Clearwater Construction

The whole process has been a nightmare. It is almost August and I am still dealing with a process that started in April. If I could give less than a F for responsiveness and punctuality I would. What happened was: (1) They closed my pool in the fall, including placing the elephant cover on the pool, and during the winter the elephant cover ripped and collapsed (presumably due to the weight of the large amount of snow we had this year although there is no way after the fact to know if it was mounted correctly). I then noticed when I inspected it that there was no water in the pool. They said this was due to a buckle on the cover slicing the pool liner when it caved in, but again there is no way to know for sure if this was the case (they found a rip the size of a quarter that they said may have been the cause) or if they left a valve open or lowered the water level too far when they closed it. I called them over the winter to let then know what happened and they said that they would come out in the spring to look at it. (2) They finally came out for an estimate sometime in April and removed the liner and then informed me that the vermiculite was damaged (am guessing from sitting all that time with the elephant cover caved in and the pool drained?). I told them that I would like the work done asap and was quoted a price of about 11K, which I have since learned is extremely high for the work they did. (3) It took them approximately 2 months to do the work, apparently mainly just coming by unannounced between jobs. I had to make repeated calls during this time to try to move things along, but the receptionist seemed to be pretty useless at doing this. They also didn't bring the pool up to operating conditions with respect to salt levels etc. as was listed in the quote, forcing me to buy 6 additional 50 lb bags of pool salt. (4) During their repairs, without informing me or asking me for any approval, they decided to close off the bottom drains in the pool (they said they wanted to prevent "future leaks") and removed the handle from the valve in the pool shed. It took 2 weeks of calls for me to get them to finally call me back and tell me what they did (I thought the drains were still operational and the valve was open). (5) During this 2 week period, the water level in the pool kept dropping due to a leak that they apparently hadn't noticed when the water was added and the pumps turned on (this appeared to be a hurried job as well since they left 4-5 bags of salt there for me to add myself). Since the main drains at the bottom of the pool were closed (I was still not aware of this at the time), the skimmers kept running dry, causing my heater to repeatedly overheat and shut off. The heater is now shot due to this and needs to be replaced. (6) When they finally told me that they had blocked off the drains at the bottom of the pool, they promised to send a "diver" over to reverse this since I never approved this and would have told them I didn't want them to do this. They said it would be quick and take about 15 minutes. This was about a month ago - I have given up calling them every few days to ask for an update and hear the "oh, we are going to be in the area in a few days and will stop by"). At this rate the work would probably be done just in time to close the pool for the summer. I figured that paying 11K for a vermiculite/liner replacement might have moved me to a better place on their customer service list, but have never has as hard of a time with a company trying to get them to set a time to come over (vs just showing up unannounced) and completing their work. Must be great for them that they are so busy that they can treat customers like this and not worry about losing business, but I will never use them or recommend them again.

My wife and I have nothing but the highest praise for all the work done by Clearwater Construction, especially the President, Steve Turk, and his brother Gary, their office manager Mary, and all the members of their crew over the past 33 years. They did a beautiful job installing the pool back in 1980, and have professionally serviced it every year since then, including annual closings at the end of each season, and periodic repairs and replacements as needed. Now that our kids are grown and we have not been using the pool much lately, we decided to have it filled in and convert it to a vegetable and flower garden. We decided not to have it completely removed, since the concrete deck and fence were still in good shape. Steve, Gary and their crew did an excellent job performing this task as well. Steve, Gary and the rest of the folks at Clearwater Construction have always taken great pride in their work, and have been completely and consistently honest, reasonable, responsive and a total pleasure to work with. We have no hesitation in giving them our highest recommendation.