OT anyone have any tips for dealing with a bad pool contractor

[leveldrummer]

Next time they come out, fire him, tell him you no longer wish to pay his services. If he gets ****y, tell him to sue you for damages.

If you really want to be a nice guy, ask him what the prorated cost is for the work he actually completed.

 

[Diesel3443]

Doesn't look good from the reviews. I feel for you in that position! Been then and lost alot of $. The way the law is in fl is totally in favor for contractors. Wish you guys the best. For the reefer whos about to sign, we used a company called tuttle pools. In our experience we have one word to describe our experience on them building our pool, "excellent" . But please do your own due diligence on them or any other company before you sign a contract and always make sure you get your final inspection on any project, along with a final release of liens before paying in full. If you dont have a release of lien signed and notorized, YOU will be held responsible if a contractor did not pay a subcontractor or a supply source for anything used on your project! So please do your research even if someone recommends a contractor to do a job. Also make sure you sign with the person who actually holds the license as there are contractors who are lending their license # to other contractors and are getting kick backs on any jobs that the non licensed contractor is doing and whenever something goes wrong the say that the non license contractor "stole" their license#. Obviously i have a serious sore spot on this subject!

Thanks as well. I have done a lot of background work on who I am using and thankfully they hold thier own license as well. That was one of my main concerns when I heard all of this nonsense with passing around license numbers.

 

[reefsahoy]

Btw as you pay for a job on schedule you should have partial release of liens signed and notorized. What this does is insure the contractor cannot just pocket the $ and leave you stuck paying suppliers and subs. The law is weird. The homeowner is responsible to insure the contractor pays his subs and suppliers. If he didn't, they can put a lien on your house even tho you don't have a contract with them and you've paid the gen contractor. Also make sure all supplies delivered to your house goes to your project. They may deliver other jobs supplies to your house and you get left with responsibility to pay for those supplies.
The last time I signed with a contractor, I ask for his drivers license, took a pic of it, signed and notorized all schedule payments and held like 30% for final payment. I wasn't about to go down that road twice!

I really don't want to scare you guys but it's happened to me and I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemies. Good luck on your projects!

 

[Diesel3443]

I will def. do that. Thanks for the tip.

 

[reefsahoy]

Hey diesel, food for thought, make sure the pool deck is designed so water flows away from your pool and that water won't puddle in front of your house. It should have a slight slant away from your house. It should also be above your grass line otherwise the runoff won't have anywhere to run and puddle at edge of the deck. This was where Tuttle pools excelled. I don't care how hard it rains, my deck will never puddle and runoff won't go into the pool!


You might want to ask if the skimmer should be on the north west side of the pool too. I believe it designed that way because of winds coming from east. Just like our aquarium, the skimmer will catch all floating debris and if skimmer is on wrong side, floating debris won't get skimmed if wind blows them away from skimmer.

 

[Diesel3443]

Thanks again. Ill inquire about that.