Complaint Review: Blue Haven Pools - Austin Texas

Blue Haven Pools is the worst contractor I have ever worked with. Period. I am in the commercial real estate industry so I have had a lot of experience with contractors from all angles of the construction industry. Blue Haven takes the cake as the worst.

My wife and I decided to have the Austin, TX office of Blue Haven build our pool. The one main reason we chose Blue Haven was because of their national presence and number of years in the industry. There had been a lot of press over the past year in the Austin area of local pool companies taking someone's money and then leaving them with a big hole in their backyard. That worried us and as we did our research, we discovered that the pool industry as a whole is very loosly regulated and just about anyone can put a sign on their truck and start business tomorrow as a pool contractor.

To list the problems, issues and screw ups we encountered with Blue Haven would take too long. The list is a mile long and things were botched every step of the way. It all started when the pool designer designed the pool to go in a certain location but then we had to relocate it due to some property line issues. Our yard has some severe slopes and when they relocated the pool, they simply dropped the same design in the new location without any consideration for things such as drainage, easements and positioning.

In general, Blue Haven is aweful in their construction, communication and organization. Just about every step of the way we encountered a construction screw up where something was installed incorrectly or was simply left out. As homeowners who know very little about pools, we were generally the ones having to point out things to Blue Haven that just didn't look right to us. Rarely did they ever catch a problem and then fix it themselves.

Their lack of communication was probably the most frustrating part. We never knew what stage was next or when it would be done. I had to call our contact person at least 50 times where as she probably only called me about 5 times. The so-called superintendant of our pool was never to be found and when you did see him, he seemed powerless to do anything.

He was always complaining to us about his boss and he never had any idea of what was going on. I think he quit the company mid-stream but I am not sure. We were constantly told that something would be completed in a few days and it wouldn't end up happening for a few weeks. Our Blue Haven contacts had terrible customer service skills, they always told us what we wanted to hear but rarely the truth and whenever I raised an issue they just didn't want to hear it. This was even true for the manager of the local Austin office. He personally spoke with me about a change we made and then faxed me the papers to sign to correctly document the change.

He never communicated this change to the appropriate people which cost us time because the subcontractors were not aware of this addition. The last issue of poor organization may be the root of all the problems. I think this was a top down problem within the local office. We would have times where our pool would sit for 3 weeks without anyone doing any work. The excuse was always that they were backed up and we were next in line.

When subcontractors did show up to do work, they usually arrived late in the morning and were never there after about 4pm and certainly not weekends. We have several photos and videos of workers sleeping, changing the tires on their truck and changing the oil in their truck while on the job. There were several occassions where a few workers would show up in the morning and just hang out for several hours before other workers showed up with the needed equipment or materials. I can't understand how anyone can stay in business with these fundamental business flaws.

The bottom line is that we feel we have been ripped off just like all the news articles we read in our research. No, no one took our money and then left us with an unfinished hole in the back yard. But this whole process has felt just as bad. Although our pool is still not done, I do think the finshing touches will finally be completed within a week. Frankly, it really doesn't matter too much since it is now too cold to swim and we probably won't be able to use the pool for another 4 months. I just hope that the pool actually holds water and that it doesn't wash away in a big rain in a few months. We are so beaten down at this point that it doesn't take much to please us anymore.