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| - Signed contract October 2014 - returned to AZ Jan 1, 2015 work started Jan 5, 2015, restarted Jan 12, 2015, completed Mar7, 2015
We did a ton of research since we had never had a pool before. We read reviews on a dozen contractors, checked the BBB (which isn't very helpful), read Angie's List, Yelp and any others that we found. After three months and over 200 hours of research we started the interview process. What we learned is that none of these pool companies do very much of the actual work. They contract out the excavation, plumbing, electrical, concrete, decking, pebbletech, etc. Their own people supervise, schedule and do all the follow up on their contractors. So it comes down to a company that #1 uses excellent trades people #2 has an excellent working relationship with those trades #3 pays their subcontractors promptly #4 has a scheduler who stays on top of the schedule and responds immediately to rain delays or issues that arise #5 has a supervisor who is there immediately to inspect before and after each step of the process. One major reason we selected Dolphin is that out of all the companies we interviewed, Kimble our salesman, is the only one who told us that we definitely had to add a pool heater if we wanted to use the pool between January and May! Everyone knew we were going to be seasonal residents and the pool would be used for the first five months of the year and yet only Kimble said the heater was not an option! Would the others have told us later that we needed to add one on and add $$$ when we had not budgeted for it - probably. Because Kimble was upfront with us, gave us computer generated drawings, told us about Tonia their scheduler who is awesome and Dolphin's 20 years in business, we chose Dolphin.
I saw another review that trashed Dolphin - the fellow had no idea where concrete was used etc. I find this hard to believe. Kimble went through every detail with us - what materials would be used, he showed us the tiles, explained the difference between plaster, pebbletech, pebblesheen, the options on heaters, filter options, vacuum versus floor systems and even went into details about the companies they used like Hayward, etc. we asked hundreds of questions and although some may have been too common sense to him, Kimble answered everyone to our satisfaction. We gave them a $1000 deposit and signed the contract and went back to IL for Christmas.
Jan 2nd we met with Kimble and made final selections on color of tile and interior finish, making sure there was adequate supply available so we would not run into issues with availability of materials. A few days later the crew was out to lay out the design in the yard. The next day Kent, the supervisor, was there to verify dimensions, make sure we were happy with the design and layout and gave us a booklet which explained every step of construction, materials to be used, the time line, how many days each step took, rest days etc. Then the crew showed up to excavate - it took only a few minutes of digging for everything to come to a screeching halt! We live in the Sierra Estrella Mountains and our house literally is a house on a rock. We had what is known as a "hard dig". Back to the drawing board - Scott the owner said we could cancel the project, pay $300 for the excavation crew and get a $700 refund from our deposit - or redesign and go with the project. We chose to make a few minor modifications to the project, keep the pool as designed and pay for the hard dig. By eliminating minor things we kept on budget and resumed excavation a week later. There were a few rain days to contend with
So with the delayed start and lost rain days it took about 6 weeks for construction. We had water in the pool March 8th and although we had not initialized the pool yet, my wife and friend plunged into the 69 degree water (we are from Chicago area so we are very hardy). The next day the pool was initialized, we turned on the pump, filter and the heat pump and everything is great. Tonia, the scheduler, was awesome - she kept everyone on schedule and had water in the pool in time for our first visitors.
We cannot say enough about Dolphin Pools - Scott, Kimble, Tonia, Kent and all their subs were great to work with. On time, friendly, professional, excellent tradesmen, kept the yard clean through the entire process thru final cleanup. We had one minor issue with one pop up which was cleared up in minutes (had some residue from the pebbletech interfering). Dolphin Pools gets our vote for 5 Stars.
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