By far the worst decision I ever made in my life. The project was a disaster from the beginning. I have a 20x40 pool, we started in April, they finished in October! Do the math - that's 6 MONTHS - Simply Pools was a nightmare to work with from day 1.
Here's a summary of why you should never work with these guys (check out my pics as proof):
1) They decided to dig the pool during the record breaking rainfall we had. Yes, seriously. He did this to "keep his schedule" instead of doing the right thing and wait. It gets worse: I heard them on the phone, telling the cement company "I'll give you an extra $100 if you come out now" - so they POURED the concrete during record rainfall! I asked if that made sense to do and they said that "it dries quickly".
2) After the concrete pour was a mess, there was an underwater table on our property. They said had "never seen anything like that before" - so they left it. For 2 MONTHS. I'm not exaggerating. 2 MONTHS there was a mess of a dig, that had sunk in, been rained on, and foundation falling apart because of the rain. Simply Pools didn't know what to do, so they just left it. So what did I do? I HAD TO FIX THEIR PROBLEM! Yes, me. I paid over $70K for the pool and it was on me to fix the issue.
3) Once we had the solution, the MONTHS that had passed (we're nearly at the end of summer now) they work on finalizing the pool. INSTEAD of digging out all the silt and dirt that flowed into the deep end, they LEFT it there. So instead of the 8 foot deep pool that was in our contract, I have a 6 foot deep pool. The biggest kicker? Vince wanted me to pay $2000 to "cover costs" because they brought in gravel and needed another day to fix up the mess because they waited 2 months for ME to come up with a solution to their problem. The problem we have now, because they didn't remove the silt and left you with a 6ft deep pool is that the silt can shift underneath the weight of the pool, making the foundation unstable.
4) Look at the picture that shows the electrical and gas line. BY LAW, it needs to be 3ft deep. They dug it so it's not even 1.5 ft deep. Again, I had to fix their mess since it's a danger/hazard.
5) Joe decided to just come by one day and put the liner in. Even though we weren't ready or finished the fences. The day after, he filled up the pool without any fencing around. I found out after that BY LAW, it's illegal to do that. If someone fell in, and drowned, it's me on the hook!
6) Vince would send a text in the MORNING of and say: "$10,000 is due today by cheque, $5,000 is due with cash". And you know what happened, EVERY TIME? The work was never done. And because it wasn't complete, the money wasn't due until each milestone was hit. To the point where Vince was SCREAMING on the phone at me and it got to the point where he would send his assistant Aprile to come to my house to pick up money.
I suggest that you DO NOT EVER PAY these guys, until they show you all the work is done. They would say: "equipment is hooked up" but it wasn't - safety cover wasn't installed (I paid $16K for it), the wrong Ozonizer was installed, etc... They fooled me once before with the dig and I paid them $20K and waited 2 months until I found a solution. I said, NEVER again - I'm only going to pay according to the contract and not what they ask for - I'll pay when the work is complete and it led to a lot of yelling with Vince.
7) While closing my pool, we were blown away at how bad the plumbing was done on the pool. Never seen anything like it - we have 5 or 6 returns to the pool, and ONE valve that feeds into it all. Standard practice is to have a designated vale so you can blow each out easily when you're closing the pool. Horrible plumbing - we don't have that - we have ONE valve for ALL returns!
8) On top of that, they left the pool with a HUGE wrinkle in the liner - that's going to be about $1K to get that fixed.
Simply Pools is a complete and utter nightmare to work with.
My goal is to make sure that anyone else considering these guys has a true picture of what to expect.
