Tony's Pool Service

We hired this company in the early spring of 2020 to re-plaster our pool and it has not gone well. The original plaster was Durazzo quartz and was the smoothest, finest finished plaster that lasted about 15 years. I was looking for this same product, but Diamond Brite by SGM is supposed to be newest and better quartz plaster, and it appeared nice on our neighbors pool, so we went with it versus the Pebble Tec plaster. Alfonso was the salesman on our job and he warned us that there would be color issues with darker colors, so we shied away from them and chose a lighter blue color. On the first day they sent one man out to chip out the plaster around the tile and plumbing, acid clean the original surface, the prep for new plaster. The man worked hard, however he got the acid on our tan colored concrete and turned it green in some spots. The next time they came was to install the plaster. The installers were not aware that we wanted to keep our tile accent pieces and luckily we still had some to be used which they installed prior to the plaster. The installation of both was sub-standard to say the least. The tiles were just placed into the approximate locations of the original and the diagonal was off. They poured the plaster into the pool and the men went to work applying it with large trowels in a side to side, sweeping motion from the bottom to the top. Once that was done, they came back with the inside and outside round edge trowels and quickly rounded out the steps, swim outs, and tanning ledge. And that was it, After the initial rough trowel installation, there was no finishing trowel to smooth out the rough edges. This is what causes the discoloration. There was no uniformity in the plaster color at all. We noticed that at everywhere there was discoloration, there was a ridge and light and dark spots throughout. The outside and inside rounded corners were all streaking, especially when it got close to the tile. I told them I was not happy with the work and asked why they did not finish trowel the plaster. They stated that is the standard installation process and the ridges would go away and to just give it a couple of weeks. They mentioned they could get a factory rep out from SGM to look at and I agreed. We waited a couple of months for the rep to finally come out and perform his inspection. During this time, we could not control the Ph. It was at the top of the scale and every time we got it down, it would go back up within a few days. We never had a problem with Ph with the Durazzo plaster. The rep does his inspection and notices the high Ph again. I noticed some black spots in the plaster and asked what they were. He tells me that there are some pieces of black quartz in the plaster and was probably a result of the hopper not being cleaned out well before this batch was mixed, so we get to live with that and the worry in the future of what's quartz and what's possibly black algae. I asked him about the discoloration and he said that it was standard and looked okay to him, which tells me he has very bad vision or very low standards. He had a sanding disc and used it on one of the ridges and that seemed to even the color out. At this time, Alfonso tells me that the owner, Juan Valazquez, has agreed to drain, acid wash, and sand down the ridges. I agree to this and we were to schedule it at the end of the swim season of 2020. We scheduled the repair and they were a no show. We tried again but could not get them to respond, and then let it rest through the holidays. We tried to contact them again in 2021 and did not get a response. There was the February freeze that caused us to lose power and it shut down the pool. I did emergency work and dismantled the equipment, but lost two Jandy valves to the freeze. I called them again and left a message to see if I could get them to do the plumbing repairs and plaster at the same time, but still no response. I temporarily made the repairs to get the pool working again and then called, left messages and texted that if I did not get a response soon, I would take a different avenue to get this resolved. Alfonso texts back and says he was unaware that they were supposed to the repairs and I had to remind him that wasn't true. I also noticed that Juan deleted our text messages conversation and let them know we needed to get this resolved. We have scheduled this twice and both times it rained and they were unable to come out. I have been trying to get the new schedule and they now are ignoring me. I now feel I have to get someone else to do the repairs and take this company to small claims court to get my money back for the job to pay someone else to do right. This is a very unprofessional company and I would not recommend them for anything. Results, communication and service suck after payment has been made.