HILL'S POOL SVC INC

Prior owners thought weekly service was fine. Pre-purchase inspection seemed a little thin for the price, and given the fact they had been servicing the pool for years. However, it was substantially accurate, timely and respectfully delivered. As part of the inspection, Hills provided a bid for replacement of equipment, but not to address the lack of ground/fault breaker, nor a recommendation of someone to address that (only critical safety issue for us). Bid for equipment replacement was in line with other bids (within 5%; the bids were suspiciously close). Equipment recommendations were properly sized, although one brand was (and still is) unknown to me--I had almost no luck looking up the equipment to research longevity. We hired an electrician to ground the electric system. Weekly maintenance included cleaning and chemicals. Pool was always clean, and they kept a chart of chemical readings on the wall near the pump. However, 3 things went wrong. First: they were using cake chlorine, which has other compounds in it, and our CYA (another regular test) was rising too quickly for the chlorine to remain effective at the levels they maintained; this appears to be a debate in the pool service community, so I will let you decide if their choice of chemicals bothers you. Second: 2 months of service, they skipped a maintenance day, and the pool very quickly turned green--I believe this was exacerbated by the chemical choice. Third: Instead of apologizing and cleaning up, they dug in and a) denied skipping the week (although the chemical chart had not been filled out for the week, and there were no chlorine cakes in the float they used) b) they came back and then back-dated the chemical chart the following week, and c) blamed the issue on the underperforming pump, which they bid to replace. I had to call an "emergency" cleaner to come out 3 times the following week to remove the green algae. I really feel like they were presumptive and lazy -- I didn't know anything about pools when I moved into the house. After the green explosion, I had to quickly come up to speed on how to care for a pool, so I could judge for myself what was and wasn't working. This was how I learned the issues with cake chlorine. I also learned that unless you are using a pool (and it was spring, and still cold, so we weren't), the slow pump does not cause algae to form. The evidence shows they tried to take advantage of my lack of knowledge and blame me for their mistake. Given how vociferously they blamed us for not immediately replacing the equipment (which was struggling for months before we moved in), I think they were unhappy that I didn't immediately replace the equipment they bid during the pre-season.

It went very well.

They are extremely good at communication. I find this very refreshing. They are explaining every detail thoroughly. They gave great recommendations and improved the final product. They are super professional and hard working. They don't bother you and get right to work. They clean well and leave no mess behind. They are very efficient and get the work done. I even wrote hem a thank you note for the pool installation and the service because the work is so wonderfull.