GOLD MEDAL POOLS & OUTDOOR LIVING, INC

Gold Medal Pools was recommended by a friend, realtor Coleen Donovan, who has first-hand experience with builders and families building swimming pools. After our first meeting with Mary Sandler, the wife of owner, Josh Sandler, the outdoor space we had envisioned in our minds was fine-tuned and re-imagined in a way that took advantage of the sight lines inside and outside of the home. (3 other pool companies showed very little imagination and design thought.) We knew we wanted travertine coping and decking. We wanted a grill station and asked if she would work with a company (Equinox) that built metal shade structures with moveable louvers. No problem. We started at the end of May with the excavation and gunite (shotcrete actually). It was beautifully laid out and dug with super straight walls and precision measurements - everything was level, straight, and plumb. All the piping and lines were planned and installed without any crazy bends and all with the understanding that a natural gas line and electricity lines and shade structure poles needed their space in the already crowded yard. The infrastructure was of primo importance to Gold Medal - all the things no one sees but them - but things that are super important in making a pool a pool. They installed an in-ground pool cleaner (PV-2000), 4 deck jets, and two bubblers. (You should see this stuff in action!) Everything was installed with pressure testing and great care and always referring to the build plan. If it wasn't on the architectural plan, then we had to have a change order before it was approved. Gene was our supervisor and he managed the Gold Medal guys and sub-contractors on a daily basis. He is extremely knowledgeable and has made more pools than most anyone in town - he often took my incoherent Friday night ramblings about this-or-that and tried to make sense of them and by Monday he was able to talk some sense into me. Yes, it's true - the client is not always right! Gold Medal allowed us to pick the water tile, the color and type of travertine coping and decking, the color of the Stonescapes (a Pebbletec type of flooring), and all the fixture colors and types. We picked all the grill equipment and Mary was able to show us pictures of grill stations they had built and we were able to tell her, yes, this is fabulous. In fact, the grill station came out beautifully - although it did take 3 weeks to build - the artisan took 10 - 15 minutes almost on sculpting each stone! It is really way more incredible than we dreamed of. The building of the travertine deck though was the best investment we made. All the other pool companies wanted us to do some sort of concrete - stamped, cool deck stuff, or some crazy man-made attempt at creating a stone look alike. Not GMP. They thought that travertine was the way to go, Josh and Mary gave us a great price, and when they installed the pavers (Versailles pattern), it was amazing. They put down like 6 - 9 inches of crushed granite base, 2 inches of sand and using old school leveling techniques (string and 2x4's) they were able to (again) properly install these gorgeous travertine pavers in almost the entire backyard. The big and medium-sized pavers weigh a ton and all the workers lined up and swung them in unison to the guy next to them until every stone was properly aligned and fit. They topped the deck off with a polymer sand to fill in the joints and provide additional strength. Remember: if a stone cracks, it can be easily replaced, if your monolithic cement pour cracks, who knows what you have to do to fix it or even replace it. OK, so what went wrong? Nobody is perfect. I will say this: building a pool is not for the weak of heart. There is a lot of waiting and a lot of scheduling problems that creep up - some are avoidable, some are not. Compound that with the fact that Plano has maybe 2 inspectors running around passing and/or failing the pool contractors' work. Those guys are a pain to work with and instead of making the pool building process easy and efficient, they make it slow, inefficient, and infuriating. I was there on many pass/fail visits and if there was just a modicum of communication with the PC or supervisor, many wasted days would have been eliminated. Here is what went wrong: I ordered a used Teppanyaki grill that I should have ordered new (I am still waiting on replacement parts) and we installed an umbrella sleeve into the deck that didn't really work. The grill is great now and GMP took out the sleeve and replaced the two stones in two minutes! They bent over backwards to fix any water tile problem (two or three tiles needed replacement), deck coping (workers chipped one tile and two tiles were elevated because of a skimmer piece), and three deck tiles had settled by the back door. Everything was fixed to perfection. So is it completed? How is customer support now? I can tell you that every detail was addressed - right down to a missing bumper on one of the cabinet doors for the grill station. They have a guy, Joe Ray, that puts on a pool school right at the house and teaches you how to take care of your investment. He was very knowledgeable and with his help, I am able to clean out the skimmers, brush the pool, put chlorine tablets in the automatic dispenser, and I'm able to fix the pool chemistry by using the little strips. He showed me how to backwash the pool, too, but I may have to have him come out when I tackle that job! My wife, my family, my extended family, our parents, everyone who has seen the pool has commented on how pretty it is and how modern it looks. We love not having the Polaris cleaner all twisted around the pool and the PV-2000 cleaner is really all we need. The Stonescapes rock for the pool finish is really nice and doesn't hurt your feet. The color of the French Gray is perfect for us - a nice muted blue color that seems elegant, modern and old-world at the same time. Gold Medal Pool will build you a beautiful pool - but don't sit back and wait for it all to happen. I believe the best projects happen when there is a collaborative effort. On this project, we were all (the designer, the supervisor, and my wife and I) able to discuss daily events - successes and problems in a even-keeled fashion and suggested changes were not always met with an absolute yes or no, but included a thoughtful and educated response. These guys can build a pool in their sleep. What I envision to make Gold Medal Pools the best pool builder in Texas is a web portal that would improve the project management and really improve the level of two and oftentimes three-way communication that is necessary in today's fast-paced world. And of course I would write this because I am an IT Manager who loves technology. To sum it all up: get three or four pool bids when you are building a pool; have a general idea of what you want, but let the pool designer give you some suggestions and let their ideas percolate with yours - so together, the design is iteratively developed to a richer place. If we took our first bid without looking around, we would have a 9 x 24 pool ( 10,000 gal) with a structure to match the roof with shingles and skylights. We would have had a concrete deck and then at only half the size - and a grill station without a grill - just the shell! All this for $94,000. Instead, we were able to get a thoughtfully designed outdoor space with a 15x30, 18,000 gallon pool with travertine coping, a large travertine deck with a Granbury stone grille station with appliances! (The Equinox structure was perfectly designed for us - it spans the pool at 29 feet so there are no posts in the way, but that is a different review.) Gold Medal Pools - seriously consider having them build your pool - get involved in every aspect, expect unforeseeable delays and minor annoyances, and when it is all done, celebrate with the biggest party you can afford because it will be awesome! Then stop by with some steaks - we will throw them on the grill and I will congratulate you on doing your research and for building the best pool ever! Cheers Mary Sandler!!!

Initially contacted company almost two months ago and never received a call back. Called back about two weeks later to follow-up and was told Josh would call me. Call never came so I called them back again and was told I would be called. Received a call from Kevin about two weeks later. Kevin came to our home and looked over site and collect design information. Survey was completed within the next couple days. When I did not hear from Kevin I called him and was told the design was complete but he hadn't priced it out at that time and would get back to me. That was over two weeks ago and have not heard from them since. I completely understand this time of the year is their busy season but at least they could pickup the phone and communicate with me!

We received multiple bids on this project in which we had a basic vision. This company took our vision from basic elements and built in their ideas a styles. They were not the cheapest but they clearly seemed to understand our objectives. Our salesperson was Kevin Domenico who was fantatsic to work with during the project. Craig Kooda was the project manager but he played more of a background role working with the crew during initial construction. Kevin was our go to guy up to a point. When problems came up and resolution became an issue it was clear Kevin became increasingly frustrated with the responsiveness of his team. He remained professional but you could read the nuances of his frustration in his calls to me. In late MARCH (!!) the whole process was handed off to Craig. This is where responsivness, punctuality really began to fall off. Understand, the professionalism score is related to responsiveness as I see those going hand in hand. The other thing to understand is this description covers a span from November 2012 to the middle of July 2013!! Once contracted, the work began promptly. Every step of the way we were comfortable with the direction we were headed. We did point out some potential issues a couple of times and they responded and adjusted to these simple requests. No hassles and no change order required. I also noted they changed the original pump configuration for the water feature. They advised as they re-calculated flow that two pumps was overkill. They promptly and without request had reduced the final price. Clearly integrity is not an issue with these folks. All was great in ending the project. They came out and started up and trained us on the use of the water feature and then did a final inspection on the work. They collected their final check and we were done. So we all thought. I later went out to walk around and admire what we had built and noted water leaking onto the patio from the water feature! Aaaaaaaacccccccccckkkkkk. I immediately called Kevin and advised what I was seeing. They were here the next day and did find an issue with a leak at the top of one of the stone scuppers. They sealed it all back up and we thought we were good to go. After a couple of days we recognized that didn't solve the issue. It seemed like we had some leaks in the grout of the porcelain as we were losing water level. They found the solution for that issue and the water leaks were mostly gone! Key word, mostly. This thing continued to leak and the process of finding the problem largely wouldn't have happened had I not engaged the process on a daily basis as they fumbled looking for solutions. We finally discovered that the other two scupper pipes were leaking. During this ID process it was divulged that the stone workers did the final plumb in job... obviously not their expertise! With that issue fixed we were finally closer to resolution of the problem. It simply took too long to fix these issues... at this point it was late MARCH! If you contract with these folks understand they subcontract many functions of the project and simply do not control their contractors time. It has now been two months since the major issues were fixed with the water feature. Since then we have been in the clean up of what I would consider minor isses and they are fumbling that ball as well. As I write today (7-13-2013), they still need to replace a pressure guage that went bad during the process and re-clean the water feature since they had to grind some stone to fix a flow issue over the falls. I'm also still not 100% happy with the aesthetics of the flow out of one scupper but I do not want them to tear it up again to fix this perception problem....thus the B in quality. In retrospect, they should have been a little quicker in finding and fixing these issues. Their responsiveness is rated low because many calls and emails went unanswered for days..especially after Kevin handed off the problem resolution to Craig. While Kevin remained as professional as he could be... it was clear he was frustrated with the responsiveness of his team. Punctuality was an issue as when they did communicate when something was going to happen...it often didn't. These facts impacted the overall professionalism score. My perception: Responsiveness and punctuality was great until they collected their final check. Had they not received that final check before the issues started the water feature issues would have been resolved in a much shorter period of time....certainly not six months!! Now, in their defense I would also say this team seems thouroughly committed to: 1) getting everything right in the end! 2) our vision and product selections. We are mostly very satisfied with the final outcome of the project. However, it shouldn't take 8 months! I have to be honest that everything wasn't perfect in communication and problem resolution. They had complete control of the negative grades and frankly blew it there. The water feature issues and resolution keeps my review from stating and quot;excellentand quot; or an and quot;Aand quot;. The overhead structure, concrete, fence and garden borders are awesome. On the fence, a contractor came by and wanted to stain it for us. We advised that was being done by our contractor. He shared that this was one of the best constructed fences he has seen in a while. If you do business with these folks negotiate an agreement that final payment will be made within 72 hours of completion so you can evaluate whether everything is working correctly or not. Keeping their financial skin in the game was important in my case. May 31, 2013 Update: It appears everything is finally done today. Slow and frustrating with these folks but.... we got what we wanted in the end. June 13, 2013 Update: Well, everything is NOT OK. We are leaking again in the back and the side of the water feature. and quot;Give me a fews days to get someone out there.and quot; A few days? What's a few days when it's been SIX months since original and quot;completionand quot; of the project. Had requested a call from the owner but that hasn't happened at all. Water is back on the patio destroying the finish on the stained concrete....so they'll need to fix that again as well. Adjusted ratings based on new experience. July 14, 2013 Update: Well, here we are almost 8 months after project started and a problem with the water feature still exists. They have determined that the tile was installed improperly and the current tile needs to be removed and replaced. Magically, this tile is still on the market! We were told months ago that the style of tile was no longer manufactured. On June 27th they said the tile had been re-ordered. I asked for an update on 7/10, got a and quot;They are tracking it.and quot; message. Yes, that was all that was in the e-mail from them. So, here I sit knowing nothing. Yesterday I shot off this message to Craig Kooda @ Gold Medal Pools: and lt;Start Snipand gt; Craig, I asked for info on Tuesday… you replied with nothing on Wednesday AM. I’m sorry but this had gotten past ridiculous. I now regret a couple of things. 1) I selected Gold Medal. 2) I’ve been too d*** patient. That is now over. We are almost eight months into this and you guys have not delivered. I paid a lot of money to have something FUNCTIONAL in my backyard and this is not cutting it. I should NOT have to chase anyone for a solution. I need an answer Monday as to: 1) When the tile will be in Frisco 2) When the work to SOLVE my problem will begin. 3) And finally…. for the fourth time I am going to request a call from Steve Sandler. Have now asked you twice and called the office twice. He can reach me on my cell at 270-xxx-xxxx . It does NOT take three days to track ANYTHING…. Even common carrier. This is just shoddy customer service now. and lt;END Snipand gt; August 3, 2013 Update: I still have a water feature that is not working. More delays but some progress. They have NOW removed all the tile as of last week but absolutely NO communication on when they plan to complete this. This is an absolutely horrible experieince now. They really DO NOT seem to care. I have asked four times for the owner to call me and these requests have gone unanswered. My overall experience is now an F. Yes, we are coming up on a full year in November. No water feature and a patio that looks horrible due to the leaking fountain.. Sept 21, 2013: Finally... this project is complete as it should have been in December of last year. While the end quality is great there was a LOT of pain and angst getting here. I'm happy with the final result but will not use this contractor again. I also cannot recommend anyone putting themselves through shoddy and distant customer service.

The end product is what we wanted and looks great. That said, there were a few issues. First, they had one guy available to start early so he started dismantling the wall by himself. As he was dislodging big portions of the back wall he let them fall into the pool. When they hit the bottom they left some nasty gashes in the bottom of our pool. The guy running the show sort of blew it off as not a big deal and that after power washing they would likely not be noticeable. It's been almost a year, and they are still noticeable. The bottom of our pool is dark and these are white gashes. Perhaps with time and sun they will even out. Next issue is that the workers moved the heavy stones that they put on the backside of the pool with a wheel barrow that they rolled over some flag stone we had. They did not put down plywood or anything to distribute the weight so as a result they crushed some of the flagstone. Luckily we had some replacement. Third, their drain hose had tons of holes, I mean A LOT, so water spurted out onto our grass while the pool drained. Wouldn't be a big deal except that it was a salt water pool and salt and grass don't mix. It wasn't too bad though and the grass survived. The issue here is that the company should think of these things! Finally, the guy who put in the tile did not do so in a symmetrical fashion. Example that one curve in our spa had 4 tile and the other had 8 half tiles. We complained to the salesman and the worker fixed the issues the next day to our satisfaction. So that all turned out good. Like I said, we were happy with the look of the end product, but have mixed emotions because of the above. I think there is an ongoing problem with a lot of outdoor service companies like this because, as in this case, they utilize non-English speaking Latinos (so as a customer you cant just walk out and speak to someone or complain on the spot) and the salesman/designer does little if any supervision on-site.

They did not perform any services for me because they never gave me a quote.I initially contacted (April 2, 2012) for some information about a repair in my outdoor kitchen. Mr. Craig Kooda was initially responsive and gave good information. Then 1 week later I asked if he could do the work for me and he said he would provide me a quote and get back to me. Between mid April and mid May I called 4 times and sent 2 emails and he never returned either. Later, I left message with the main office and submitted an online inquiry for service and still have not received any response. As of June 1st, I still have not heard from Mr. Kooda or the front office . They did not even give me the courtesy of a call back to say that they could not or were not willing to do the work. This was extremely unprofessional and I would not recommend this company to anyone just for the lack of responsiveness.

I would never recommend or use their service. Stay Away