Great pool good price.\r
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3-16-13 Called Desert Springs Pools for quote on \r
3-28-13The first available day to come to our house for a preliminary quote was not until March 28.\r
3-28-13 The pool designer was about an hour late but called to explain at the time the appointment was scheduled.\r
4-2-13 Met at their design center to see virtual designs . We were given a quote comparable to blue haven pools and vintage pools but they were giving us MORE. (We had also called out prestige pools but the owner took two weeks to get back to us and we had gotten 3 quotes and already signed with Desert Springs.) We liked Desert Springs design the best and were getting more decking and a 83 perimeter pool that was 476 sq ft total. It was larger pool than the other quotes. Desert Springs started with a 40k price and dropped it down to 33k with their incentives. We did a similar pool with them in 2009 for 25k and was able to get a deeper discount on this pool which brought that$33k price to $28k. I asked the pool designer to send me digital copies of various screen shots of the pool plan. I did not get these shots any time soon and had to ask multiple times. The contract had an estimated START date of 4-22-13 and COMPLETION date of 5-30-13.\r
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And so it begins:\r
4-18-13 Sprayed out pool.\r
4-26-13 Bulldozer was delivered Friday. \r
4/29 & 4/30 Dug pool Monday/Tuesday (Moving along rather quickly :)\r
5/1 to 5/3/13 Equipment, steel, electrical (Moving along rather quickly :)\r
5-16-13 Gunite (Moving along rather quickly :). I noticed two umbrella sleeves and an irrigation sleeve were missing. I reminded the company and even sprayed a reminder on the ground to make sure they were included and to prevent a mistake. I was not at home during most of the pool construction. \r
5-18-13 Tile (Felt like a long delay time for next step)\r
5-31-13 Concrete decking \r
6-10-13 cool deck\r
6-12-13 block wall. (Block wall guys noticed a mistake, the company was going to install my old gate instead of the rv gates in the contract, this was corrected before mistake was made, almost immediately.\r
6-13-13 gate part 1\r
6-14-13 gate part 2\r
6-18-13inspection\r
6-19-13 pool clean out\r
6-20-13 plaster\r
6-22-13 start up\r
Completion date was 3 weeks longer than expected but pretty close and they did not add any extra fees.\r
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Bummer, that the designer was flakey this time around. I could not really get help from the designer once pool docs were signed. Some other people assisted me in the show room with tile and decking. Some were helpful others not so helpful. If you are inexperienced with design and pools I HIGHLY suggest making the designer help you pick out you tile, decking, plaster/pebbletek, and cool decking before you even talk prices. Then talk price and sign docs. There is no reason to make multiple trips down to pick out all that out later and they are so busy its hard to get real design help later down the road. Terri, who does scheduling is quite helpful and will even text you back quickly.\r
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In the process I noticed a few umbrella sleeves missing. I was concerned they would forget to add them when pouring concrete so I spray painted a reminder on the dirt in my backyard and they fixed the situation the day they poured. \r
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I had a hard time finding the alarms for all my windows and doors (I needed 15). Desert springs told me I could buy them at Home Depot. No luck. I spent a few hours several days in a row trying to find the correct alarms. ( I suggest making them provide them in your pool quote.) I finally found the alarms for$20 each at Leslie's pool supply and they cannot be returned.\r
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FYI The alarms have to be 110 decibels and cannot have an on/off switch on the outside of it. That makes finding the correct type a little challenging. My alarms are techko safe pool model s187d.
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