Sahara Construction and Custom Pools

Awesome, very professional and I am very happy with it and I will call him again if I needed.

They gave me excellent service. They were able to install a swimming pool for me and they provide my weekly maintenance.

Chris and his team were awesome. They arrive in vehicles and shirts with the Sahara logo and are all very courteous and professional to my family and I. All timelines were met and any issues that arose during the construction were addressed and fixed at no additional cost to me. The budget from the original quote was kept unless we decided ourselves to make an upgrade which to me is huge! Also, Chris always answered his phone or responded via text immediately. We absolutely love the finished product and have recommended Sahara personally to several friends.

Gary, Chris, and Michael were amazing to work with. They completed the job on time, and within budget! Gary was always there when I had questions, and Chris kept me up to date on the project itself. I would highly recommend Sahara!

Great, on time, picked up yard each night because I have. Dog.

Everything went perfectly as graphically designed. I only changed one thing about the proposed design. I had a custom requst for firepit to be tabletop height instead of the typically low profile so that it could double as an immobile table with chairs around it. Gary listened to my concerns and made the accommodation and it worked out beautifully. See photos

at first the communication & information was amazing, i thought i had finally found the last pool company i would ever hire, then i don't know what happened. they came out 2 days in a row (after i called & asked if they were going to come out that week, it did take some prompting) to put salt & check the salt cell. Then i never received a contract or a call to get my credit card info (maybe they were waiting on me to call which could be a lack of communication on my part) but they never came back & when i texted AND left a voice mail for josh, he just ignored me & never responded. i even asked if i did something wrong. i am very confused. i was also trying to get a bid for an entire condo remodel for a (real estate) client as well and never received that bid either. so far, i am thinking texas pool company's are liars. i'm hoping to find someone to prove me wrong this year...

Very well with wood structure so far. Very poor concrete work ..... poor mix, re-bar not suspended properly in concrete. Free salts migrating to surface causing white spotting on surface and pitting of concrete. the chemicals could be a combination of calcium, efflorescence or a mixture of other chemicals. I have contacted several concrete experts to take samples so we can have it repaired by a concrete professional. Chris at Sahara told me it was animal urine. Three concrete experts who reviewed pictures and came by said no way. When Sahara personnel did come by 11 months later they charged me two hundred dollars and would not warranty the work. The repair or refinish came off within 90 days of fix. Chris will not return my text messages at this time. We will send certified letter in a few days explaining our dissatisfaction with Sahara Construction. If we cannot resolve this issue I will seek a legal remedy.

The concrete patio is horrible. It has white spots all over it that look horrible. It even has tiny holes in it. They came back and scrubbed the spots with a chemical (but charged us 200.00 !!) Just to have them re appear a month later.

It was perfect, we did not have one single issue with them. They were in touch with us every single day, and let us know who would be there. Sent us pictures of the progress. All of there workers very respectful, living in Texas everyone doesn't speak English and we where able to communicate with all of the workers.

We are extremely disappointed with the product and the service we have received from Sahara Pools and would not recommend hiring this organization. I do not believe they provide good service or value for money. 
Despite choosing their highest range pool (platinum) and paying $75k for design and build of the pool, we have had significant issues which were not addressed properly. 
Fundamental problems with the pool -
- Poor cement / plaster PH balance which led to significant cement leakage through the plasterwork that required an acid bath
- Pool equipment not set up / maintained properly which led to algae and maintenance issues.
Attitude and Communication
My main issue with Sahara pools is that their owner Chris does not care properly for his customers. Once the pool was finished, we contracted the pool cleaners that Chris told us to hire. He made it clear that we had to hire these pool cleaners as pools needed a lot of care when first put into operation. 
From that moment on, once he had been paid, Chris basically walked away from the pool and told us that the issues we were facing were 'cleaning issues and that he did not clean pools and referred us to the company he had told us to contract with. The pool cleaners, called 'Sapphire', were at a loss to be able to deal with the issues that arose and finally dragged Chris and Sahara back in to remedy the problems - pay for an acid bath and fix the issue with algae.
All of this took several months, a significant amount of stress, and has left us feeling very dissatisfied.  
Chris always looked to blame others for the mistakes his company made - 'mess from the other builders has gone into the pool', 'your kids must have touched the valve', 'it will solve itself with time', 'the pool cleaners are responsible for that, not me...'. In the end, Chris acknowledged that actually the issues were caused by the construction and not with the pool cleaners. However, at no point did he apologize and he has still not done so. 
The final straw came when we needed to clear lurid green algae from the pool before a pool party for our 11-year old son. Chris finally came down and found the problem with the set-up, which was obvious once he actually bothered to come down to see for himself, he then partly cleaned the pool and promised that he would send someone the next day to finish the work. They did not come the next day, so we cleaned the pool ourselves, when I asked him why they had not come back s promised, he claimed he had never said that they would. He lied to me. 
Based on the issues we had, the poor follow-up service we received and the lack of integrity that I have witnessed, I would not recommend hiring Sahara Pools.

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Day one began with a timely start, followed by a police detective knocking on my door.  The house down the street that had used Sahara was burglarized at about 9:30 that morning, shortly after the crew showed up.  Neighbors had reported men in blue shirts (Sahara workers wear blue shirts) walking down some other neighbors driveways looking around.  Maybe just a coincidence.
Day two most of the siding was off the house, and housewrap was being put on.  I stopped by and noticed the house wrap was put on in small squares, with several vertical seems.  Since housewrap is supposed to shed water I questioned Mr. Harrell about how it was being applied, and asked that if there were any vertical seems, that they be taped with housewrap tape.  He made a bit of a fuss about having to do it, saying he had done "Thousands" of these and I shouldn't question his process, but he would do it to make me happy.  I returned a few hours later to see most of the siding had been installed, and there was no tape on the seems that were still showing.  I asked him to do what he said he would do, and he refused to take down the siding and tape.  He instead offered to caulk the seems on the siding.
The shortcuts got worse from there.  While digging holes for the footers of the patio cover, they struck my sewer line and it began leaking.  Since it was an old line, and was going to be under new concrete, I chose to have the entire line replaced at additional expense.  While looking at the hole, I pointed out to Mr. Harrel that the location of the post would not allow clearance for the gutter of the roof to fit between the post and the house, and suggested that the post be moved over 6" for clearance, which would also allow the other post to not touch the new sewer line.  He refused to enlarge the hole so the post could be set in the right place, stating it was fine.  He instead notched  4 inches out of a 6x6 post to fit it around the sewer line, and stopped the house gutter inside the patio enclosure.  He said it was structurally sound like that, I have my doubts.
Sahara also installed new windows, and did not wrap the housewrap inside the window frame per installation instructions, or tape the housewrap per installation instructions.  The two front windows which are side by side were installed, he put in one 33x53" window and one 35x55" window.  The old windows were the same size, the new ones different.  He said the house was built wrong so he had to do it that way, after over 2 months he got in a matching size window, blaming the delay on the lumber yard.  I called the lumber yard after 3 weeks of waiting, and the window was not ordered by him yet.  During window install one bedroom had two holes put in the interior wall by a saw, the other had sheetrock knocked off the trim around the windows.  While he patched the sheetrock he refused to paint it to match the existing wall, so I have sheet rock mud around 4 windows.  "Paint is your problem"
The roof leaked where he cut a hole in the roof to put a post for the cover, he "fixed" this leak by painting the spot on the ceiling with Kilz, but would not match the paint on the ceiling.
He forgot to build in a chase to run the electrical wires to the patio cover, so he drilled a hole in the roof of the house, pulled through 3 wires, and put silicone caulk on the shingles around the hole.  He said it would never leak, I had my doubts.  I bought a proper electrical riser that can be installed on a roof and asked him to use that, after 3 weeks of arguing about it, he complied, but used silicone caulk again to seal it.  The silicone is still there.  His electrician left enough wire to put the junction box in an outdoor closet so there would not be a bulky box installed inside the patio.  Mr. Harrell had the wires cut so that he could mount the box inside the attic (no access to the attic) which is against code, and against common sense.  The electrician refused to put the box in the attic, so it is now mounted on the wall.
Outdoor Kitchen - Measure your kitchen counters.  Kiitchen base cabinets are 36" standard height, plus the countertop.  He was building a 32" high kitchen.  He charged me hundreds of dollars extra to raise the height to standard kitchen height calling it an "upgrade" 
There are a dozen more things like above to list.  The owner's quote sums it up "I don't need to read directions"  It is obvious that he does not, and sent me a long e-mail about how he doesn't need to take any courses on how to do these jobs because he has real life experience.  The problem is, that he said "He uses a Master Roofer, Master Mason, Master Carpenter ...) When I asked him for credentials as the work was being done incorrectly, he said "Oh, well we just call him a Master Roofer"  The "Master Masons" were kids that didn't know what a spacer was, so all the bricks they put on slid down, leaving uneven gaps.in the brick.
To repair the damages caused by Sahara will be close to $20,000, double that if the structural engineer requires replacing the main support post on the patio cover.  I gave him the option of walking away $600 short of final payment for my costs to repaint two walls and a ceiling in three different rooms.  He chose to file a lien on my home, and reported me to the city for not having all the permits pulled.  Fortunately the city saw his text to me about him pulling all the necessary permits, and my cancelled checks to him for each item, so I guess he turned himself in. 
I suspect we will be in court by the end of the month.

the guy who came to give the estimate told me everything that would be done, and gave the quote. on the day of installation, two other men showed up without much knowledge of the situation or what technically needed to be done. I had to re describe everything to them and tell them all the things the first guy said they would do. good thing i wrote it all down! The job was done well they just need a little better communication between estimator and workers. Of the three guys who quoted me on this support, one said i didnt need it (which would have been a terrible idea) and the other said he couldnt do a beam in the attic. So they really did cater to my needs.

Chris was very professional to begin with and gave me a fair price for the services being performed however there were several problems with the performance. The biggest problem was that the job wasn't finished. We had agreed that I was going to save a little money by painting around the front and rear doors myself but when the front door was replaced there was a large gap left between the new frame of the door and the exterior brick running from the bottom of the door frame to the top which Chris suggested that I could patch with some mortar mix from home depot. Another problem was that they found that some repair work was unnecessary and other repair work needed to be done on the roof but the details of the change in price were never written down. We paid based on the estimate price but painting the 2nd floor dormer was not on the contract. I had to argue with Chris to get him to paint the second floor dormer because that work was on the estimate and was paid for. Finally he didn't clean up. There were nails, roofing material, and boards left in my yard and in my driveway.

Initially, it appeared that all had been installed pretty much as was agreed.  However, several months have passed since the installation and it has become clear that the Cabot oil based sealer was not applied thick enough, as light patches where the sealer wasn't applied thick enough (or allowed to soak in) have appeared, giving an inconsistent, and somewhat unattractive/old appearance to the fence.  Also, about 1/3 of the nails (mostly at the bottom of the pickets) are bleeding rust, something that shouldn't be happening with "galvanized" nails.  This is particularly noticeable since the fence is mostly covered with the clear Cabot sealer - which makes the rust streaks more visible.  Also, the gate that was installed never has opened fully.  It opened less than than 90% when initially installed - due to the fact that the ground slopes upward toward the hinge side of the gate and the clearance at the bottom of the fence wasn't sufficient enough to clear the ground - even when just mowed.  I called Chris about it and he sent someone out promptly to fix it.  Now the gate opens about 90%, but no more.  Also, at one side of my yard, the bottom of the fence is too high off the ground.  I can put my shoe under it with no

problem.  That could pose a problem if we were to get a dog (something that we were considering prior to getting the fence), since a small dog could easily slip under it with little to no digging.
On the positive side, Chris was very kind and responsive before, during, and after the installation.  Also, his price appeared competitive based upon another bid I had received elsewhere, and the fence itself is holding up well (structurally).
Due to the fact that it looks like I'll have to apply more Cabot sealer myself to get a more consistent appearance, and the presence of many rusty nails (which I don't know what to do about), I would go elsewhere if I had to do this again .

End product looks nice but a few issues along the way.  Chris, owner, is a very nice man but he is stretched too thin with all the work he is performing for clients.  He is always very busy and when he was here always on the phone and normally in a hurry to leave. We just sometimes felt like he was rushing our work and cutting a few corners to save time.  Couple of examples ,,1. We  asked for the roof and the side panels to be a differnt stain finish color and he said it was impossible to do because the stain is mixed at the store and he would have to buy additional stain and it would be more expensive.  We then saw his men mixing the stain in the back yard themselves and saw that it would have been easy to do.  2.  Chris sent us an email of the tile design the morning work was to start and when work started it was nothing like the design he sent (it ended up okay but a shock when it is not what you think it is)  3.  We failed inspections 3 times.  Not so concerning the first time but the 2nd and third times we failed because the 'fix' they performed was not correct.  4. I had told him I wanted fans but no lights, since we had can lights, and the fans be bought did not come with conversion kits to use without lights, the fix he did, instead of buying different fans, was to cut the wiring and remove the lights.  The fans don't look whole, they look unfinished from underneath (probably something only I notice but it is due to it not being made to use without the lights)  5.  Had to have them come back a few days after finish to fix a hole in the grout and to straighten out the tile edge, it was rough and crooked.  6. a water line was cut during work and started to come into the house, lukily we were home or it would have been much much worse.  He did repair damage to inside.Positives,,, 1. construction ruined our grass and they put in some sod at no additional cost to help with appearance.  2. Chris was open to suggestions, when we wanted light placement moved he had his men move them.  3.  work began when he said it would, took longer than expected but this was usually due to weather or inspections.  Again, end product we are pleased with just the process we felt could have gone smoother so that is why we put no for using again.

Sahara Construction was prompt, professional and personable. They finished the job in under a week, which we found to be one of the things we loved the most. When going through the bid process, they promised to be competitive with other offers and they were willing to give us a variety of bids, based on whether we wanted to repair or replace. Ultimately, we chose to completely replace the siding, which I am so happy we did! It looks like a brand new house now and they were able to make that an affordable decision for us. As for scheduling, they made a point to fit our project in their schedule ASAP. Chris and Mike were both so attentive and great to work with! We would certainly call on them again if we had a need.

They did the work and it came out really well. The price was just about right.  They did a good job and they worked hard.  They ended up with two crews working at the same time because they had the availability.  Their framer is an outstanding framer and he did a good job. With construction I think there is some area for improvement but everything went fine. I had to clean up the gutters because they were nails and stuff like and they didn’t get that done.  The ground work was done fine. They weren’t perfect. They were higher than some of the other bids but they did a good job.

They guy was great, here on time, and very thorough. He seemed to know exactly what he was talking about. They were a little higher priced than three of the other top rated providers for siding. When it came to the fence they were 100% in line with everyone else. They were actually better with the fencing because they were able to provide cedar when other providers said it would be more expensive.

Excellent! Chris & his team were on time & fully prepared to work. They built a beautiful & study new fence for me & carted away the old fence. The even used some of the old fence to build a barrier along the bottom of the fence to prevent damage to the fence from weedwackers. They are extremely neat & professional in every aspect of their work. I am proud to be one of their customers.

It was very professional, completed on time and loved the work, couldn't have asked for a better job done. Would hire them again and again.

Excellent job. Arrived on time & performed all work in the time promised. Matched paint exactly to existing siding. Very professional.

On the fence, Sahara did a great job and were in and out quickly. 

On the crushed granite - it looks great and the monkey grass is still alive. 

On the irrigation system, there were challenges presented in designing a proper irrigation system for my residence due to low water pressure which led to some difficulties that Sahara was ultimately able to overcome. Sahara used a professional design person who did a good job and really knows his stuff. I cannot confirm whether Chris Harrell is a licensed irrigator, but I know the sub-contractor "Nick's Irrigation" that Sahara used is definitely licensed. The system appears to function as designed, despite being different from the original plan that was designed. Time will tell if the coverage is adequate and sufficient. Sahara worked with me patiently to overcome concerns I had about particular installation areas and made sure they corrected what needed to be done. 

Overall I think Sahara does good work and I will consider their services again for installation of a covered patio, french doors, and adding on to the house. 

The workers arrived promptly. Their called a day ahead confirmed the appointment and gave the exact time. They were courteous and efficient. They also left the area clean .