Sunrise Pools & Spas

We saw an ad in the coupon flyer we receive every week or so for a special deal on in-ground pools ($29,900 or so, I think). We received a quote from Peter, the owner, as well as from at least one other company, which was for a fiberglass pool. (You'd think people would get more than two quotes on such a major purchase but we didn't!) We decided to go with Sunrise based on the price, the free form design and the supposed benefits of gunite over fiberglass. When construction began, we realized that Peter has zero staff - he does the pool design and then contracts out each piece of the work. After seeing the initial design, we told Peter that we wanted to move the more substantial portion of the deck to the other side of the yard where there was a bit more room. He said that he would redraw the plans, but didn't. We went on vacation and told him to be sure to have the construction workers get in touch with us so that we could be home when they were doing the work to make sure it was being done correctly. Well, the morning after we got back, my husband returned from walking the dog to find construction workers at the house getting ready to frame the section where they would pour the concrete deck material. They were working off of the original (incorrect!) plans!! My husband said "We told Peter that you need to call us before starting work!" and they said "Yeah, he said to call you...but he didn't give us your phone number." AWESOME. And this is a perfect time to mention that Peter was notoriously hard to get ahold of. I would leave a message and not have my call returned for days. I found that extremely frustrating and really unprofessional. After the pool construction was finished, the concrete deck cracked in a few places. Peter's response was that "it happens". Great. Shortly after the pool was filled, the white plaster finish began to turn gray and have a "crackled" look to it - apparently called "mottling". It's still smooth but it looks gray with thin white lines running through it all over in a random pattern. This is something that does just happen to plaster, but Peter never mentioned the possibility of it. We can try to remedy it by draining the pool and using an acid wash on it. Fun times. Nothing bad happened to the pool in the DC earthquake this past August. So basically, we have a functional pool that has some aesthetic issues. The price was pretty good...but working with Sunrise was really stressful. -Written by Nicole Feuerstein