Van Kirk & Sons Pools & Spas

Great pool builders!! It was a terrific experience from start to finish. Mark the salesman remained very patient throughout the whole process and was always available whenever we needed him. We had tons of questions which were all answered. He spent tons of time with us to make sure we had the right design. Golan the project manager was equally helpful. Always available for any questions that needed answers and filled in on the next steps the whole way. He addressed any questions or concerns immediately and always kept on top of the project to make sure it was done to the highest of standards. We would highly recommend them to anyone building a pool.

Words cannot describe how happy I am we chose Van Kirk to build our pool. Although they are a big builder, it never felt that way. We always felt as if ours was the only pool they were building. On my friend Larry's recommendation (who is a GC), I called them after meeting with five other pool builders. I learned so much doing research after meeting with each pool builder, that by the time I met with Bobby Van Kirk, I was able to see the differences of their company. I had my pool design mostly figured out, but am thankful I made changes suggested by Bobby, including increasing the spa to 8', the color of Van Kirk blue, wall design and finish materials to name a few. I would strongly recommend meeting with other pool builders first and visiting their office too, so you will see the difference between the builders. We noticed this from our first visit. I was impressed with their operation and how nice/professional everyone I met was during our "tour". What's amazing...this never changed during the whole process. Any minor issues or questions during the build, as any big project would have, were handle swiftly and properly by the attentive and engaged project manager, Carl Salley or anyone else involved. Bottom line, this is a multigenerational company who likes to do things right!

Van Kirk & Sons takes pride in every pool they design, they are truly amazing and I would recommend them to everyone in the market

Everything went very smooth. The marble looks amazing and all the led lighting just sent my pool over the top. Everyone that came to the job acted and worked like professionals. I totally would use them again they were great and the whole experience was flawless from start to finish.

I am extremely proud of the company my family has built and blessed to be a huge part of! Van Kirk Pools is an amazing company with employees who truly care for the company and all of our customers. We appreciate everyone who has allowed us to work with them and recommended us to their family and friends!

Professionals

Was assigned an totally inept designer. We heard from another customer just by chance of major issues, but we continued to try and work with this person. It just got to the point where we asked her not to come by and told the company. We went with her design because we had no prior experience. It look OK, but the bottom is uneven and we found issues with the design that we think someone of quality would never have done. They left LOTS of sand around although we were told they would remove it. The equipment has given us many problems, but things replaced, some twice. Now that it is off warranty other issues crept up almost immediately. They generally nice people, but our experience was so tainted with the design person and the follow through when they left that it was not so positive.

unknown

We hired Van Kirk Pools after trying to choose between two companies. We went with Van Kirk. #1. Put swim out on wrong side. My husband caught the guy doing rebar and got it corrected in time. #2. Installed wrong tile. Caught them halfway through. Had to take them out and put in the right ones. #3. Cool Deck was wrong. Could see broom finish through it. They had to come out and respray. #4. Forgot to install bubbler. Sent guy out with a chisel to install it after pool was complete. #5. Within 3 months, deck started cracking - loudly, with cracks as long as 6 feet. There are a total of 9 cracks. After they tried to fix them with epoxy, they made stress cuts AFTER it cracked. The cracks remain to this day. #6. Called in complaint. Man by the name of Don came out and said there was nothing wrong. When my husband questioned if the owner would want this mess in his backyard, Don replied, "Robert Van Kirk would be proud to have this pool in his back yard". Cracks were never repaired. We gave up on Van Kirk after sending a letter to the owner and never hearing a reply. #7. See attached photos. Border tiles started popping off as a result of the top beam separation. #8. We are looking at a $10,000-$13,000 pool repair (not remodel, but repair) after only 10 years. #9. Unfortunately, we've met two neighbors since our experience who HATE Van Kirk Pools. They had similar experiences. This whole experience was so upsetting that it took a while before we even wanted to use the pool. I've just joined Angies' List so that is the reason for the late review. The pool has been in this state of disrepair because we have not had a large chunk of money to put into it.

unknown

They were very professional, prompt and very knowledgeable.

My pool turned out beautiful. As with anything I would suggest following up. My permits were taking longer then expected so I called the City myself to see what the hold up was. The city was waiting on something from Van Kirk but Van Kirk was not aware. Once resolved permits were issued. The design of my pool is awesome and I get tons of compliments on the Van Kirk Blue color of it.

My first appt was with Kevin who called me to tell me he was going to be 5-10 minutes late. Well, he didn't show until an hour or so later and never called to let me know he would be longer than 10 minutes.…I had to call him back:( I let that go because I liked him. . Scheduled second meeting and I got a call at 1130-12 on the day of appt….appt at 2:30pm from Van Kirk receptionist (I guess) who left a message stating to call them back there was something she had to discuss??? Well I didn't get the message until 2 (my fault as i never check my voicemail) and when I called back she said Kevin would have to reschedule as he was in meetings all day???? I said ok….and we rescheduled for that Friday at 4:30…. got confirmation email and all. Well 4:30 Friday comes and Kevin never arrives:( I call noone answers and I left a message. Then I look at my email and its Kevin saying he doesn't have my phone number , there was a mix up and if I wanted him to come at 5:45 that he could. I kindly wrote back that I was going with another company. Too bad. You would think since this company has a name that they would be more professional….I hope they change. I just couldn't rely on them from the beginning so how could I rely on them to install a pool?

I like the design. I like their punctuality. So far so good. They are better than expected.

Van Kirk must do very well; they are clearly not interested in and do not need my business. I had heard that they were the best in the business. Upon calling, I told the receptionist I needed to have my pool resurfaced. She was reluctant to have me talk with anyone, saying they only do big, high end jobs such as the Fountain Blue Hotel. However, their website has a residential section, even a renovation section. The secretary agreed to have someone come to do an estimate. The salesman was prompt and courteous. The pool needs a lot of work, including resurfacing, new tile, new main drain and vacuum line, and possibly new mechanical equipment. It was to be a complete renovation. The salesman took one look and told me it would be about $17,000. That seems to be their magic number, and he implied that regardless of what work was required and how large the job, they wouldn't touch it for less. When asked for an exact quote, with options (e.g. salt water system, LED lights, etc) he told me he would make some calculations and send it to me. That was 2-3 months ago. I called a few weeks after the salesman came out, and he said he had been ill but would get back with me in a few days. I still haven't heard back. The funny thing is that this is the second quote I received from them, or should I say didn't receive from them. I asked them to quote on a pool in a previous house, and it went pretty much the same way. If they can't even get it together to get me a quote, I can't imagine how the work would go.

We bought a costume home from a builder who had used the Van Kirk to built a pool. When we bought the house we wanted a hot tub. Since we wanted the hot tub and pool to match we decided to hire the same company. When I called the lady on the phone right off the bat told me that they charge more than most companies and in order to avoid waisting anyones time gave me a rough estimate to see if I still would like to meet with them. I agreed. Kevin Van Kirk, the son of the owner came for the initial meeting. Very nice guy, first impressions were very professional and guarantees us that he would take care of everything. After drawing and some changes made my us on the scope of the work (i.e. I was doing to have Van kirk extend our patin, since they were so expensive we decided not to use them for the patio portion). Any way, Kevin told us that we needed a super duper gas heater to "fire up the spa in 30 minutes". His words verbatim. We have a electric heater in place that does a great job waring up our pool. It does take turing the electric heater on the night before in order to warm up our pool but works great. We agreed. He told us he had a gas guy and he introduced us to him. Permits were pulled for everything job completed. The job was very slow, lack of support from Van Kirk, after we did all the modifications and gave Kevin the go ahead that was beginning of December. My spa was completed at the last week of May. Not a great experience working with the company at all. Any way, we had a gas leak, I told the Vank Kirk employees several times, they told me it was normal the strong odor of gas. Until one night I got home and we had no hot water in the house (my water heater runs from gas), and no cooking gas. My tank was filled less than a month prior to this day. I got the gas contractor here, called Kevin, called the gas company. It was dark and no one turn on the gas heater to check for leaks. I ask Kevin to send someone from his company while the gas guy was here and the gas company was here. He told me it was unnecessary. The very next day when I had the gas company installed a second gas tank, exclusively for the spa. We had been living in the house for 2 years never ran out of gas. So when the gas company was here and it was daytime, a gas leak was detected on the connection of the gas heater. A Van Kirk supervisor was here and was notified by my gas company of the leak. We contacted Van Kirk and his answer was "not our fault, call the gas guy." The gas guy they brought into my house. Remember I mentioned my pool was built by Van Kirk, shortly after 2 years that the pool was built the LED pool light burned. I told Kevin, the say he would have change for us at cost, no charge for labor since they were working in my house. 2 months later still the pool light burnt. I call Van Kirk about the light. The girl on the phone was very abrupt and told me that Van Kirk absolutely does not warranty any pool lights due to Florida's frequent power outages. So I ask her to have replaced. She told me she would order the light and call me to schedule an appointment and to collect payment for the light. 4 weeks later nothing. So i call my pool company to replace the light. He did. We paid $980. for the light. A month later a representative of Jandy, the manufacturer of the light, showed up to replace the light for us under the manufacturer warranty of 3 years. Van Kirk had activated the warranty but was going to charge me for the light even though Jandy was not going to charge them a thing. We contacted the company about all of our issues and Kevin, the owners sons response was "I disagree." So be aware everyone. They are better companies than that. Good luck!

The sale on this house fell through and we were not able to move forward. I will use them on the next purchase, however.

Really mixed bag. While the finished pool is quite good, the process had several negative issues. FIrst, the design process was one of the most unpleasant experiences we have had. The designer did not listen to us, pushed her own ideas, did not really have a concept of implications of certain design elements and simply could not keep information straight as we moved through the design process. Second, the crews generally showed a lack of respect for personal property. Examples include trash left behind (bottles, food in wrappers, gloves), piece of rebar laying about and buried, pieces of PVC pipe and wire, and parts of cut decking. Perhaps the most disappointing was the extra plaster that, rather than being taken it away, was thown into the flower beds where it had to be broken up and removed; the worst part was when we went to uncover a hole to install a new water faucet, we found that there had been so much plaster thrown into the flower beds that it had run into this hole and hardened around the water pipes to the depth of 2 inches and even leached out to the street to the main water line. We also ended up waiting 8 weeks for repair of decking that was loose and coming up. So while we are enjoying the final product, we were very disappointed in the process. We would recommend Van Kirk for their quality of construction, but would suggest that you not hesitate to change designers if problems arise (we had heard negative things about this designer before but thought we would give her a chance) and keep an eye on how the construction crews treat your property. All of this came as somewhat of a surprise having read the positive reviews.

The first appointment did not happen. Unfortunetly, the apointment had to be cancelled due to a mix-up in the Delray Office, so I was called back to rescdualed to meet with the agent the following week around 10:00a m. At that time I was running a little late for that appointment so I called the agents cell number and left a message, I then called the Delray office hoping that someone there would be able to contact the agent for me and let her know i was running a little late. I then called the office and was on the phone with a Sandy I belive or someone in the front office who said to me call Niccki's Cell, I explained to the office that I was running late but that did not seem to concern her. She said just leave a message. I then called Nicki's cell again and left a second message, then called the Delray office back and explained to a new voice on the other end that it was unprofetional of the woman who first aswered the phone. I felt that she did not go out of her way to help me get in touch with the agent. Nickkie for this reason I did not choose Van Kirk Pools to remodel my pool. I felt that if i'm teated like this before I sign a contract then the treatment may be worse as a client. I beleive that Customer care is just as vitlia in a business servival as the contrators building the pool, so for this reason I did not chosse Van Kirk Pools. I did not want to give $$20,000, 00 of my hard earned money to an office that had no customer care relations education. For that reason I chose a pool company with great customer care

I used them in 2010. They provide great service. There was no problem from the beginning of the process and even after they left the field. They came back for any pool maintenance and any warranty. They were very responsive. It was a great service overall. Their price was pretty much in line with others.

Overall, a terrible experience from start to finish. First designer they sent out, apparently, quit sometime after our first meeting; noone informed us of this. Owner was gracious enough to come out after I re-contacted the company a few weeks later. Unfortunately, he was the source of most of our problems. Informed him from our first meeting of our desire to keep a rare tree. Was discussed in no less than 3 meetings prior to starting work. We even discussed building around it if it could not be moved. Tree was ripped out during demolition. Not only was the owner not there (as he informed us he would be at all construction milestones) he had no clue that the tree was removed nor did had he talked to his team at all prior. I was given the excuse(lie) that the roots were too aggressive, despite the fact that the tree has notoriously weak roots and that he, as well as the landscaper we used, both previously said there would be no issues in moving it. Project moved relatively slowly, however, I am sure some portion of this is Florida weather. Builder expects significant milestone payments that were not clearly laid out beforehand and in no way represented the completion of the pool. Almost all the cost is paid by the time they spray gunite and don't expect any responsiveness after they are paid. Unfortunately, after we started our project we heard several similar stories. You MAY end up with a good pool with this company, but you will almost certainly end up frustrated or worse. I in no way recommend doing business with Van Kirk.

THEY WERE EXCELLENT TO WORK WITH. THEY WERE VERY RESPONSIVE. THEY WERE ABLE TO WORK AROUND OUR SCHEDULE. THEY GOT THE POOL DONE IN GREAT TIMING. IT WAS READY TO SWIM IN WITHIN DAYS. I WOULD RECOMMEND THEM TO OTHERS.

THEY ARE ALWAYS ON TIME. THEY DO A VERY GOOD JOB AND THEY ARE VERY POLITE. THEY GET ALL THE TRASH OUT OF OUR POOL. THEY CLEAN UP AFTER THEMSELVES VERY WELL.

THEY DID AN EXCELLENT JOB AND WERE VERY PROFESSIONAL. THEY WERE VERY QUICK AND EFFICIENT. THEY ALWAYS CAME ON TIME. THEY GOT THE WORK DONE ON SCHEDULE.

THEY DID AN EXCELLENT JOB ON OUR POOL. THE QUALITY OF WORK THAT THEY DID WAS ABOVE AVERAGE AND THEY MADE SURE THAT THEY DID EVERYTHING CORRECTLY. IT WAS DEFINITELY WORTH EVERY PENNY.