Backyard Innovations completely shafted us. When I say us, I mean my 75-year old mother and myself. She shakes and cannot type or write, so I'll be telling the tale. I am her son, we live on the same property in seperate houses.
We hired them to remodel an inground pool. It took more than a year and a half, starting in January 2021 with the signing of the "contract". If we were lucky a crew would show up once a month, most months not at all. There are so many issues, and most of the time it's a shot in the dark if Luis answers emails, texts, or calls.
As the story goes- The demo is probably the only thing that went correctly. The first thing was payment, we paid him every time he asked, on time and the amount he asked. In return we got shafted. The first thing we noticed, is that Luis would not give us a completion date verbally and definitely not in writing.
The customer agreed to pay for the limestone backfill- 2B, not 2A. Although maybe not intentionally, the contractor ordered 2B and 2A limestone. $2,078.32 worth (3 different deliveries, including costs for a 10 ton truck that may not have been needed if it was 2B) They left 4-5 yards piled in our lawn, out of 56 total yards. They left empty concrete bags and trash everywhere, including the molds for the concrete, still in position around the pool, in addition to other lumber just tossed around the lawn nails up and everything. Basically, they left a big mess on top of everything else. We agreed to dispose of the trash but this is ridiculous.
The concrete footer they were supposed to pour is nothing more than a few shovelfulls of bag mix around only the sides of the pool. The steps that were installed have no foundation, or any kind of support other than the plastic arms to hold them in place. The concrete he poured around the pool is cracking. It's rough to the touch, and hurts to walk on. When we complained about it cracking Luis told us that concrete is gray and that it cracks, nothing more. The concrete is not crumbling, but more than 6 different cracks have appeared, mostly from where the coping should be, in addition, the company did not lay a border around the pool, so when it rots or something goes awry (and it will, sooner than it should) ALL of the concrete must be torn up again. There's no foam behind the liner, nor were any of the seams on the steel wall taped. I have done more research and I've learned that it's not necessary to put any foam or other materials behind the liner, only the taping of the steel walls is recommended, although on our project, it wasn't done. There are no wedges to hold the liner in. There is no coping clips on the seams. We have them, but they cannot be installed because they poured the concrete all the way up to the coping. They didn't even bother to silicone any of the inlets or returns. None of the plumbing was pressure tested. They left vermiculite splashed and dried all over the steps for me to clean off. Speaking of, the vermiculite used in the bottom is supposed to cure for 24 hours before the liner goes on top, which they completely disregarded. The stuff was still wet and clumpy when they put the liner in, , and is now almost poking holes through the liner. Luis installed a $200 junk knockoff pump & filter system from Amazon, while contracted to use a $1200 pentair superflow system. We're missing the automatic chlorinator. We're missing the maintenance kit. We're missing the cover for the pool. We're missing the handrail that was verbally agreed on by Luis and my mother, but he simply says "it's not in the contract". Since he continues to quote the conract, but when asked about the things that are missing, or a problem on his end that IS there, all communication stops. These people can't even orchestrate the liner installation with the water delivery. They left bubbles and wrinkles all over the liner and then expected the thing to get filled like that. It just so happened that the water delivery guy noticed something was wrong and we decided not to fill it that day. It also turns out they install pools, so when I notified Luis that the pool could not be filled all he had to say was get water in it asap, like it was going to smooth itself out.
It's now July of 2022, we fired him and the water guys finished what they could of the mess Luis had left. It turns out the pump they installed wouldn't even turn on, not that it was the correct one in the first place. So we paid another $3,400 dollars for a Hayward system, paid more for water, and now the new contractor will be removing most of the work, as it was done improperly, including all of the concrete and most likely the plumbing. Luis also informed me that his crews didn't even bond the new pool, meaning it's an electrical hazard, and could kill us all.
The contractor, I think, should be held accountable for his crews. If I keep contacting him, Luis would communicate with us up until we get into the errors on his end. Errors on our side are per read more