Staycations Pool Service

I struggled with this service for nearly a year before they proved themselves incompetent. They shocked my salt pool weekly throughout last Summer which concerned me. Why was this necessary if my salt cell was working properly? I asked them this question several times and they explained it away. They even just refused to check the cell when I asked. I know, I should have fired them then. During this year's Spring filter cleaning their tech tried to lift the manifold and grid out of the tank without draining the tank. Even I know this is a stupid idea. Well the stand pipe was broken along with part of the grid. Did they own up to it? No. Instead they claim they broke from use and sent me a $375 repair estimate. Fortunately, I have a home warranty and made a claim. The warranty company sent out their own tech who confirmed my suspicions that the Staycations tech caused the damage. After firing Staycations, my new pool tech inspected the system and (low & behold!) the salt cell was not working and there was no salt in the pool! So for nearly a year Staycation's tech has been lying to me about checking the system, adding salt and who knows what else. This is why it was necessary to shock my pool every week. He basically converted my salt pool into a chlorine pool without my knowledge or consent.

Initially, it seemed as though this company would be a good fit and their rep (Blake) was very friendly and seemed knowledgeable, it became apparent that he had his limitations in his knowledge. I am not certain if Blake is the owner or just their top rep, but after some serious problems, we never heard from anyone other than him and all he did was keep hammering away at us that we needed a new filter. I do want to address this a bit more because I believe it is important that people understand the limitations of this company. This isn't just a rant because we aren't happy, this is about a lack of knowledge and then some of the worst customer service I have ever experienced when Blake couldn't upsell me on a new filtration system. When Blake initially came out, he tried to upsell us with a new filter and/or draining and powerwashing the sides of the pool. I advised him that the filter was only 8 years old, designed to filter a pool twice the size of the one we have and is used mostly for public and high school pools and that we were not interested in changing it for a smaller, less functional filter and that I had just drained the pool and had the sides scrubbed a month before. We explained that we understood the plaster was old and decaying, (its funny that he never mentioned working on with the decaying plaster that seems to be the source of the problems... I guess because they don't offer that service??) that we weren't interested in spending a great deal of money on the pool, that we are selling the house, he said he understood and worked with us to find a way to get the algae issue that was running rampant under control. We settled on me spending about 150 on shock and chemicals to kill the algae, me brushing the sides of the pool, me vacuuming the pool and then using our automatic pool vacuum for the rest. This worked ok, but it took about 2 weeks to get done. After Blake came and tried to once again sell us a new filter to replace the industrial sand filter that was clearly working just fine (it had done the job to clean it up) he gave the thumbs up for their regular tech (I guess Blake doesn't actually do the work) to come and start regular scheduled maintenance. I office out of my home and my office overlooks the pool and I can see when someone is here. All three times the tech showed up to work on the pool, he was here for less than 20 minutes and that's being generous. The first time he showed up, he balanced the chemicals and then vacuumed the pool for a couple of minutes at a rather high rate of speed (when I was watching, I had thought he was brushing the sides of the pool he was moving so fast) until he had kicked up enough of the plaster to cloud the water. He took off and had Blake call to inform us that the filter was having "blowback" issues which was what clouded the pool up so Blake called and tried to convince me that the filter was the problem and needed to be changed to a DE filter and tried to explain about how and why the sand filter has problems, blah, blah blah... spend more money, but the filter I am selling... until I told him to come and show me what he was talking about. He shows up, I hook up our vacuum, vacuum the pool at a reasonable rate of speed, and prove that there are NO blowback issues, that the filter works just like it is supposed to but he is STILL trying to convince me that we just need to buy a new filter from him. After running through all of his reasons for why we need a new filter and SHOWING him that none of what he is saying is true, he finally agrees that it was an issue with how fast his tech was vacuuming the bottom of the pool and says that he will talk to the tech and get it resolved. Next visit; Tech shows up, I go out and greet him and verify that he knows what needs to be done and to tell him that if he needs me for ANYTHING, he can knock on the window right next to the pool where I office, and I will come right out. He say ok and then does the chemicals and brushes the sides of the pool a little, causing enough cloudiness that you can't see the bottom of the pool, stops work and leaves us a little card stating that he did the chemicals and brushed the sides of the pool. Our pool is 30,000 gallons and 10 feet deep at the deep end. He was in and out in less than 20 minutes. I'm going to say that he didn't do a great job brushing the sides of the pool, in particular, because a few days later, we started to see algae growth on the side of the pool where he didn't brush. I let it go because I am extremely busy with work and trusted them to be professionals and handle it in the next week, but I took some video of the pool just in case. (see screenshot pics attached) Next visit is virtually a repeat of the last one. Tech shows up, handles chemicals (or claims to) brushes a few times and then leaves, this time in less than fifteen minutes. He saw that there was an algae issue, didn't note it, didn't say anything to me, just left after filling out a card that again claimed he had done the chemicals and brushed the sides of the pool. A few days later I have a large black strip on one side of the pool and I have had enough. I again took some video of the pool showing the progression of the problems and sent a detailed email on the 29th of June asking them how they would like to handle this since it was clearly a problem and this is where I get really bent. I get a call from Blake on the 30th... guess what he starts harping about? Need to buy a new filter, the one you have isn't doing the job. I call him out on this, tell him I have had enough of him trying to upsell me on a filtration system I don't need and that we need to address the lack of basic work ethic by his guy who CLEARLY hasn't brushed the sides of the pool more than a couple of time (you can see the stripe through the algae where he did brush a couple of time). Blake tells me that this is one their best guys, that he is a field service manager and that he will talk to him again about whether or not he actually did what he said (why would I make it up??) and that he would comp us for the visits that we aren't satisfied with and "figure out the best route moving forward" and that he would call his guy to "find out what he has to say about all of this" and then he would call us back. We never received another call from them, they never came back out, they didn't even bother to tell us that they were not going to provide us with service any longer, they just disappeared and then had the nerve to send us an invoice for the services he claimed he would comp us for. My guess? They either had no idea how to handle it and just aren't the guys to deal with anything except a brand new pool that doesn't require any real maintenance and don't want to admit it, or they are in the habit of trying to con people into spending far more money than they need to. Either way, they didn't provide the service they claimed they would and they left us in worse shape than they found us due to a lack of work ethic and good customer service.