ROYAL BLUE POOLS LLC

Fine. My pool is clean, without being over-treated with chemicals. The heater and pool cover work well, and cost what the provider had estimated. The company employees are reliable and thorough. Regular pool service is certainly available for less than Royal Blue charges, but I know from experience that not all pool services are as reliable, as knowledgable or as experienced. I recommend Royal Blue without hesitation.

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I was paying for weekly, all-inclusive FULL pool service but the only time my pool was serviced fully was when I was home watching. I got a camera after the 1st incident when full services were not performed completely as agreed. I left the owner several messages over the months to discuss the consistent problems, I only received a return call once. His customer service response was basically to go elsewhere if I was not happy because he wasn't going to do anything about it. When I asked to at least receive a text if not showing up or running later OR to leave the standard note companies leave after each service, he refused & offered no other solutions. The latest response to another NO SHOW was sent to me via text by the owner abruptly canceling my service since I was not happy. Canceling service via text instead of returning a phone call & attempting to correct the problem is NO way to run a business! This is what they call customer service?! HA, what a joke!

Joshua was very friendly and casual, and doesn't put on the pressure to upsell more expensive or other services. He is honest to the point where he even foregoes possible business, like when I asked him if he would service our pool if we got this house. He said there are plenty of good pool service providers in my area, and I would be better off with a nearby company. He also said he would recommend a couple of options for other pool restoration companies (our pool needs re-plastering) in case we wanted to shop around. The pool equipment at my property is in good shape, but the pool has been painted with incorrect paint to hide the poor condition of the plaster. This is exactly what we believed before he looked at it, and, without us telling him anything, he confirmed our suspicions. His estimate seemed average. neither overpriced nor inexpensive. He arrived a little late but this wasn't a problem. His report was thorough, and didn't contain unnecessary recommedations for uneeded work, like a couple of other pool inspectors I have used in the past. I would use him again.

Joshua is my go-to guy for any problem that pops up with my spa. He is friendly, knowledgable, and reliable and will always charge you a fair price for services performed.

I was having the worst problems with my previous pool company. The pools were constantly turning green and not being taken care of. I received a health inspection warning of low chlorine levels twice, and was at my wits end. I looked in Angies List for a pool company and found Royal Blue Pools. I spoke with Joshua and he immediately went to all my pool locations, gave me quotes to do the work the health inspection report wanted me to do (new chlorinator, return valve, deep water line, etc.) and quoted me what he would charge me per month to keep my pools beautiful. Well how does one react to a quote that was half as much as my old company quoted me for the repairs, and monthly service that is less to boot! I was skeptical. But I gave him a chance. Best decision I could have made. The work was done perfectly, professionally, on time and passed all inspections, and my pools have never looked better. I can not say enough good things about Royal Blue Pools and Joshua. I have and will continue to recommend him to others who need the best pool service in town, AT THE BEST PRICE TOO!

I don't know what some of the other poor reviews are about, I've had nothing but a positive experience with Joshua. I'm on the board of our HOA & we have been using Royal Blue Pool since August 2010. Joshua does an exceptional job and his prices are extremely reasonable. We have never had a problem with his work or responsiveness. If there is a problem, he takes care of it that day or the next day. For example, I recently called him to report our spa light was out. He said he would take care of it and it was done by that evening. Another example was when he had an employee that was not performing up to Joshua's or our HOA's expectations. He fired that person & promptly took care of our pool himself. He did an excellent job replacing the spa heater and his prices were much less than what our previous pool person quoted. I have absolute confidence in Joshua and know that if there is any problem with the spa, he will take care of it promptly.

Joshua was very responsive to my request, brought the proper part, and installed it. He quoted me a reasonable price, and I sent him a check. No muss, no fuss. Although I manage my own pool chemicals (hey, I have to put my degree in chemistry to work somehow), Joshua is a dependable source for advice whenever I need it, and he is my "go-to" guy when I need something fixed.

We have been in our home for 12 Years. We have been through way too many pool services. We will stay with Royal Blue forever. They do what they need to do and are always fair and reliable. Even our German Shepard loves them!

We originally hired Joshua/Royal Blue based in part upon recommendations here, and in part because Joshua seemed genuinely interested in being of assistance and growing his business. When we hired him, I told him that we were looking for another provider because our former pool service (sole proprietor) had become unreliable, to the point where we never knew if or when he was coming each week. I should note that I work from home most of the time, so being able to plan around service visits is important. We have always paid Royal Blue's bills timely, usually within a day or two of receipt, and we've taken Joshua's advice and used his services to repair our equipment (new ignitor, heater cleaning and the like) as he recommended. About two weeks ago, our regular pool man (Joshua's employee) notified him that our pool pump was malfunctioning, and I received an email from Joshua on Jan 10 saying "We can repair but I strongly suggest replacing with a variable speed pump which will lower your DWP bill..." He quoted a price of $1,465 before DWP rebate, but said it would reduce our monthly bill by compelling amounts (which he quoted; they're not relevant so I'm not repeating them). I confirmed in writing that he was "EXTREMELY comfortable" (his words and emphasis) with his recommendation and the projected future monthly DWP savings, and gave him approval to proceed. I asked him to let me know his timing, and he told me the coming Saturday morning. That morning, he and our regular pool man arrived, but when I went out (they'd been working a while by this time) to check in, Joshua said the pump wouldn't work after all, because it required 220V wiring, and we had only 110V. He said he'd look into options, including checking to see if the pump could be converted to 110V or he could run additional wiring, but "worst case" he would either repair our existing pump or install one of the several "couple-hundred-dollar pumps" he had laying around at his house. In that case, we wouldn't save on monthly DWP bills, but we'd still have a functioning pump/pool, presumably at much lower cost than the new pump. On Monday the 16th, Joshua emailed me that the pump couldn't be converted, but he thought he could run another wire "which should be very simple," meaning we could have the new pump as planned. Joshua showed up on Tuesday with someone I'd never seen before, and I found them outside looking at our electric panel. Joshua said "we're good to go," and I asked him to let me know when he'd be installing the new pump. I told him I would be out most of Wed. Next thing, I received an email from Joshua on Wed saying "Going to install pump in 15 minutes." When able, I responded that I was out of the house, hadn't told our cleaning woman that he'd be here, and had never imagined that, when I'd asked for advance notice of his work, that he'd only tell me 15 minutes ahead of time. I managed to get home roughly 2 hours after Joshua said he'd arrive, and when I went out to check out the new pump (the pool equipment is not visible from inside), I found Joshua and his electric-panel-inspecting co-worker standing next to the equipment, but there was no pump installed. Joshua said they kept blowing the house fuses so had to stop. He said he'd repair the old pump and replace it, and I walked away. I wanted to ask when he'd get that done, but given the frustration that we were all feeling by that time, I let it lie, anticipating that, as I'd requested many times, he would let me know next steps. I'm not sure why the concept of keeping a client informed is so difficult to grasp, but without any notice, Joshua and his co-worker showed up this morning again. I walked out and said I didn't know they'd be here and would have appreciated knowing, and Joshua responded that he'd told me they'd have everything running by Friday. I didn't mention that that was a week-ago Friday, when he was committed to installing the new pump (by Saturday, maybe earlier). I walked back into the house and the next thing I knew, Joshua had emailed me the message I reprinted above. He left without telling me he was leaving and without telling me that there was any problem whatsoever, and it looks like he simply reinstalled our old, broken pump. Needless to say, we're at a loss in the face of such blatant lack of professionalism, and never saw it coming. I give Joshua credit for attempting to remediate our problem quickly, but fault him for failing to perform appropriate due diligence before "selling me" the new variable-speed pump that could not work in our system, for telling me "we're good to go" with the rewiring that didn't work, for consistently failing to perform the simple task of letting me know the timing of his visits, and for the inexcusably immature and unprofessional way that he terminated our business relationship.

I found the name on Angie's list and Joshua came out for an estimate. It all sounded very reasonable. As the time went on, different people showed up at different times. i also found it very difficult to get in touch with anyone. Then this past week I had a group of children come for a lesson. My pool is covered so I did not realize that the water level was so low that the pool was not functioning properly and the heater wasn't working. How embarrassing to have all these people at my house with a freezing cold pool with not enough water in it! When I finally got in touch with Royal Blue, Joshua told me no one had been at my house because his guy quit and he didn't know it! Then he said he couldn't take care of the pool because he couldn't find someone to do it. How incredibly unprofessional!

During this week's service I asked the pool cleaner about some possible changes to the pool. I got a quick call from the owner with low budget fixes and then he came over same day to make the modifications as requested. Over the last year of service, Royal Blue Pools has been very rapid in their responses. Once I couldn't remember why I had changed a piece of equipment and they had 100% recollection along with remembering the long range plan for maintenance and improvements we had agreed upon. I continue to be impressed by the initiative shown by this company. The workers from top to bottom are problem solvers, communicate well and maintain high quality while being sensitive to budget constraints. I never get up-sells, just straightforward options and solutions. This is a great pool company!

We just bought a new house in Tarzana, so we came on Angie's List to find some service people to help maintain the property. We had 2 appointments set up for pool people, and Joshua at Royal Blue Pools was the first. When he didn't arrive on time, we had to call him to see what was going on, amidst our various projects. He arrived at 4:30, 30 minutes late for his consultation, and the other pool people were already in front of the property (since their appointment was at 4:45). Joshua voiced to us that he didn't like that the other company was already there, and although the other pool people were asked to come back a bit later in order to give Joshua a fair shot at his consultation, he acted like he couldn't be bothered with it! He was incredibly unprofessional, acted like he didn't want to be there, and only stayed for 5 minutes. He didn't really ask questions or go look at the equipment, and his attitude was very poor.

The "F" is for a total lack of response from the company. I sent a message through Angie's List on 4/11/11 and also followed up with calls. Never got a response from anyone and was therefore not able to get a quote for my project.

We were very happy with them. We found them through Angie's List. they came highly recommended. They were prompt, professional, and they fixed the problem, which other companies could not do the job. They finished the job in the time frame they said and the price that they quoted.

I have very positive things to say about him. I belong to a condominium association, and I'm on the board. When he first came to bid, we were very unhappy with a pool guy that we had. We thought he gave a very high bid for a job. We didn't have a lock, and he jumped the fence. The job was going to be expensive, but not as expensive as he said. He really tried to work with our budget. I'm very happy with this new guy's work. We will continue to use him. His prices for maintenance are very reasonable.

See above paragraphs for details.

Joshua finished installing some new spa equipment for me (after I found out that my prior contractor was not licensed). Ever since, he's been a tremendous source of advice and helped me troubleshoot problems. Just a great guy who is knowledgable about his work.

Excellent experience.

Did a great job -- great attitude, great follow through -- would highly recommend.

His prices are very reasonable and it seems to me that he is very honest. He was able to solve some problems I had right away that our previous pool company had left. These were serious issues. He has gone above and beyond for me.

Overall, so far, we've been satisfied with the services.

Royal Blue responded quickly to my call, inspected both properties and gave me competitive quotes for service. Since then they have provided excellent service. Where there is a problem, they fix it proactively. They clearly have enthusiasm and an independent sense of quality they bring to the job. I am 100% satisfied with the service, responsiveness, punctuality and professionalism of this company and recommend them without hesitation.

He now has the job and comes twice a week.

We have been with Royal Blue Pool since 2007 and Josh has gone out of his way to help us both with ensuring that our pool is sparkling but also his efforts extend beyond normal maintenance. Without additional charge they take care of our fountain water so it is always clean and clear, fixed a leaky valve in the yard and given good pet advice. We recommend them for anyone who is looking for pool service.