LA CANADA POOL & PATIO

unknown

This is a very hard review to write, because I've received both wonderful and horrible service from this company. Recently it got so bad that I decided not to do business with them anymore. The main guy - I don't know if he's the owner - is Dave Berry, who is a first-class gentleman and an extremely knowledgeable person. The core of older employees around him are all outstanding - very knowledgeable, responsive and good with customers. The people that answer the phones and make the appointments are all top-notch. The vast majority of the service I've received from this company over the years has been properly done, timely, and delivered at an excellent price. But, the quality of the service depends on whom the company sends out, and there are a couple of newer employees who are simply awful. Both of them are Spanish-speakers whose English is so limited that they really cannot grasp your issues or explain the repairs properly. One of them, a fellow named Manuel, came out several times. He consistently failed to listen to me - in fact, he didn't even want to hear what I thought the problem might be. I think this was because his English is too limited to interact properly, so he just preferred to look at the equipment and figure out what he thought the problem was. Unfortunately, his repairs were badly done and did not solve the problems. Twice, the company had to send someone else out after him to repair the damage. One, when I had a backflow problem, he didn't listen to what I suspected to be the source of the problem. He started changing out parts trying to fix what he thought was wrong. He replaced a perfectly good Ortega valve with a Jenny valve that seems far less tight and reliable, and he installed it wrong. He also added an automatic shutoff valve for my solar pool heater even though it had a manual valve which I always set when connecting or disconnecting the pool heater. The bill for these repairs, which didn't solve the problem, came to around $400. The company sent another technician, one of the pros, who found the problem in the filter elements - just where I thought it was - and fixed it right away. I paid the bill anyway. The last time he came out was a repeat of the previous story. He failed to solve the problem and stuck me with a bill for parts that didn't need changing. From that point on, whenever I called, I'd always say that I didn't want Manuel to come out. Earlier this year, I had an unexpected meltdown in my system and it started leaking. The company sent another Spanish-speaking guy who couldn't manage much English. He resealed the pipes near the pump but failed to repair a gasket that had failed and was apparently the cause of the meltdown. When the system continued to leak, I called the company and they sent one of the old-time guys and he found the problem gasket. Since he didn't have the part, he sent the Spanish-speaking guy back out to re-do his repair. This guy was extremely upset when he arrived and was very rude. When he completed the repair, he chewed me out royally in his broken English, saying that I wouldn't have these problems if I kept the pool properly filled. He signaled me to go over to the pool so that he could show me how to put the hose in the water. I told him to wait a minute. The guys from his company had been out about 10 days before to repair my automatic pool filler and it had been keeping the water level perfectly adjusted since then. So the meltdown could not be attributed to the fill level. He didn't even understand "automatic pool filler", so I went over and showed him the unit. When I left him, I noticed him messing with the pool filler. I later discovered that he had changed the setting so the pool wouldn't fill properly, putting me at risk of another meltdown. I think he deliberately sabotaged the unit because he was so angry about being wrong. The last straw was when I requested replacement of my spa pump. I placed the order - mentioning again not to send Manuel - and received a installation date the following week. The office called to reschedule the appointment because the assigned technician called in sick. No problem - we set an appointment for the following week. This time Dave called to cancel the appointment because they needed the only guy on duty to train a new employee, and he wouldn't be able to come out for yet another week. On the morning of that Monday appointment, the office called to cancel because over the weekend they had sold the part needed for my repair to someone else. They made an appointment for the following Wednesday, and who should show up but Manuel with a big grin on his face. That did it - I refuse to let the guy screw up my system again.

OVERALL IT HAS BEEN GOOD SERVICE. THEY ARE RELIABLE. THEY ARE WELL INFORMED AND KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT WHAT THEY ARE DOING. THEY ARE POLITE.