American Pools & Spas (A Cody Pools Company) — Local services in Conway

My wife and I are not happy thus far and construction has yet to begin. I will adjust this review accordingly throughout the build process. We were told upfront we'd be looking at ~16 weeks from start to finish. We are currently at week 11 (November 5th) since paying our deposit. As of today, we have been told we are 1-2 weeks out from having the sod stripped then about 4 weeks later before the dig is started. Completion is now estimated at 5 months from today. Had we been told up front we were looking at an 8 month (32 week) project, we would have walked away at that point. If you are hoping for a quick project, this may not be the company to use at this time. **1/13/21 I had high hopes that once the excavation was completed things would move swiftly as informed, but it doesn't seem likely as we're being told more steps are delayed. We were given a new time frame to completion on Nov 17th. (14-16 weeks. Feb 22 - Mar 8)

March 1- American is going to fail to meet their second timeline to completion they provided us of (14-16 weeks. Feb 22 - Mar 8). We have friends building a pool in Ft. Myers who started construction on February 16th and have already completed more work than our project started back in November. At this point it is what it is. We are hoping for a nice finished project, but American's ability to efficiently schedule sub- contractors is lacking. It shows as we've watched multiple families start construction after us and have been enjoying their very nice pool projects for weeks if not months.

April 30th - Made a phone call when we failed to get an email reply after a few days. Found out a THIRD person who we have been working with is no longer with the company. Two schedulers and project manager.

Project timeline: August 14th: Deposit paid. Sept 15th: Permit Submitted Sept 17th: Permit approved with conditional note regarding barrier. October: A huge mess and delay were American did not notify us they were still trying to resolve a permit issue around a possible baby gate for final inspection. Held the entire construction start up. Only resolved until we begun questioning what was taking so long. November 16th: Sod strip occurred. Note 2 months passed between permit approval and any on site work being completed. November 17th: Received a phone call stating project completion should be be in 14-16 weeks now that we have moved to the "construction phase". The "dig" is estimated to occur in ~4 weeks. Dec 9th - Called and LVM for update. Dec 14 - Called and LVM again as we are at 4 weeks with no progress. Received a return e-mail stating someone would be out on the 15th to frame the pool. Dec 15 - Frame completed for dig. Jan 5- Excavation completed 3.5 months from permit approval to the "dig" Jan 7/8 - Steel crew completed layout Jan 8 - City inspection. passed. Jan 12 - Spa plumbing completed Jan 13th - Told we are now a week out for the gunite to be sprayed. Previously told guntie would be done this week. (Another week long delay after a two week delay for the excavation crew) January 18th - Gunite was sprayed. January 23 - Forms removed and first attempt to complete pregrade January 25 - 2nd attempt to complete pregrade January 29 - Expecting 3rd and hopefully final attempt to properly complete pregrade before plumper can start. (Completed February 10 and11th - Plumbing completed. February 23 and 24th - Tilework completed. March 3 - Footer framed March 4 - Inspection (passed) March 5 - Compaction March 10 - Footer poured March 12 - Travertine deck and coping delivered March 29 - Coping and deck started April 1 - Coping and deck completed over 4 full days. (Multiple travertine stones will need to be relaid as they are not even. A section of coping as a chunk missing from it and will need to be replaced as well. April 5 - Crates/pallets from travertine removed from front yard. May 13 - 6 weeks later the electrician came out and completed the electrical. Required two physical visits to showroom to get acknowledgment as no phone calls were being returned from...

AP deleted all FB reviews & pics? I guess if they can't hide it, or lie about it, they just disable the FB review feature? Thank you Google. AP is not responsible for anything but collecting $ #poolmafia. IF you have done your homework and still decide to contract with AP, PLEASE COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND: FSPA Arbitration and the Warranties. On my AP contract the Arbitration Clause was the 1st paragraph on the back. I had a terrible experience with 8 months of construction. The pool has had leaks since day ONE. They just kept sending someone that claimed they patched a leak or 2 and leave. I paid $450 for leak inspection. LESS than 3 years, I have had a minimum of 10 leaks patched. This is a tiny Plunge Pool. 9X12, 4FT DEEP. Now when I employ a credible Leak Locator we find what AP has been avoiding. The technician says there are serious problems and I should send the report to the builder. I asked him about repairs and he said any decent builder would step up. I sent leak report to American Pools Owner. The inspection report says at least 6 leaks were patched, and "Pool Structure: Fail," Gunite is disolving. I already know from construction, AP will do nothing, but the tech said a serious issue with a fairly new pool should go to the builder. They sent a reply stating I would need to submit "weekly" chemicals readings. This is word for word (CUT & PASTE) from their email - "we will need to have all of your weekly chemical records to review. Please send them all once you have them. We will not be able to make any determinations until we are able to review them all along with the report from XYZ. We will need them from November 2014 to current dates." - WOW! Right? Structural Fail and more leaks and I need weekly readings. My 1st service was from Premier endorsed by AP, said they did not have my weekly reports. My current service thinks they are shifting blame. Which I agree because I have seen their unethical practices. By the grace of God, digging through files and putting pressure on current service, I get ALL of the chemical reports, I email the owner that I will deliver as soon as I get copies. CFO replies, we don't want the records and tells me to call the manufacturer directly. The manufacturer doesn't need ALL the chemical reports because when AP ignored me, I had already alerted them. So either AP is ignorant or they were just trying to waste my time and make me think I could do nothing without ALL WEEKLY reports. These folks are sick, why would you say ALL 3 times in an email and then when I have them tell me to call the manufacturer. I have emails to AP during the 1st year about the leaks. They know and don't care, seems they were stalling, waiting for the 1 year to pass. No surprise, they did nothing but demand payment for poor craftmanship during construction. Now I am to call their subs to fix their mess. American Pools & Spas is a horrible contractor. The people they send to your house are sub contractors. If they make a mistake, it costs AP $0, they will continue to send the same person over, and over, and over.....Try to stay with me, if you go to a restaurant and the food is always bad do you go back over, & over, & over... You get my point. If you get good subs, you will be fine. They have a lot of subs and the good ones go to big jobs and commercial properties. If you are a homeowner, you may or may not get good sub contractors. Good or Bad makes no difference to AP as long as they get your money. I wish you lots of luck with or without a new pool. I believe most of the time it is not that bad, but understanding Arbitration with FSPA & Warranties is important going in and something to consider. Draw schedule! Hold final payment for completion. They will tell you there is a site supervisor. I had 4. The 1st overlooked the pool was framed in the wrong location, the last had to replace some PVC because we found they used less than schedule 40. Who does that? And, just a funny ha ha, the owners nephew did a review here. 5 star Imagine? Way to boost an average...

Prepare to wait.

Short Story: Signed July 2020, was told the pool would be ready by December 2020. Its March 2021 and all we have is excuses and a hole in our backyard. If its "the busiest time in pool history" then maybe stop selling pools if you don't have the crews to deliver. Communicate with your customers instead of leaving them in the dark. Getting updates is like pulling teeth.

Long Story: I signed my contract for my pool July of 2020. I was told the pool would be ready by December 2020. We were told to work with a landscaper to cut and cap our sprinklers. We told our sales person that we needed their guidance since we've never done this before and they assured us they would help and that any landscaper would know how to do this. We worked with a landscaper who has done other work for other clients of American Pools and provided the schematics for the pool. We were then told that the cut and cap was "all wrong" and that we would have a delay as a result. We were also told by the supervisor that the sales person should have told us that there can't be any water pressure in the backyard. I put the supervisor and our landscaper in touch with one another so I didn't have to be middleman and we could get back on track. Work from American Pools didn't start in my backyard until November when the sod was removed. A month later (December) the hole was dug. An extension was requested from our financing company since the expectation was that the pool would be done by November. By this point I'm working with the construction supervisor closely. We wanted to try to have the pool done by mid-March for my wife's birthday and we were told by the supervisor that this would be possible (mainly because the finance deadline was March 15th, not because we've been waiting since July). A month after the hole was dug the gunnite was shot (January). The supervisor informed me that he was concerned about some washout under our lanai and asked us to remove everything from the lanai to prevent further damage. He requested the gunnite crew come back to look at it but they didn't come back for almost a week. That part was fixed but prior to plumbing, there was another issue with the gunnite. We were told it would be 2 weeks and the plumbing would start. FOUR WEEKS later we reached out to them asking for an update and we were told the gunnite crew would be out to fix their issues and the plumbing would be done shortly after. After the gunnite crew came, the plumbing crew came to do their work but the gunnite crew left gunnite outside the pool which had hardened and they couldn't do their jobs so they had to be back out again. At some point the supervisor we were working with stopped responding and it wasn't until I called American pools and spoke with the scheduler that I found out he was no longer with the company. I spoke to the supervisors boss who said he had no idea about any March deadline and that, in his experience, he wouldn't expect it to be done by that point. When the plumber came they said that they had to cut the line that the landscaper did for the cut and cap because of how much space there was which essentially broke our irrigation system (despite the supervisor working directly with the landscaper). Its now March 2nd, my lawn hasn't been watered in weeks, the tile has been put on and I've been told the deck crew would be coming but that these crews are "booked out many days" so to prepare myself for the pool not to be ready by mid March as if this pool project just popped up on their radar and hasn't been in contract since July.

The lack of communication and planning is frustrating to say the least. They didn't care that the pool wasn't going to be ready when they said it would, they only cared that the finance company would need another extension (2nd one now since March 15th was also the finance deadline). If you plan on going with a pool from them just make sure you give yourself a year, pack your patience, and have their number on speed dial because they won't...