Pool Plaster Chipping - Followup

[Lex]

This is followup to a post I made a few weeks ago about my plaster chipping:

Before my pool company came out I armed myself with as much information as I could so that I would not allow the guy to blame the problem on water chemistry. I got mixed oppinions from places I contacted including the National Plastering Council (who actually said it was probably a water chemistry problem).

Anyway confident that my chemistry is always in range I awaited a battle.

The pool guy came and starred at the area for a few minutes and said "I think we can take care of this for you. I have to talk to someone and see what he wants to do." I asked him what caused the problem and he said he was not really sure he had never seen it happen quite like that before. My guess was that he was thinking in his head that the plasterers really screwed up.

The guy finally got back to me and said they would replaster the problem area at no charge. I just have to drain the water below the bad area which I will do when closing the pool and they will take care of it then.

[SQLit]

DO IT NOW

Pool companies go out of business every day.

[HA HA Budys Here]

And then re-appear under a new name tomorrow.

My favorite is the way retail above-ground pool companies operate. They advertize their pools with "installation included" and state restrictions as to how much grading, sand, etc is covered in the "included" price.

When you get there, you're informed that the installers do not work for the pool store, chain, and aren't employees, but that you'll be dealing with any one of a number of pool installation companies that they have on their "list" for you to choose from, who agree to honor the retailer's installation voucher.

The salesman will often "recommend" one or two of the list of 4-8 installers who definately have no "affiliation" with the pool store.

After purchasing a pool, if you don't contact an installer soon enough, one or two of them will contact you. (Pretty nifty for an unaffiliated, seperate contractor to know you have a pool to install when they've no "affiliation" with the pool store!)

In my case, the pool was 18 x 33 extruded corrugated aluminum, and designed to be buried anywhere from 2' to it's entire depth of 54". 2' of excavation is standard and included with the price, but that didn't stop the 1st "un-affiliated" contractor from informing me that there was a charge of 280.00 for the 18 patio blocks and 4 cu.yds. of sand necessary for installation. He response to my inquiry: "if these components are necessary for installation, then it's included in the price I paid for the pool, no? I mean, the sand is a no-brainer and this particular model requires the uprights be placed on blocks." was troubling at best.

A call to the pool store that: A- I wasn't ready for installation yet, and B-why is this guy trying to charge me for things I already paid for, and C-how could an un-affiliated installer get access to my name and number?

Was quite comical.

[Bill Schnakenberg]

Sometimes, that works out for the best. I had a pool company install my

18' x 36' inground pool. They had been in business for a number of years. They did a good job, but never finished the final grading around the finished pool, despite numerous calls. I never was billed for the last payment installment which amounted to about $1000, because the owner of the pool company ran off with his bookkeeper and took about $50,000 in company funds with him. I hired a guy doing some backfill work on a new house being built across the street to finish the grading. He drove the dozer across the street and finished the grading in a couple of hours. It cost me $100. That was about 16 years ago.