Custom Derian Pools

Derian deserves no star at all. There is not enough room or time to describe all the horrific problems we encountered on our pool remodel. We were charged five hundred dollars initially for permits. After six months of fighting them on their shabby work and botched design, we found the permit canister empty. When we inquired about never seeing a building inspector, Derian said the inspector arrived very early in the morning. We called the city,, and no permits had been pulled for our job.
The city shut all work down in the seventh month. The city asked Derian for legal structural and design plans. There were none. Building codes and safety requirements had not been followed. Our huge waterfall had much less rebar and concrete than required by the county. Nothing was built to code, making it a dangerous safety hazard. The structure was built too close to the property line. As we contacted lawyers to sue, the county inspector let us know that he would be our best witness in court and he had pictures of Derian's shoddy work. Rather than end up in court, Derian agreed to tear out most everything and start over. As we approached a year, we realized half the pool's electrical wiring had been covered with concrete and lost. There are too many problems to cover. We ended up losing half the pool lights. The waterfall is not aligned with the lower pool so water slashes out of the pool into the yard.
The employees were treated terribly and there was constant screaming. There was no portable toilet provided for a full year. After a year, we were glad to be rid of them and hired another company to come in and fix what we could.
The whole experience was a nightmare.

My experience with Derian is that they are a horrible company, and I wonder about the validity of the other reviews, as Kerri has a business practice - one I rejected -to barter for goods and discounts.

Derian Pools abandoned our project after Derian’s shotcrete sub had a cement hose literally explode with so much force that it showered cement all over our home, all the way across the street where it hit our and other parked cars, and covered front to back our metal roof where the cement was allowed to dry. Derian refused to turn the damage over to their insurance carrier and chose to abandon the job.

When Derian pulled their workers, they lied. They removed their tools saying Kerri had told them to straighten up but they would be there the following morning. They never showed up again. Kerri also sent an email saying she would see us next week - also a pretense. Further, they left a mess of plywood from the backyard out to the sidewalk for someone else to clean up.

Now that Derian has abandoned the job, they are playing games with their attorney who they had contact me, claiming the mediation required under the contract can’t be scheduled because he hasn’t been in contact with Derian and - in a huge firm - he isn’t available for weeks.

And this last issue wasn’t the only issue. When our project started, Kerri almost immediately began to indicate that doing the job would require “change orders”. By way of one example - waterproofing the pool for tile and infinity troughs so they did not leak was a “change order” in Kerri’s mind. All of that was in the contract. Any “change order” that Kerri indicated needed to be done was a direct result of her saying the pool would leak without us paying more money, and had nothing to do with the plans changing or us changing our minds.

Kerri is fond of saying “the contract doesn’t say that”. True - the contract does not say “waterproof so the pool doesn’t leak”, but, prior to Kerri, I wouldn’t have thought it needed to. After all — “waterproofing”.

Kerri also demands payments when they are not due, and in this case she says the clear language of the contract, for example “all steel” installed, didn’t mean all steel but - according to Kerri - only spa steel. She also demands partial payments when the contract not only does not require them but doesn’t even mention them.

Kerri is generally foul tempered when any small issue arises, becoming aggressive and out of control. As a case in point, Kerri was factually incorrect about the function of a pool cover. When I tried to explain, she simply would not listen, scoffed, mocked and was generally unprofessional. When I pulled the website up and played the video, she talked over the video, continuing to claim she was correct. I restarted the video and asked her to listen to the commentator’s description, which clearly demonstrated Kerri was incorrect. She then raised her voice and repeatedly said “you just keep backing me into a corner”, and threw and bounced a pencil off the table. It was a bizarre display.

In another instance, my preference for 2 larger steps leading down to a deck rather than 3 narrower steps became a multi hour argument, and finally required the engineer to intercede and, based on Kerri’s demand, sign a document for an item that had no engineering purpose whatsoever.

Kerri changes the design plan telling you to “trust” her and that it will be better. It became apparent to me that the changes all financially benefited Kerri.

Additionally, I assisted one of Kerri’s subs who needed an assistant. That assistant subsequently worked for me. Again Kerri became angry, demanded her sub never use the assistant again on any project or Kerri would fire the sub. Her position was that the assistant had been disloyal to her by working for me, and that she made her living adding a percentage to all work done. She also insisted that I apologize to her sub for hiring a person I originally recommended.

I told Kerri I preferred Pentair equipment from the beginning. Kerri pushed for Jandy because of the relationship - and I believe kickback - she has. When I stuck with Pentair and asked Kerri about equipment functioning as the pool was intended to, Kerri indicated that was now up to me. Kickbacks happen, but not doing your job as a professional because there isn’t one coming, is not reasonable.

Billy is the face of the company for a reason, but after the contract is signed, the attitude is a massive shift.

I checked the other person’s review and Kerri did file bankruptcy. That fits with my experience. Small claims is a small amount of money. Someone not paying it is small minded. I have paid Kerri more than $100,000 - including $40,000 for future sub payments and $35,000 for “all steel” which is still not all installed . As such, it would seem if the job is large or small, I would think twice about hiring Derian.