Contracted 10/9/2021 – Still begging for them to plaster my pool. 10/20/2022 This has set waiting for final stage now for 2 months because Project Manager failed to receive proper City Inspections. I’ve had to beg every day of this 10/17-10/20 week just to get the pool finished and then was told Payment of $3,745 was going to hold up scheduling the plaster. However, I’d already paid $78,860 of $82,584.25. Within 10 minutes I paid said request and was told it would be scheduled within 5-7 days. I’ve paid them in full and pray they do what they say they will do. If you are going to deal with them – Demand a custom contract with negotiated terms – Don’t just sign their standard contract. My attorney reviewed and said it didn’t offer me any protections. Get your own contract and demand better terms. I trusted the salesman that sold it to me.

I 100% do NOT recommend Richards Pool. Dealing with Mike has been a total headache and he does not honor his word. We were in the process of moving, so we did not have the time to really shop around. Called him and he sold me over the phone on his warranty and convinced me to pay $1500 for his design and he would throw the warranty in. I figured ok, worst we would be out is the $1500. Never asked about our budget even though I told him early on we wanted to stay around $100K. Never came to our new house and look at the property. Had me and my wife come to his office, and it felt like a pressure used car sale. Had us pick everything out and then sat us down for the huge $200K+ shocker. My wife and I looked at each other and almost laughed at him. I started telling him to take stuff off. We walked away that day thinking we probable will just wait to get a pool. He continued to call saying he could now give me discounts and get the price down. We came back in, and he had it down to under $150K. Still thought that was high, but we figured with inflation and all that is going on that must be it. We said we needed to get the breakdown of the pricing so we could go shop loans. He said he could not do that unless we signed a contract and put $3000 down. I said, “What if the loan doesn’t get approved or the rates are too high?” He said no problem he would refund the money and tear up the contract. So, we said ok and paid the $3000. We shopped the contract, and the rates are really high right now, so I let Mike know. I told him we would just wait, and he could refund the money. He then said he could not refund the money, because it says non-refundable on the contract. Since that last conversation with Mike, I have reached out to three other pool companies and all three do free design, free sight visit and do not charge a deposit until you lock in funding. All three also looked at his design and said they could do it for around $100K or less.
This guy is a big fraud who must not be doing well if he wants to fight over $3000. I have already disputed the charges and will fight him all the way to court if needed. He could have just refunded it, still had a chance at getting our business (because I might now have shopped around because I had invested the $1500 in the warranty), and no bad reviews.

We are still waiting for Richard’s to contact us as we are to have a removable table in our pool. The leveling is complete off. The first contractor attempted to bend the metal pole for the table to stand upright and only made matters worse. My husband took pictures of the uneven table and no one from Richard’s has contact us to see how they are going to remedy their error. The project manager advised that they have never installed a table, so why even have it available if there is no one who has installed one before. One the employees tried to take the bent pole but we kept that as proof of how they attempted to just cover up their mistake. Hopefully these people are not just like the so many crooks out there.

We had thought about getting a new hot tub for a while. We visited Richard’s pool company because we thought it would be better to go to a local shop vs the trade show.
Well… we decided to get a floor model because we wanted one sooner then to wait for the arrival of an ordered one. We were assured it would be a quality tub.

We paid in full. We got the tub. Everything was fine until the side of the tub started Warping within 3 months of getting the tub! We followed directions … we did not overfill the tub …
I’ve even seen tubs NOT protected by a porch roof and they look fine. Ours had a side warping!

It took months before someone was able to come and replace the panel. We understood it took time to get the parts and we waited. We still had faith in the company Even though the elderly person answering my husband’s call and emails forgot all about our hot tub problem when we would inquire. ( yes, I said elderly because that was her excuse!) We had to send pictures twice!

A few months later, the brand new panel was Again warping. They sent someone to look at it and he recommended we leave the panel off. (I’m thinking something else is causing this warping!)They were going to look further into it because he had never seen a problem like this.
It has been 3 months since his visit. And we have NOT heard an update. Our tub is STILL exposed.

We have continued to write to this company And to the manufacturer….We paid for this tub completely in December of 2020. We got the tub in January 2021!! And still Richard’s pool has not resolved our issue. They have our money, but has NOT resolved anything.

Our faith in this company is shaking. They say they are trying but after One year of waiting we are very disappointed.

We were thinking about getting a pool for our yard from them but I think we need to get it elsewhere.
It seems that easy problems can be resolved by this company BUT when it comes to the company coming out of pocket to solve their customer’s problem … we’ll that is another issue. Though this is a cosmetic issue right now, the exposure of the side may compromise the tub when the many storms come during hurricane season.

Richard’s pool company, please fix this issue NOW.

We had a great intake and design experience with Kristi. We felt listened to and comfortable sharing our ideas and plans. She quickly turned around a 3D model of our design and made herself available to us for clarifications and further customisation with no delay. We had such a great experience that we decided to build with Richards. We are now deep into the construction process; all going smoothly and rather quick! I’ll update once the build is completed.

When we seriously started looking to build a swimming pool for our new home, I knew I wanted to get a quote from RTBS. I heard about RTBS at a Home & Garden show over 10 years ago and loved the customer service they offered without doing business with them at the time.

Today, I rate RTBS with a 4 Star but would give them a “+” if I could.

Fast forward – In January 2021, I had the distinct pleasure of meeting our designer Kristie who went above & beyond the call of duty and won us over. She was the only designer who spent time with us virtually to understand our desires, wants, and needs and then took the time to visit our home and spend time in our backyard to see firsthand how we would use the space with a pool. I was blown away by Kristie’s eye for detail as no other company did this for us. In the end, RTBS was not the cheapest bid, but we knew we were buying a Brand. RTBS has been around for over 30+ years and I can see why.

Kristie was very transparent with us from the beginning and explained how Covid had impacted vendors, laborers, parts, supplies, etc, and she set the expectation that the pool industry was in high demand and we would need to approach the build-out with an open mind and patience.

We finally started our construction on April 19th, 2021 just 2 1/2 months after signing our contract. We were excited.

Upon meeting our Project Manager (PM), Jose, he reassured us that he had the experience to oversee our build and let us know we were in good hands. Along the journey, we ran into many roadblocks with crews not being available to do the work. As frustrating as it was at the time, Jose always followed up to ensure the job at hand was completed to our satisfaction. At times, Jose was not always proactive in offering next steps, but when asked, he was always prepared with an answer. As I learned through this project, PM’s are managing a lot of moving parts and some things are going to fall through the cracks. This is no different from any other job people do. We all are human and sometimes there is too much happening at one time and as a PM, Jose did not always have direct control over a situation. However, when I would speak to Jose, he would be open and honest and at times took accountability when he needed to. I truly respected this about Jose!

As I look back over the last 6 months, I am very pleased with the outcome and the quality of work that went into our pool build. I know part of this is because Jose has established relationships with his contractors and has set the right expectations and work ethics with his teams. We had no issues with any of the contractors not doing their work. They all seemed to be very dedicated to their crafts and showed great work ethic and respect for us and our home while on our property.

Today is October 6th and I am pleased to say that our pool build is 100% complete and even Jose followed up with a phone call to see how things were going.

Thank you Kristie & Jose for making ou

Our experience has not been pleasant so far. We signed in Sept of 2020 for our pool build. The pool has not been completed as of July 2021, and there is no end in sight to the project. Richards cannot give us a timeline on a completion date either. We have paid on time and Richards has 90% of the money for the cost of the pool. I will update this review with a timeline when they finally finish. I will also update the number of stars on the off chance Richards can pull it together and actually prioritize something on our project.

Thanks Tres for a very informative conversation last week. I really appreciated the time you spent with me making sure I understood the entire process. This girl has alot of knowledge! Thanks again!

Kristi Patterson is amazing. She is very knowledgeable and helped us design the pool and outdoor kitchen. She is professional and detail oriented.

We worked with Kristi Patterson on our pool and hot tub design. She is extremely knowledgeable and an expert in her field. She was patient when we had revisions, helpful when advising, and answered all the questions and concerns we had along the way. Highly recommend Kristi at Richard’s Total Backyard Solutions.

Richard built a brand new pool for me and from day 1 it leaks. They sent a leak detection company out 3 times and found nothing . Each time no person from Richard came out with them so they swam around pool and left. Richard has not been responsive to our calls and no such thing as customer service.

Kristen Barrow was great getting our installation scheduled. She managed all of the moving parts (various vendors) really well and was responsive to all my texts and questions. We were told our hot tub would be installed by our anniversary and they did it even sooner! Very pleased with Kristen and Richard’s Total Backyard Solutions.