Hi all
After reading several threads here on other users who have experienced rust issues with their Intex pools, I felt I should share our recent experience.
My wife and I originally bought a used 15' Intex Metal Frame pool with an Intex Salt system about four years ago to put up in our backyard here in sunny Southern California. It had been used for at least a couple seasons before we picked it up. We used it for three more seasons, actually only taking it down the first year and then opting to keep it up year round for the two years after that. We loved it so much that last spring (2017) we decided to pour a 17' round concrete pad, patio and landscape the surrounding area with river rock. We also splurged and bought a brand new Intex 16' round Ultra Frame pool and installed the Hayward skimmer. Earlier this year I went ahead and did a 100% hard plumb with rigid and flex PVC to connect the 2650gph sand filter we had upgraded to a couple years ago.
This is what our pool looked like last summer:
Throughout the past year this pool has been up, we started noticing bubbling paint and rust forming at the edges of the horizontal beams and especially at the bottom of the verticals. Being beyond the 90 days that Intex warranties the parts for, there was little we could do. We crossed our fingers and hoped for the best. Unfortunately, about a month ago, we came outside to find two of the legs had completely rusted through and separated from their base and all of the others with similar amounts of rust just waiting to separate:
Needless to say, we are very disappointed in the fact that we "upgraded" our pool and it has only lasted one year compared to the used Metal Frame we purchased that lasted at least 5 years.
We contacted Intex for help and the best they could do was to direct us to the support page to order new legs. After conferring with my wife, we decided to swallow the loss and go ahead and order replacement legs. We found some posts on this forum where one user had used Silicone tape to wrap all the connections and decided we'd try the same this time around.
At Intex's spare parts page (Search results for: 'vertical leg' - Intex), I searched for "vertical leg" and found 22 results, only one of which matched the model and size of our pool:
Vertical Leg for Round Ultra Frame Pools - Intex.
We went ahead and made the order for 16 new legs, disappointed that we were paying more than half of what this pool cost us brand new (inc. tax and shipping).
When they arrived (and
after draining our pool to about 16")
we attempted to install them. We quickly discovered that these legs didn't fit. When we called Intex, they said the leg design had changed (apparently within the year) and the part number we needed to order was not available to order from the website but needed to be ordered by phone. To add insult to injury, they insisted that they would not accommodate an exchange unless we paid return shipping and that we'd have to make a new order to get the legs we needed (of course paying shipping again for the new order). Since we only live 30 miles or so from the returns address, I even offered to drop off the return in person but they declined, insisting that they don't accept returns directly from customers.
Needless to say, I demanded to speak to a supervisor who finally called us back several days later. After explaining our situation again, he admitted he understood why we were frustrated and said it wasn't our fault that we ordered the wrong parts since we were directed to the parts page with no advisement that the part we actually needed would not be listed. There isn't even a notice or warning listed on the page that would have prompted us to be sure these would work with our year old pool. (I've seen this information listed for certain other items but not this one.)
All this being said, this post is not meant to be a rant but instead to be another warning to others to temper their expectations of Intex both in terms of product quality as well as their customer support. I've seen others comments about this company and also have come across the numerous other posts questioning the quality of the materials they are currently using. The resources available here at this website are amazing and hopefully this info about our experience will be useful to others.
In the end, we came across a bargain on another new Intex 16' Ultra Frame (paying only slightly more for a whole new pool than we had paid for the incorrect legs) so we decided to try again, using the new frame parts and saving the liner, pump, ladder, etc. as spares. It feels wrong continuing to support this company but based on our investments in the upgrades we've done we decided this would be the best decision for us. This time we'll be wrapping EVERYTHING with silicone tape and crossing our fingers that we will at least get a few years out of this additional investment. Our long term plan is to start saving for a resin pool!
After reading several threads here on other users who have experienced rust issues with their Intex pools, I felt I should share our recent experience.
My wife and I originally bought a used 15' Intex Metal Frame pool with an Intex Salt system about four years ago to put up in our backyard here in sunny Southern California. It had been used for at least a couple seasons before we picked it up. We used it for three more seasons, actually only taking it down the first year and then opting to keep it up year round for the two years after that. We loved it so much that last spring (2017) we decided to pour a 17' round concrete pad, patio and landscape the surrounding area with river rock. We also splurged and bought a brand new Intex 16' round Ultra Frame pool and installed the Hayward skimmer. Earlier this year I went ahead and did a 100% hard plumb with rigid and flex PVC to connect the 2650gph sand filter we had upgraded to a couple years ago.
This is what our pool looked like last summer:
Throughout the past year this pool has been up, we started noticing bubbling paint and rust forming at the edges of the horizontal beams and especially at the bottom of the verticals. Being beyond the 90 days that Intex warranties the parts for, there was little we could do. We crossed our fingers and hoped for the best. Unfortunately, about a month ago, we came outside to find two of the legs had completely rusted through and separated from their base and all of the others with similar amounts of rust just waiting to separate:
Needless to say, we are very disappointed in the fact that we "upgraded" our pool and it has only lasted one year compared to the used Metal Frame we purchased that lasted at least 5 years.
We contacted Intex for help and the best they could do was to direct us to the support page to order new legs. After conferring with my wife, we decided to swallow the loss and go ahead and order replacement legs. We found some posts on this forum where one user had used Silicone tape to wrap all the connections and decided we'd try the same this time around.
At Intex's spare parts page (Search results for: 'vertical leg' - Intex), I searched for "vertical leg" and found 22 results, only one of which matched the model and size of our pool:
Vertical Leg for Round Ultra Frame Pools - Intex.
We went ahead and made the order for 16 new legs, disappointed that we were paying more than half of what this pool cost us brand new (inc. tax and shipping).
When they arrived (and
after draining our pool to about 16")
we attempted to install them. We quickly discovered that these legs didn't fit. When we called Intex, they said the leg design had changed (apparently within the year) and the part number we needed to order was not available to order from the website but needed to be ordered by phone. To add insult to injury, they insisted that they would not accommodate an exchange unless we paid return shipping and that we'd have to make a new order to get the legs we needed (of course paying shipping again for the new order). Since we only live 30 miles or so from the returns address, I even offered to drop off the return in person but they declined, insisting that they don't accept returns directly from customers.
Needless to say, I demanded to speak to a supervisor who finally called us back several days later. After explaining our situation again, he admitted he understood why we were frustrated and said it wasn't our fault that we ordered the wrong parts since we were directed to the parts page with no advisement that the part we actually needed would not be listed. There isn't even a notice or warning listed on the page that would have prompted us to be sure these would work with our year old pool. (I've seen this information listed for certain other items but not this one.)
All this being said, this post is not meant to be a rant but instead to be another warning to others to temper their expectations of Intex both in terms of product quality as well as their customer support. I've seen others comments about this company and also have come across the numerous other posts questioning the quality of the materials they are currently using. The resources available here at this website are amazing and hopefully this info about our experience will be useful to others.
In the end, we came across a bargain on another new Intex 16' Ultra Frame (paying only slightly more for a whole new pool than we had paid for the incorrect legs) so we decided to try again, using the new frame parts and saving the liner, pump, ladder, etc. as spares. It feels wrong continuing to support this company but based on our investments in the upgrades we've done we decided this would be the best decision for us. This time we'll be wrapping EVERYTHING with silicone tape and crossing our fingers that we will at least get a few years out of this additional investment. Our long term plan is to start saving for a resin pool!
