Expert advise needed! Please help.

We have had a lot of issues with our pool contractor. The contractor was doing our weekly service at our previous house for 3 years (no major repairs were ever needed). He came to us highly recommended by the company who built our pool. Our contractor used to be a superintendent for the builder and worked with them for many years. Our contractor started his own business and has been in the industry for 25+ years.

This is our first time on here and for now only able to see how to upload 2 pics with this post. The pics are of the pool shortly after it was drained and one showing some of the cracks. We moved into our current house back in December 2016 and prior to purchase we had our current pool company do the inspection on the pool. Issues were noted with the pool. The previous owner took care of half of the items and after move in we scheduled the remaining repairs with our contractor to start on 02/20/17.

Repairs that were needed to be done were as follows: Spa pebble patch (as cracks at edge of seat area noted in Spa only during inspection), new pool light,basic re-plumb of pipe at filter area, tile cleaning, and acid wash. While pool was drained, the contractor noticed rebar starting to come though the underside of the swim up bar counter and recommended that the counter needed to be replaced. We agreed to have the work completed and the contractor said it would be 5 days to completion. The contractor also stated that all work was to be completed by their company.

I will try to sum it all up as short as possible but here is where it started to go very bad. The demo of the counter and the cut outs for the spa patch were done immediately after the pool finished draining. The spa patch was done by another contractor and the patch color is not the same as the existing color. The patch work will need to be re done. It wasn't until March 14th (20 days later) that concrete was poured for the new counter (by yet a different contractor). Our pool contractor attempted to install the tile on the counter. He got about half way through when we saw the horrible work that was done. Counter top was never leveled before tile was placed on and the tiles were not level or evenly placed. Our pool contractor then tried to contract the tile work out to other contractors, some of which walked away from the job or said they were too busy to do it. The tile work was completed on 04-23-17. (62 days after the pool was drained). Tile installers cleaned off the counter area when finished and some water got onto the floor of the pool. That is when we noticed all of the cracks. I immediately sent a text to the pool contractor and he told me that these are fisher cracks and that they are normal in any inter finish.

The contractor came over the next day to do the acid wash and to start filling the pool back up. I have recently learned that an acid wash will make the cracks worse. The cracking was a huge concern to us and we expressed this to him several times. Several times he told us that he will be adding a sequestering agent to the water and the sequestering agent would rebond the cracks. I looked up the product and talked to the manufacturer. The manufacturer told me that their product gets metals out of the water and helps prevent staining. This product does nothing to help re bond our pebble tec. The contractor told us that our pool could sit empty for two years and not have a crack. He even told us that he would give us a one year guarantee for any cracks. He has since changed his position on the cracks and has mentioned that I don’t have to pay him anymore money and I can have someone else re do the patching on the hot tub and then we can part ways.

He originally sent me an invoice for the counter repair and we paid that invoice. He has since sent me two additional invoices with the same invoice number as the original that was already paid and has changed the cost of the work that I already paid for as well as the guarantee of the cracks. We have filed a complaint with the ROC and the inspection is scheduled for next week. Any information or direction that can help us leading up to theinspection or after will be greatly appreciated.
 
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Sorry to hear of your misfortune...

While pebble finishes are a great deal more robust than plain plaster, the main ingredient is still plaster and it will quickly suffer ill effects when not submerged for any length of time. What you are seeing is certainly evidence of the plaster drying out and shrinking.

As bad a it looks in your photo, its probably pretty typical of most pools. No plaster is free of cracks and that looks like a lot of pools I see once they are drained.

As for a plan of action from here forward, I would focus on getting the work completed quickly and getting the pool refilled. Do a leak test once full to be sure that you aren't losing any water and monitor it frequently.
 
Not to make any excuses but it is hard to find people in any trade that want to do small repairs or jobs that requires multiple trips to allow for set up, curing, getting special materials etc.

With that said leaving your pool unfilled would not damage the pebble surface as pictured.

The Acid wash is to clean the surface of scale and mineral deposits, it should not cause further damage to existing cracks. IF I had any pool drained I would acid wash it - as long as it was never done before.

Please post your questions as a list and others may be better able to answer your questions.
B
 
Thank you for your input. We live in Arizona and the temp got up to 100 degrees while it was empty. It was also empty for 63 days. We have better pictures that clearly show that the cracks were not there before. Also have pictures of cracks that you can put a dime and a quarter in. I will re post individual concerns with better pics.
 
Thank you for the response. Water is back in the pool now. I have pictures of cracks that are much worse. I will try to get better ones on here so you can see them. I was told that this is pebble sheen (not 100% on that) by the contractor that is working on it. Every post I see online says that pebble sheen actually gets cracks sooner than pebble tec, when left empty like this. Temps were pretty warm while it was empty and not much rain.
 
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