My wife and I built our new home 1.5 years ago and we wanted to get a pool installed for our family to enjoy. Anthony and Sylvan Pools seemed like a truly professional company throughout the sales process, however little did we know, all of the professionalism and customer service went out the window as soon as they have your money and a signed contract.
After living in our home for the first year we decided we were ready to move forward with the pool and that we would be using Anthony and Sylvan (based on their nationwide reputation, warranty, claims of exceptional customer service, etc). Our salesman (Pete Cierski) was very great at his job and seemed to know his stuff very well, so when he told us typical gunite pool construction in the fall is between 4-6 weeks, pending weather delays, we had no reason to not believe him. We’re told 5 months later in the spring by our project manager that that company shuts down in the winter.
After signing our contract with Pete on October 2nd 2018 things seemed to slow down and we no longer felt like we were receiving any customer service. We had our “Meet and Greet” with Pete and the Project Manager (Randy Brewer) on October 30th. After this it seemed as if we slipped to the very back of their priority list. We would call Pete or our Project Manager (Randy Brewer) and it would go to voicemail, or we would email them and never receive a response. We were told the “Pro Edge Build” website would allow us to track our important dates for the construction process so we know when to be home from work for the trades to do their work, however nobody ever updates this information (just prepopulated dates that don’t matter) and when you ask anyone for a timeline or tentative dates scheduled they cannot give you an answer.
After excavation, a ton of gravel was dumped and scattered at the end of our driveway leading into the back yard, no silt fence was installed (resulting in clay spreading throughout our back yard with each rain over this 8 month period), and no follow up conducted to keep us informed of the upcoming important dates. Throughout this process we would never hear anything and when we would be leaving for work someone would show up and say they were scheduled to perform their work, so we would then have to rearrange our child care/transportation and work schedules last minute to accommodate Anthony and Sylvan. This happened almost every time any trade work was to be completed, except for the gunite due to the fact they called us the day prior to ensure we made our payment before they showed up the next day. As happy as we were at this point to be making progress on our pool, it was already well beyond the estimated 4-6 week period.
We finally got our gunite shell on December 14th, 10 weeks and 3 days (73 days) after signing our contract. Although things had been moving slow up to this point, we were told the excavation, gunite prep, and gunite were the most lengthy parts of the entire process so we were hopeful they could make up for some time throughout the winter and have our pool done in AT LEAST 6 MONTHS and just in time to enjoy it in the Spring. BOY WERE WE WRONG!
At this point Anthony and Sylvan already had 95% of the money for the pool due to their convenient payment schedule (40% due prior to excavation, 55% due prior to gunite) and therefore had no need to provide us with any customer service, professionalism, or communication throughout the remainder of the process.
By Spring 2019 (what we were assured would be a “No Later Than” timeline for completion by A&S) we had NO further progress made on our pool. On top of this, the back yard looking like trash was starting to get to us (after 6 months it’s difficult to ignore). The yard was, and continues to be, a mud pit which inconveniences us further in regards to our dogs. When they’re let out and back in multiple times a day, there is a paw cleaning process. However, no matter how much we clean, or whatever gadgets we use, Virginia Clay gets tracked into our house/carpet. Piles of dirt everywhere from the excavation, trash from gunite crew, trash from short stub crew, safety fence blown down and in the pool after the day it was put up, plastic “winterization cover” for the shell ripped and blown/flapping all around, clay from excavated dirt spreading throughout back yard, etc. We had to pick up parts of the safety fence or plastic floating around our back yard on numerous occasions throughout this process. When we couldn’t stand the mess any more we had to contact Anthony and Sylvan (again, us having to reach out to them to get anything done) to do something about the trash. A couple weeks later the PM stopped by to “clean up” the jobsite, but left all the plastic piled up behind our pool so it would be more out of sight and assured us he would have someone pick it up and haul it off. To this day this pile of plastic is still sitting behind our pool getting blown around with every gust of wind that comes by.
Throughout this winter/spring we continually reached out to Anthony and Sylvan representatives, working our way up the chain of management until we finally reached someone who made it sound as if he would be able to help move construction along and compensate us for what he agreed was poor customer service and unreasonable delays. The General Manager, Mid Atlantic Division (Thatcher Butcher) agreed that our experience had been unreasonable and assured us he would make it right by ensuring we were satisfied by the end of the project. Although this initially put us at ease, this also became a process of not delivering on their promises. Thatcher told us (end of April 25th) that his goal was to have us swimming in our pool in approximately 3 weeks and reached out to his scheduler with details. This has now been over 5 weeks ago and we still do not even have the patio formed. They moved along with getting the tile and coping crew on site, finally got the electricians, plumbers, and gas trades to show up throughout this timeframe, however we have yet to receive anything from the decking crew to even get a tentative scheduled date for our patio form and pour. This is even after the scheduler (Patrick Burton) reached out to them about contacting us ASAP to arrange a date.
After ALL of this, we finally decided we should be compensated for this mess of a project and the unnecessary delays to our given timeline. After reaching out to find out how they would “make it right”, we were insulted by an unreasonable discount (1% of total project cost) offered to us off of our final payment prior to the plaster. When we laid out our expectation of a 10% discount, we were told that 10% of the project is a lot of money. $68,500 is a lot of money. Money that was paid in good faith that the promises that were made, would be fulfilled.
Now they are telling us the only other ways they can “add value” for us to our project is to spend additional money on other accessories/services in order to receive a small “savings”, however with how poor the service and timeliness has been thus far I can’t see any “value” in anything they could offer us other than money back on a botched project. I totally get they don’t want to lose money on any project, however as a contractor if you totally screw something up you should give your customers compensation for your mistakes. I wouldn’t think 10% off is an unreasonable amount for any failed project (typically marked up 30%), and if this is how you do business then your mistakes and poor judgment SHOULD put a dent in your bottom line and affect how much money the company makes or loses on a project to keep those same issues from happening again and again. I don’t care, nor should I have to, about losing personnel, delays you face, or whether or not the company makes a profit on my project. I care about getting my swimming pool in a reasonable amount of time (based on your projections) and being appropriately compensated for any issues or unsatisfactory results throughout the process.
Based on our experience, I cannot and will not recommend anyone to build a pool with Anthony and Sylvan (unless they make up for their shortfalls with us). 8 months later and we still just have a wrecked back yard and the pool is still a MINIMUM of a month away from being able to swim in (assuming they were to increase their rate of progress all of a sudden). Due to their shortfalls we have already missed out on over a month of prime swimming weather and AT LEAST 2 months of it by the time our pool may finally be completed, not to mention the birthday parties we planned on hosting at our pool based on the assumption that it would be done by Spring 2019 at the absolute latest. This is completely unacceptable and we are just ready to get it over with. Just to put things into perspective, we purchased, cleared, built, and moved into our new 3 level home in less time than it has taken Anthony and Sylvan to build this pool, and our builder had outstanding customer service and ensured if anything was an issue it would be taken care of immediately or somehow compensated appropriately.
**Update 6/3/2019**
After speaking with Owen on the phone, we were able to agree on a reasonable resolution to the issues we have had thus far. Owen did a great job, going out of his way to help fairly assess the situation and provide an acceptable resolution.