Blue Haven Pools & Spas

We engaged with owner of New Orleans/Baton Rouge. Spent 2 hours on a potential design and were to receive a drawing and estimate. Never heard from the guy again and we attempted contact numerous. Never engage Blue Have Pools.

We hired Blue Haven to install our pool at the beginning of August 2012. When they came and marked the ground where the pool was to be installed I questioned the placement because I thought it was too close to my house but I was told that everything was ok and that if I must push it back then the price would go up for more decking. Well excavation started and guess what - they hit my water line coming out of my house. I was out of town at the time so my rep. called me and told me and said not to worry that they got it fixed. Well when I returned home there was standing water between the pool and my house so I called the rep. back, he came out and poked around and found a leak so he repaired it and assured me that was it. Well no it wasn't it, I finally called a plumber there were two places in the pipe that was still broken so it cost me $1200 for the plumber at my expense because they really don't accept responsibility for hitting anything. Three weeks later we had a major hurricane come through. The pool was dug and concrete was installed. The hurricane hit Metairie/New Orleans harder than Baton Rouge so after that, it took them some time to come back and continue working on the pool. I had originally called the Baton Rouge location but was routed to the Metairie location all operations are handled out of Metairie LA now. Anyway the pool was finally completely finished by October, it would have been sooner if not the the hurricane. After signing the contract they got to work right away and anytime I need our representative all I have to do is pick up the phone and he is there to help. The pool is up and running but to cold to enjoy it can't wait for summer. If not for the broken water line it would have been a flawless install. So beware of placement too close to you home. Another thing that has been annoying is the amount of sand that eventually ended up in the pool due to Blue Haven spreading about a two foot wide layer of sand around the deck of the pool (not sure what the purpose of that was.) I would advise against that it took me two Saturdays of work to get that sand out of the pool, the robot (provided with the pool price) works ok for leaves but not for the sand. I purchased a hand vacuum but that didn't work very well either. So after hours of brushing the pool walls and bottom - pushing the sand to the filter drain and stirring the robot over and over and over the sand I finally got 99% of the sand out. It was a lot of hard work and no fun it's winter time and the water is too cold to get in I think it would have been a lot easier if I could have gotten in the pool. Anyway I have heard worse stories from other people about other pool contractors so I guess all in all my experience wasn't that bad just costly.

Like most pool companies, the majority of Blue Haven's work is done by subcontractors. Blue Haven's subs were very experienced and did a very good job overall, with a few minor exceptions. There was a language barrier on a few occasions, but a call to Blue Haven usually straightened it out. There was not usually a Supervisor from Blue Haven on the jobsite, which was explained beforehand. Everytime the Supervisor was at my home it was to collect progress payments, and he would also check out the quality of his subs work. He was located in Baton Rouge and drove to Lafayette as needed, but I would have liked to seen him more. Luckily I had a relaxed work schedule and was able to be onsite for much of the construction. I was able to point out deviations from the original plans and they were corrected. Had I not been home, we may have had more problems. The owner, Gary Fore, did tell me he had a Supervisor in Lafayette, but he quit several weeks ago. He was hoping to find another to take his place. After construction was completed, the guy that comes out for the "pool school" left much to be desired. The setting for the salt water chlorine cell were botched (wrong cell size entered) and as a result chlorine was nearly nonexistant in my pool for a couple of months. He also only put enough salt into the pool for a normal size pool, mine is larger. I had to add 14 more bags than he brought. The ozone generator was also incorrectly installed, sending ozonated water out to half of the jets. instead of all of them. Would have like to see a follow-up visit by the owner, Gary Fore (he seemed very knowlegable) about a couple of weeks after the pool was running. On a positive note, they used all top quality equipment. Overall though, we are very happy with our pool and enjoying it on a daily basis this Summer. Would I use Blue Haven of Baton Rouge to build another pool? If they had a construction foreman located in Lafayette, I definately would. If not, I probably still would, as long as I would have the time to monitor the progress.