I would hold his feet to the fire. The most you stand to lose is $425 plus your cost for the arbitration. This is peanuts compared to the total cost of the pool and a lifetime of dissatisfaction and regret. You paid for it -- get what you want.
Mistakes get made all of the time, and the solution is not always a redo.
Mistakes get made all of the time, and the solution is not always a redo.
That doesn't mean she has to accept it. She didn't sign off on a change.
I am always saddened by these types of threads because the process of building a pool is so laborious and time-consuming that, not getting what you want, seems so wrong and unfair.
So let me add my 2 cents for the OP and hopefully not rankle too many feathers with what I say -
1. The PB certainly screwed this up; he is, at least, partially at fault.
2. Redoing the ledge, at this juncture in time, is unrealistic IN MY OPINION. You're talking about draining the pool, chipping out the plaster, jackhammering the gunite shell and then redoing rebar and shotcrete. Not to mention that it will all need to be possibly re-permitted and inspected again. That's just unrealistic and there's no way any PB would do that. I don't even think any arbitrator would consider that a viable solution.
3. When this happened at excavation and rebar, the problem was noticed and the job should have been stopped until the PB got back from vacation (why take vacation at the height of build season is beyond me). Yes, that would mean angering subs and throwing the build schedule into question but, by allowing the work to go forward and making payments on schedule up to the point of plaster, there is, at least, implicit consent that the work was acceptable even if not desirable. An arbitrator would recognize that implicit consent even without a sign-off on the contract.
4. There is an offer of money on the table. This means, implicitly again, that the PB accepts some responsibility for what has happened. This would be the point to negotiate through arbitration - maximize the monetary payout. I understand that money can't fix everything that has gone wrong, but, at this point, it's the best option out there unless you're willing to tear up your new pool, yard and life for the next few months.
Again, the above is just my unprofessional opinion and thoughts, others may not share them and may totally disagree with them. I hope this can get resolved to the satisfaction of all parties involved.
In our last build, they did the spa wrong and the jets were almost like an enema!
Oh NOOO!!! Bless your heart. That must have been horrible. Out of curiosity, did they have them on the seats aiming upward, or on the lower walls aiming outward, or what?