Background:
What I've realized is this industry realizes they have all the power and push all risk on to home owners. Everyone wants to pass the blame on to someone else. And they know home owners have very little control or recourse. I hate being taken advantage of, but I'm not sure what else I can do. Lawyers that I've talked to don't want to bother with this because it's not enough money to get excited about.
- Plaster (PebbleFina) was installed when it was 112F outside and not filled with water fast enough.
- Day one it looked terrible. I immediately contacted the contractor who said it's normal and will even out. This never happened. Spa developed cracks. Again was told this was normal.
- About a month later, we discovered the spa cracks were leaking. Contractor tried to epoxy and it failed again. The entire spa was re-plastered almost 2 months after original install. It looks fantastic and has since it was installed the 2nd time.
- We were very diligent with the brushing of the plaster after install. The surface was as good as it can get with smoothness. Just looked terrible.
- The contractor maintained the pool chemistry for about 4 months total.
- We continued to complain to the contractor the aesthetic never improved. They came out, drained the pool, and did an acid wash without telling us what could happen.
- After the pool was filled and we used again, we figured out what could happen. The pool bottom was like razor blades. Chucks of skin would hang off toes of our kids. They stopped using it because it hurt too much. Also, still looked terrible.
- After months of complaining, finally got contractor to come out again. They drained the pool again and did another acid wash. This time I was home and didn't let them refill until I approved the polishing. Got it relatively smooth again, but still not as good as original. But still looked terrible.
- At this point the contractor wouldn't do anything more without getting PebbleTec involved. PebbleTec sent out an inspector right after 2 weeks of fires in southern california. Everyone had ashes falling into their pool for weeks. No pool in the area had good chemistry. But of course, PebbleTec blamed it on water chemistry and denied the warranty request. I tried to provide evidence of good water chemistry (I was testing twice a week and logging in Pool Math back in those days) and have a discussion of the photos showing how bad it's been since install, but they would not respond to any emails or phone calls.
- I did a little digging and found out PebbleTec is know for this and it's just about impossible for a home owner to fight the "bad water chemistry" claim. I've talked to multiple pool service companies in the area and they've heard this so many times they started laughing when I told them the story. They said they've never heard of PebbleTec actually honoring a warranty.
- Back to the contractor, who tells me to contact the NPC. I get assigned someone to review the case. They issue a finding that has factual inaccuracies, such as claiming I asked them to do an acid wash because the surface was rough. This is 100% false. It was because it looked like a 20 year old pool. Again, once the finding was issued, the contact goes dead. I finally get the Executive Director on the phone and he agrees to review the case. From there it goes no where. The original NPC rep writes and says he considered everything. But I can't get him to admit that his finding was based on a bad understanding of the facts. I also ask how can the spa look good and the pool look bad when it's the same water. Then the Executive Director tries to back out of the whole thing because the NPC "does not draw conclusions", even though they already did. Then says the NPC only is there to help home owners find inspectors to hire (this was never stated until this point). So I ask him to help me find an inspector to hire. His response is the NPC is no longer going to help me because it got contentious.
- So now we're 5 years later. My spa still looks great and my pool still looks terrible. Funny how both are in the same water.
What I've realized is this industry realizes they have all the power and push all risk on to home owners. Everyone wants to pass the blame on to someone else. And they know home owners have very little control or recourse. I hate being taken advantage of, but I'm not sure what else I can do. Lawyers that I've talked to don't want to bother with this because it's not enough money to get excited about.
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