Starr-Lite Pools

Starr-lite pools was a huge disappointment. The total crew consists of the owner and two elderly helpers. They arrived at our home daily around 11:00 am and departed between 3:30 and 4:30, with numerous smoke breaks throughout their 5 hour work day. The pool was delivered on time from the factory. The day prior to it's arrival Mr. Starr showed up to mark the area and dig the hole for the new pool. He used a full size backhoe for this procedure. That included stripping off the existing sod. The weight of the machine left deep tire ruts in the remaining sod. As well, moving back and forth over an existing sidewalk broke up much of the sidewalk. The one slab not broken was tipped enough to jam a gate going through a backyard fence. While digging out area for the pool, the sod was piled against palm trees and the neighbor's fence. The bulk of the dirt was piled next to a canal seawall and fence, with a lot of the dirt actually going through the fence. There was room to put this in a different area that would not have infringed upon the fences. The pool was placed in the hole alright. It was leveled quite well. Then the forming was done for the concrete deck. Because the yard slopes, the backside had to be deeper. The forms were originally placed to end about 6 inches above the existing grade level, with dirt shoveled in to make up the difference. I complained and said the concrete forms had to go all the way down at least to the existing grade. They then dug out a little more of the dirt and added another 6 inches of forms to get it lower. However, their bracing was not at all adequate. The deck required 18 cubic yards of concrete. They attempted to manage the pour with just two people on a 90 degree day. The weight of the concrete pushed out one corner of the forms to the point where the deck is 8 inches out of square. As well, by the time they tried to do the surface finishing, the concrete was way to hard to properly float. The result was a mess of highs and lows, with almost nothing level. The next five weeks were spend grinding and filling the surface a little area at a time. I complained on an almost daily basis about the fact that it needed to be surface ground to level and fix. Rather than do that, Mr. Starr used a hand grinder to try to grind down some of the highs and used a concrete patching formula to fill in some of the lows. The concrete is supposed to slope away from the edge of the pool, but there are numerous areas where the water from a rain actually drains into the pool washing in any dirt that might be on the deck. I made sure to comment on the number of humps and hollows, but was told by Mr. Starr that "it looked good to him". The cantilever edge on the pool was patched repeatedly to try to get it to look decent. There are areas where it sags very noticeably. It edge looks like a old farmhouse window thats been repeatedly scraped and painted. When the lanai screen enclosure was erected, there are still so many low areas and unevenness that the subcontractor had to send a crew to return. They had to loosen the metal bottom plates and put rolled up screening into the hollows to keep the insects out. They absolutely couldn't believe how poorly the concrete had been finished/left. Once the enclosure had been erected, starr-lite returned to paint the deck (for about the fourth or fifth time). We now have deck paint on many areas of the bronze aluminum base plate for the enclosure. When it came time to backfill the dirt, the full size backhoe was again used. That did more damage to the remainder of the yard than it was worth. We had to pay for a different contractor to come in with a bobcat to properly grade the backfill. Using full size backhoe in restricted area made no sense. The construction dust, dirt, etc. was left in the bottom of the pool for this entire time. That left a very scaly feeling on the surface of the pool. It took multiple applications of a chemical product to soften it up enough whereby we could rub it off ourselves. The pool was simply left in that condition. It was so bad initially, that I called the regional sales manager for Blue Hawaiian pools to complain and ask about this. A day later, Mr. Starr showed up again to reapply chemicals. Before we started this process, we contacted Blue Hawaiian pools to ask about this contractor. They gave him their full recommendation. If you want something to hold water, Starr-lite pools is for you. If you want your dream oasis, look somewhere else. Since completion of our pool, we have contacted multiple contractors to determine how to repair the deck. Prices range from almost $5,000 to $8,000. That is an expense that no one should have to endure just to make things right!