Aqua Quip - Redmond

We started dealing with Aqua Equip because, our spa suddenly just stopped. When they replaced the unit, it still tripped off, so we hired an electrician. We have called them out several times. We have used them off and on for several years. They have come out a couple of times and said that it was an electrical problem. The electrician says that it's not an electrical problem. We are going to use someone else. They are in Bellevue. It wasn't until recently that we found out that it's something to do with something that they replaced. They were rude to our electrician. We are going to call another firm to come out and assess it. Then we will call them back and see if they will honor it. That is the reason that we are going to have another firm come out.

AS mentioned everything went very smoothly at no cost to us. The new heater is a different brand and works perfectly. I like Randy's attitude and his humor.

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We've had very mixed results with Aqua Quip. For simple repairs, there have been few issues. However, we've had some sort of chronic systemic issue with our spa which has resulted in numerous visits over several years. They have replaced our spa pump multiples times - on two occasions, they had to replace the pump twice in one year. When these incidents happened, they did not seem to have any record of the previous incidents, and they never took the time to look at the history of the spa and treat our issues as a chronic problem; their M.O. is to show up, charge a service call fee, and allegedly fix something. They never stay to verify that the fix worked, and if the fix did not work, they charged another service fee to come out and troubleshoot the original fix. Out of loyalty (in hindsight, it was unearned), we kept using Aqua Quip. Last year after another $800 bill to replace a frozen pump, I looked up and called the CEO of the company. I told him that he was losing us as a customer, and I told him the history of our spa and our inability to get Aqua Quip to get it working for more than a month or two. He promised to put his best technician on it and to keep working on the spa until we were satisfied. I told them I wanted to replace all of the spa controls with an after-market pack. They quoted me about 5k to do that. I agreed. When the technician came out, he looked at my control set and told me that it was fine, and they ended up replacing just the heater, despite me pointing out the chronic failures in the original control set. Of course you know the rest of the story - the spa ran great for about 6 months, and then crapped out again. At this point, we're done doing business with Aqua Quip and are shopping around for an independent provider. My best advice is to trust Aqua Quip only for quick, straightforward repairs. As for the technicians, we've had mostly good experiences with them as individuals. There have been a couple of instances where the technician has been rude or unhelpful. On one occasion, a technician came, did nothing, and charged us a $70 service fee for the visit. I was able to get these charges removed, but I had to take time out of my day to call back and forth with the service center several times to get it sorted out.

I have had three distinct experiences with Aqua Quip over the last four years. Once when we hired them to install filtration pumps and filters for our small pool, second, when we were seeking advice on keeping the water sanitary and stable and, third, when we had to replace two pumps and an electric heater due to water damage. The first experience was a pleasant, though expensive, one. The Service Manager, Tom, was greatly interested in our new pool and was familiar with the equipment supplied with it. A service date was scheduled and installation went slowly, but smoothly ($1,500 + tax). Tom returned the next day to go over water maintenance and helped us dose the water with sanitizer and an initial balance adjustment. I rate this first experience a solid B. This was a mistake as we soon found out after bringing a sample of our water in for analysis to the Shoreline store. AQ offers free water analysis as a way to get you back into their stores. We did this once and left with a couple of hundred dollars of chemicals ... most of which we didn't need ... and an inspired purchase of a water test kit (which we were actively discouraged from buying, BTW). You do not need a degree in chemical engineering to balance pool water, but you do need a more accurate tester and literature that explains the concept of balanced water as well as choices for sanitation. It helps to know that water sourced from west of the Cascades is low in calcium hardness. Do yourself a favor and buy a complete test kit for either chlorine or bromine depending on the sanitizer you are using. Taylor makes good ones. Don't think you can get away with just test strips. AQ's test analysis was conducted by in-store staff that, in retrospect, knew nothing about balancing water. All they do is trust what their machine tells them you need, with no explanation of why you need it. AQ's prices for pool chemicals are quite expensive. You will save tons of money if you learn to test water yourself and buy your chemicals from online sources. It is my opinion that their machines exist only to skew test results in their favor. I rate their water testing a solid C minus for poorly trained sales staff, resulting in the purchase of unnecessary chemicals. The third and final experience regards a recent mishap resulting in the replacement of two pumps and an electric heater. Because of water damage (not the fault of AQ) we are in the process of replacing some pool equipment. This normally would be a simple job, and it would be if AQ had paid attention to information supplied to them but, alas, somehow a wrong pump was ordered and we are now at the mercy of a woefully inept management structure. Communication with their service department is a hit-and-miss affair. Phone calls never get returned, phone calls get replied to via e-mail instead (very odd), and trying to pin down a service date is difficult as they seem to have a fairly loose scheduling system. It is a pattern of behavior that puts the customer's time last on the list ... they even offer to visit your house when you are not there (again, very odd) thereby making it impossible to verify the amount of time a service tech charges. Their service fee is $138 / hour ... very steep. I had contacted them with part numbers for the two pumps I needed. The service tech arrived on time, but one of the pumps was the wrong model and would not fit the application despite the fact that I had specified the correct replacement model number to AQ service in an e- mail a week prior. The tech, to my surprise, called immediately to order the correct pump. I left an e-mail message with the service dept. requesting an expedited shipping schedule ... no reply. Four days later I receive an e-mail telling me it will be the end of the week before the pump will be at their warehouse ... on a late Friday afternoon which means, to their service coordinator, replacement sometime the following week ... they’ll contact me ... no apology, no acknowledgement of the inconvenience they have caused because of the initial screw-up, no attempt to schedule a service visit with a clear date so I can be home ... very poor service from a company that only seems interested in billing as much as the market will bear. Very inflexible management structure, unable to adapt to crises and belligerent when you try to explore alternative avenues of resolution. I rate this recent experience an F but it is ongoing so perhaps I will have to modify that ... don't hold your breath.

Aqua-quip would not agree to visit my home before the date of installation so that we could discuss the installation, which was not standard. Aqua-quip was not responsive when I requested that the installer return meet with my contractor to discuss a leak in my chimney. After months of phone calls and emails, Aqua-quip sent an installer to meet with my contractor. It was determined that the leak was probably not Aqua-quip's responsibility.

My hot tub had been down for over two months due to a burned out heater. I worked with two other spa repair companies that did not completely solve the problem. Finally called Aqua Quip and their technician (Jerry Mclennan) properly diagnosed and solved my problem. The tub has been operating three weeks trouble free.

Worked with Jeff Brooks, Retail Sales Manager. I highly recommend dealing with Jeff. He demonstrated solid product knowledge, awesome follow through and his customer service/focus is THE best I've encountered in this industry. I did quite a bit of research and Jeff/Aqua Quip presented the best pricing (apples to apple comparison with Woodinville's Sutter Home and Hearth.

They are the best...everything is easy...good service, good communication, good products!

Said that the spa didn't have 3 feet of unobstructed access so performed no service and left a bill for $154.21. To be fair I had this issue once before with Aqua Quip but they said that it was the one technician "Randy" who had back issues and another technician came out and did the work. I purchased the spa from Aqua Quip 10 years agao and they put it in its current location and the issue about access only came up last year. Anyway, just felt violated when they did nothing but charged me $150 bucks. Thought I would let others know, draw your own conclusions.

The install fee was basically for the electrician and it was $700. I had a separate contractor do the concrete work and he said that the price was fair for the length of time the electrician was here because it included copper piping. Their prices for the spa were reasonable. I have always bought all my supplies from them. I worked with the manager and he was very nice and explained everything to me. He initially came out two years ago to do the measurements and he helped me find somebody that would do the deck alterations that I needed. They are professional and I didn't bother looking anywhere else because I liked working with them.

We felt really good about the service, the expertise, and the staff. We were trying to decide between them and Olympic Hot tub, and they really were competitive in price, good at answering all our questions, and willing to work with us to make sure we got what we wanted. Also, it was an extremely difficult delivery/removal of the old tub. The crew they sent was great; the pre-delivery visit really identified all the issues; all went well. We love our tub, and the after-purchase support.