First of all, building a pool is not for the faint of heart. We knew that going in to the process so were very diligent in getting quotes from multiple companies and spending time with each of them. We had a rough design of what we wanted and key features that were important so we used that to evaluate companies. We evaluated 7 different pool companies and got proposals from them all:
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