GOLD MEDAL POOLS & OUTDOOR LIVING, INC
About us
Since 1970 Gold Medal Pools and the Sandler family have been creating, designing and building custom pools in the Dallas, McKinney, Frisco, Plano and Fort Worth area. Families now spend more time outside around the swimming pool. Gold Medal Pools is not only the best in custom swimming pools, we are outdoor living specialists! As well as our years of experience to building swimming pools, we also design and build your dream backyard; from outdoor kitchens, patios and fire pits to cabanas, pool houses and outdoor televisions and speakers, including safety features such as pool nets and fencing and gates. Building a pool is not a process…It’s an experience…Our years of hands-on construction experience are a priceless asset to you and your family. We look forward to working together, call Gold Medal Pools at 972.712.4653(GOLD).
Business highlights
Services we offer
Cabanas, Driveway Gates, Fences, Fire Pits, Fire Places, Outdoor Bathrooms/Showers, Outdoor Kitchens, Outdoor Televisions and Speakers, Patios, Planned Pet Areas, Pool Houses, Roof Structures, Safety Pool Nets and Fences, Secured Child Play Areas
Accepted Payment Methods
- CreditCard
Number of Stars | Image of Distribution | Number of Ratings |
---|---|---|
54% | ||
12% | ||
0% | ||
8% | ||
27% |
Having previously built a pool at my home in 2005, I was prepared for another few months of frustration and disappointment during the pool building process. I was determined not have the same experience again this time. For several months, I did a ton of research and receive referrals from friends to find the "very best" pool builder. We were looking for a company that could build a quality pool, provide excellent service during construction and after completion. We wanted to be sure to find a pool builder who would work with us and listen to our ideas and concerns. We talked to several pool builders, before selecting Gold Medal Pools for the following reasons: 1) John Kirby, our salesman. He will work with you from your first initial contact to final completion of your pool. He listens to what you want and then custom designs the pool to fit your needs. This is a great advantage as it eliminates any confusion that may occur from salesperson to pool construction manager. John is dependable, conscientious, patient and trustworthy. 2) Gold Medal Pools uses quality products and uses very few subcontractors. Gold Medal Pools leans heavily on work done by its own employees, not subcontractors. The company is up to date on the latest technology in the pool industry and competitively priced. 3) Our pool construction builder/manager, Keith Robinson. He is there each step of the way to make sure that you are happy with your pool. He makes you feel comfortable when asking questions. Keith takes great pride in his work. He is very detailed oriented and was respectful of our property. He responds in a timely fashion to your phone calls. We are extremely proud of our new pool and spa. We happily recommend Gold Medal Pools without any hesitations!
TX. We were referred to them from a
friend and from the first step in their showroom through the finished product
and attending Pool School, we had a great experience. This is the first pool we have built so we
did not know anything going into the process.
Sales/Finance:
John, in the sales department, took his time to explain the
entire process to us, including various options we had in the financing
space. We worked with their finance broker,
Craig, who again took the time to answer all of our questions and was able to
refer us to a lender for a second mortgage that fit our needs. John came out to view our space and discuss
what we were looking to get. He was very
thorough and, based on our budget, drew up some plans and presented us with a
great 3D example on the computer, showed us materials and examples in the
showroom (inside and outside), and talked through the quality of the materials
and building standards that we would be getting with Gold Medal. We really appreciated that he stuck to our
budget and was able to include some better quality finishes. Throughout the
construction and even after completion, John would always reply quickly if I
had any questions or concerns and coordinate efforts with other
personnel/departments if necessary.
Next was the financing portion (which was completely
separate from Gold Medal) and it was the longest part in the whole experience!
Construction:
Once we had the financing all settled, we were quickly
scheduled for our ?dig day?. We were
assigned a Project Manager, Matt, who kept in contact with us throughout the
entire process and was on-site for all of the major steps along the way. From ?dig day? until completion, our pool
only took 30 days (we built in the wintertime and did not have any city
inspections to contend with). All of the
different crews were very professional and exhibited extreme care and skill in
everything they did. If we had any
questions, Matt was always very responsive and took the time to talk through
our questions and/or concerns.
Service/Maintenance:
Once the pool was finished, the service department came to
get everything running. The service
person, Welcome, was also very thorough in checking everything, labeling all of
the equipment, and walked me through some basic information. We then went to Pool School and learned all
of the details we needed in order to start maintaining our pool.
We could not be happier with our gorgeous pool and the
entire experience with Gold Medal.
Everyone was very professional and very patient, attentive, and
responsive which we appreciated even more since we were going through a new
experience as first-time pool owners. The
quality of workmanship and materials is very obvious when you look at the
pool. We have even had landscaping and
fencing company owners comment on how they can tell the quality work put into
our pool.
She then came up with a quote which we felt was on the higher side - but I had heard good reviews about them from our friends and it was important for me to get the job done right, especially since I am on the road quite a bit. So we decided to go with them.
Once we signed up, we paid $500 for them to get the required permits from the city and the HOA. She had promised a 8 week schedule if the weather held out. We started the dig on Aug 21, 2015. Steve called me up a day before to let me know that the job would start.
The whole experience from start to finish was as painless as it could be [the backyard was obviously like a war zone while the work was going on], but on the whole, everything was very professionally done, with multiple crews being scheduled and orchestrated by our capable project manager, Keith Gant.
Our pool was commissioned Oct 20th. I could NOT be happier. They have delivered to my expectations, in a professional painless way. I would highly recommend them to anyone looking for a quality build.
moving in. During construction, Gold Medal communicated very well with our builder, kept the site extremely tidy, and there was never a problem. The pool was complete before the house was finished and our builder said that Gold Medal was the best pool builder he had ever worked with. That is certainly true for us.
From design through construction we were very pleased. We love the design. After the pool was finished we mentioned a piece of stone that seemed to be flaking and within a couple of days the entire piece was replaced. When we had a minor problem with a Green Egg they installed. Some ribs were not able to cook properly when I tried to use it. Gold Medal showed up to fix it the day after I called and brought wood for the smoker and a gift certificate for a local butcher--now that's what I call customer service!
Since we built several of our neighbors have also built with Gold Medal and are happy with the choice. We've watched another company we had considered show up, dig holes, and vanish for weeks at a time. We were swimming before neighbors who had started construction earlier but were at the plastering stage!
Gold Medal designed a great pool, were incredibly responsive, and have been great with follow up. We can highly recommend Gold Medal.
1) Gold Medal: was in the middle on price, but have a great showroom and sales person (Erik Gieger) was very professional
2) Robertson Pools: Long standing reputation and did a good job of explain what things were and how the process works. Liked them. Fair pricing.
3)Riverbend Sandler: really good people, almost went with them. Probably should have. Fair pricing, professional and good showroom.
4) Summerhill Pools:fairly responsive and reasonable pricing.
5) McGee Pools: Owner came out to meet us, never heard from him again. No response to emails or calls
6) Puryear Custom Pools: very nice people, fair pricing and professional. Came close to using.
7) Another small company that I can't remember the name of.
We evaluated all the quotes and visited each of their showrooms (something I encourage you to do). We had them explain their building process to us and timelines. Erik was very professional and GM had a very impressive showroom that demonstrated what they could do in building our pools. Their first price to us was over 20% higher than any other company (which should have deterred us). We told them that their pricing was not competitive so they came back on price and were now roughly 10% higher. We went back and forth a few times and honestly we were considering Riverbend (which we probably should have used), but my wife liked Erik and their showroom is very impressive. They also had so many references, should have called them ;-)
My wife is an attorney so she modified the contract, which was set up on a draw system that gives them % of the money during different checkpoints during the building. The one thing that saved us was that she set up their final draw to be ONLY AFTER the punchlist was completed. The other key lessons for us here were to make sure exactly which equipment they were using (They are horrible about substituting cheaper stuff), agree exactly how much decking you want (they charge a fortune to add so estimate high and give back if you don't need), make sure you know your sewer and gas lines are nowhere near your pool or include moving in the price and pick exactly the stone/tile/finish you want as costs increase exponentially after contract is signed. They final piece was that they estimated completion to be around 2 months...wow, that was wrong! They had given us a complete planning book that showed how each step was supposed to work, it turned out to be a joke.
They showed up to sketch out the pool and we met our foreman (Gene Hunnicutt nice guy, completely incompetent and they source of many of our problems so if you really are going to use them you don't want him on your project). They marked out the pool and the next day the digging crew came. This part was actually very painless, sadly this is where the good experience ends. They finished in two days with a huge hole in the yard and our fence open, this would remain this way for the next FIVE months...in the digging process, they stacked all the dirt up against our side fence and also ran over the fence them removed from the back (shattering it).
They next step was to come and put in the rebar that frame the polo and spray in the gunite for the pool. This is where started seeing the real mistakes. When they designed our spa, they promised us a Captain's Chair (which is basically more jets in one area that helps you back), but unfortunately the foreman missed it on the plans and it wasn't put in. They also designed our tanning ledge too small so that you couldn't even lay on it without falling into the deep water. We called their attention these two mistakes (the foreman didn't notice they forgot the captain's chair). They literally stopped work on our pool and vanished for over four weeks. Our backyard looked like a warzone with trenches all over the place and trash literally everywhere in our yard. Made for a nice Christmas dinner to look out at that. I've enclosed pictures. We had to keep the doors locked so that none of the kids would go our there as one kid actually hurt himself by falling over the trash.
They finally came back in January and admitted they messed up on the captains chair, but were not willing to add it as required them to remove some of the gunite and relay the pipes. We finally agreed they would give us a bit of a discount on the firepit we were thinking of adding and moved on. It was fairly contentious and they were not willing to work with us (they knew we had a hole in our yard). They extended the tanning ledge, but charged us for it (even though it was their mistake). Through out the process, they would tell us, we come next week and it was a crapshoot whether they did or not. it became a running joke in the house (we work next week).
The next phase was supposed to be the decking, which they had told us during the selling process that they come out and mark with us using spray paint so we get it right. Unfortunately, like everything else they told us, it didn't happen that way, they came out and put rebar in for the deck and completely got it wrong. It was not designed according to the drawings (one area had less than 1' around the pool and the firepit was against the fence). We called them that night and told them what happened (the foreman was MIA again) and they told us that it was already in and if we wanted to change it was going to be $15per ft, which was a 100% premium from what they had charged us in the original proposal (they kill you with change orders). The discussion got very hostile and the owner, Josh Sandler, got involved. He was a complete jerk, he told my wife that he was a big company and we could either deal with it or they would walk off the project. We ended up having to pay part of the difference (for their mistake) and the foreman came out to mark the changes with spray paint. He still did it wrong and was trying to short us on deck (surprising how every mistake was in THEIR favor), fortunately I checked it and went out remarked it giving us what we paid for (I knew their lack of attention to detail would help me) and they never noticed and did the deck as it should have been done all along (yet costing me another $1K). Sadly they had grossly miscalculated the size of the deck needed for our BBQ area so we have a bar that you can't sit at half of it because it was so close to the edge of the deck that you would fall off the deck and down the hill the created. We had to pay another $1K for someone to come and fix later (they would never come back and fix this). Pictures attached.
Finally in March (5 months after start), they put the plaster in the pool itself and as usual had no focus on quality, they sprayed it all over house so we had to have someone come out and clear it off our stucco. They put in our LED lights, but of course, cheated us again and put in smaller SEVI lights even thought the contract said full LED. Two of them were broken and didn't get replaced for another three weeks. Our pool didn't get filled with water until mid April, a full six months after we started. We literally had our backyard full of trash for more than 5 months!! The only that saved us and got them to finish the project was that we had changed their contract to say the final payment would not happen until AFTER the punchlist was complete so it forced them to give us our pool remote (which they tried to avoid), remove trash (which was literally all over yard), fix broken stones around the pool, correct improperly installed equipment and put our fence back up (which they tried to put up the broken one).
Overall, what I can say is they are the two different companies in how they treat you, the selling part is excel
Their price for the work was very competitive and given the fact that they really helped us design the remodel, we were very pleased.
From signing the initial contract to us being back in our pool took longer than anyone expected, due to the rains which delayed multiple jobs. The crews, demolition, copping and plastering did a very good job of cleaning up at the end of each day and phase.
Mark was very responsive to our calls and contrary to other posts, we never experienced any service issues or phone calls that were not returned. We will recommend Gold Medal to our friends.
Licensing
State Contractor License Requirements
All statements concerning insurance, licenses, and bonds are informational only, and are self-reported. Since insurance, licenses and bonds can expire and can be cancelled, homeowners should always check such information for themselves. To find more licensing information for your state, visit our Find Licensing Requirements page.
*Contact business to see additional licenses.