal on the filter had snapped. They tried in vain to fix the system over the next week or two and it was at this point that the owner must have realized that gravity (we needed a new filter system) and decided to punch out. 
I still debate filing a claim against them in small claims court for the damage they've done to our system as our pool hasn't been the same since they touched it. In fairness most of the employees at St. Cyr's were polite and seemed knowledgeable. Unfortunately, the owner JR and this one employee seem to lack any professional integrity, I suspect if it wasn?t' for the fact that there are relatively few options for pool maintenance in MA, this company would have been out of business long ago.

His original quote was over $1000 less than the final price. He was two months late in providing the service. He did a terrible job with the final product and I am worried that the bad footing will result in a failed liner in the near future. The installer was rude and very unprofessional. He originally quoted to just replace the liner but after he started he said he would have to also replace the wall. I had to rip off a side of my deck so that he could get in. Then It took months for him to come back. His installer didn't clean up after they took the liner even though that was part of the quote. The installer seemed more interested in just taking the scrap metal. Then he left without putting on all the caps on the wall frame but by then we were just happy to get rid of him.

As always, prompt, friendly and informative service. Diagnosed problem and made effort to temporarily solve it -- but ultimately needed new liner. Rough estimate for new liner was given, and ultimately went with another vendor on basis of price (about $2000 difference). Nevertheless, I have always had good service from St Cyr's, whether it is in store or at home. I recommend them highly, but wish their pricing was a bit better -- not only for things like liners, but also for service calls....

The quote included the prices for unforeseen obstacles and the final payment was below the quote.