Initially, the pool construction went smoothly and without incident. About two weeks in, a neighbor knocked on my door to let me know that my gate was left open after the worker left for the day. The following day, I spoke with the construction foreman and asked that he remind the workers to secure the gate. Well, it happened two more times. I have two dogs. Two unnecessary dog chases.
About three weeks in, I found two workers looking into my house from the backyard at 6:30 in the morning. Not working, just looking. In my subdivision, you cannot start any work until 7:00 AM. Even if they could, the sun had not come up yet. It was my dogs that alerted me. Again, I brought this to the attention of the construction foreman. It happened quite a few times more.
As time passed, I frequently received texts that the workers would be there to do X, Y, Z. Many times, they just didn’t show. Here was the response I received when I mentioned the inconsistency; “The word "schedule" is the joke of this industry. I tried my hardest to change this. We would tell people aour [sic] subs would be there and they wouldn't show up”.
The pool steps were not measured at all. There are three steps inside the pool, each a different size as you step down. I asked them to make them all the same size, and they did attempt to correct it, but left the last step at 13 inches. I was told they couldn’t correct that last step because it would throw off the depth of the pool, but we would “get used to it”. Sadly, and to this day, my wife must step in the pool backwards because she is unable to navigate a 13-inch step due to knee issues.
Once the pool controller was put in, more problems occurred. Twice, the water from the spa just drained. The first time, it was random. The second time, it was when I put the bubblers on. Island Life Pools & Patios came out several times over a couple of weeks to reconfigure the controller. They admitted that this was only the fourth unit they installed (Poolside Tech), and they were still learning how to configure it. At one point, the pool wasn’t even filtering although the controller showed that it was.
I work from home and was there for every step of the construction process. When the plumbing and pool equipment was put in, the ground on that side of the house became extremely saturated, causing me and their staff to slip and fall several times. When I asked about it, they said that it happens sometimes. But it seemed to get worse day in and day out.
Because of the challenges that seemed to increase daily, I began to feel more concerned about the entire project. I decided to hire a pool inspector. While there were smaller items that could happen in