Andy S Swimming Pool & Spa Construction

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• By John A.

  November 10, 2021

  Pool Contruction

  $70,000

  I would rate this contractor as one of the ones to avoid. Any homeowner would say they either got a great contractor to build their pool, or got a really bad one.
  In this case, I got one of the worst. Consider yourself lucky if you hired this pool contractor and was satisfied with the finished job. In short, Andy hires what seems to be the cheapest labor on the market. As most people know, a contractor doesn't employ many workers, if any. They subcontract to the various tradesman to do the work. From rebar installation, electrical, plumbing, plastering, tile work, most of the subcontractors Andy hires do poor work. The best example of this is the pool plaster guy he hired. Any idiot knows that the pool should be filled with water immediately following the plaster installation. The person Andy hired to do my pool was completely incompetent. He waited a full 24 hours to fill my pool with water. This led to the plaster cracking throughout the entire pool. This is also known as webbing as its appearance is like a spiders web. I have the photos to prove this. The following day the paster guy came back and was now trying to treat the plaster condition with an acid wash. This did little to change the appearance of the webbing. He then filled the pool with water using two of my garden hoses.
  Instead of using a float system to keep the hose ends from touching the plaster as the pool filled with water, this guy just left them both on the plaster surface. I have the pictures to prove this as well. After filling the pool with water, the webbing was still visibly present. Instead of accepting responsibility for the problem, Andy tried to blame the pool maintenance company I hired to manage the plaster curing period. I hired one of the best pool service companies out there to make sure the pool plaster cured properly. After the curing period, the webbing or cracking was still very visible along with his plaster guys' footprints at the bottom of the pool. I had to drain my pool so Andy could have one of his subs do an acid wash to the plaster to address the webbing in the pool. Though this did help with the webbing, his guy spilled acid on my brand new pavers, damaging a few of them. Andy did nothing to address this despite me bringing it to his attention. An important note to mention regarding the plaster type I chose. I had selected a color that would require a dye chemical be added to the plaster prior to setting. The plaster crew managed to spill some the dye chemical on the freshly poured pool coping. Being that I chose concrete coping for the border around my pool, this permanently stained the concrete where it was spilled.
  Prior to hiring Andy, I had gone to great lengths to insure that the pool I had envisioned was built to my liking. Because I oversaw each step of the process, I was able to catch and correct all the mistakes Andy and his crew were making, with exception to the damage that had occurred when I wasn't at home. At start of construction, I noticed that the hole for the pool was not squared off with the house. Being that we planned to build a rectangular pool, for aesthetics purposes, the pool was to be squared off with the house and not the yard. Upon placing the rebar or reinforcement structure in the ground, it was clear that the pool would take on crooked appearance with regards to the position of the house. Luckily I noticed this and brought it to Andy's attention. His response was that he thought we wanted the pool built this way. The problem here is that I had provided exact measurements of how far the waterline of the pool was to be away from the house and opposite wall. Had Andy followed my instructions, this would have never been an issue. On another note, every pool contractor will provide the homeowner with a catalog of tile selection for the pool which is usually included in the cost. I did receive some catalogs from Andy. However, they were dated and had I not taken the time to obtain recent catalogs, I would have had to settle for pool tile not necessarily to my liking. I can go on with many other problems that occurred in the process of building my pool. All of which could have been avoided had Andy taken the time to ensure my instructions were followed, and had he hired subcontractors that were more competent. As I mentioned earlier, I have the photos to show the poor job he and his subs did. I highly recommend going with a different pool contractor if you're thinking about building a pool. It is a costly investment and sometimes a frustrating one. But, sometimes it's worth paying a reputable contractor a little more than suffer what my wife and I went through in hiring Andy. The process should have taken no more than 3 to 4 months. Andy took almost a year, ten months to be exact to complete our pool. I truly wish I went with a different contractor. Hopefully this posting will save you much of the grief we experienced.

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