ARTECH POOLS INC

Jay did a great job resurfacing our pool. He came out immediately to give us a quote. He completed the work when promised. All of the people that did the actual work did an excellent job. Our pool wasn’t the easiest to resurface. It’s large, very deep, and had been painted by the previous owners. Jay still gave us a great price and did an exceptional job. I highly recommend Artech Pools, Inc.

Horrible. Breached contract, left us with our decking failing due to multiple failed compactions during permitting and falsifying a document stating the compaction was adequate. Currently, we have a claim with his insurance and legal proceedings have started since the owner breached contact and wouldn’t honor his own warranties. We have to rip up the entire deck and re do the decking and pitch issues so we don’t keep having water settle into our home

My experience with Artech was not good. Jay Rohas told me he could build our pool, we signed a contract, I gave a large deposit, Jay’s sub designed plans and Jay submitted for permit. Over a month later, Jay informed me that his sub doesn’t like the scope of work and he has issues with it. Jay didn’t have an answer for me as to why he didn’t meet with his sub first, before telling me he could build our pool, enter into a contact, take a deposit, design plans and submit for permit. I would have never signed a contract with Artech, if I had known Jay didn’t due his due diligence and could not do the job. Maybe Jay is good for new pools where it is straight forward, but we have an existing pool that our bad contractor damaged and it needs to be removed in order to put in a new one. The cost of remodeling vs. a new pool, were so close in price, that it made sense to put in a new pool. I tried to work with Jay on another solution and brought in my new contractor to weigh in on Jay’s options. Jay suggested flipping the shallow end of the existing pool to make it easier to work with the new pool. It was not what I wanted, but I thought I could live with it. Then after we agreed on Jay’s new option, Jay advised of additional costs and an addendum to our contract to indemnify him and his subs from all work and in case the house were to “cave in”. I didn’t think the scope of work made sense and my new contractor confirmed it did not make sense to him either. I told Jay that I was not comfortable to indemnify anyone who thinks, their work could cause my house to cave in and especially, after two years of building coupled with compromising on the original design. After almost four months of trying to get started with our new pool, Jay’s new option was, “I think you should remodel the existing pool”. I told Jay that I have been more than patient and tried to work with him on other options, but he can’t seem to follow through with our contract, permitted plans or any reasonable option for a new pool. I requested Jay return our full deposit. Jay ignored my requests for a full refund and instead of meeting me as planned, he taped a check at the construction site and left even though my car was parked in the driveway. A sub found the check and it was a partial refund. Jay kept our money for plans and permit that are of no use. The amount is not large, but it is the principal that he feels he is entitled to keep our money for his lack of due diligence inability to build per plan and no work was performed. My job was to convey the scope of work, pool design, materials, sign a contract and provide a deposit and Jay’s job was to build the pool. I did my job and Jay didn’t. Jay refuses to refund our money and said, “he didn’t charge us for his free advice” and that there is a cost for plans and a permit. His advice didn’t get us anywhere after four months and he could not execute on the plans or permit. You can’t charge for services not fulfilled. The partial refund check was post dated 8 days. Jay used almost $7,000.00 of our money for 4 months, performed no work and when it came time to return our money, I had to wait 8 days to cash a partial check. I informed Jay that because he refuses to refund our money, I will be writing a bad review because it was bad enough to lose 4 months, but to pay for his mistakes, is unacceptable. I also informed Jay that I hired an attorney regarding my bad contractor and I will be addressing his hold back of our money on principal. Jay threatened me by saying he would contact his attorney, if I write a bad review. You can’t take action against a customer when the customer is sharing the truth about their experience. That is why they call them, “Reviews”. Based on my experience, I would suggest, don’t give a contractor more than 10% deposit to get started for permitting and plans, request to be added to their insurance policy and only pay as work is completed. If a contractor requests large upfront deposits, I would be wary. Good contractors should have enough capital to back up their work and you only pay for work performed. Never let a contractor get a head of the work performed. If you hire a General Contractor, I suggest you find out if they carry General Liability and Builders Risk Policies. Builders Risk is the important one of the two, but as a homeowner, you want them to have both. I wanted to hire Almar Jackson or Champion Pools, but our bad contractor caused so much damage that we had to pay two and three times to repair his bad work that, we were forced to be on a tight budget for the pool. The good contractors separate themselves from others and Almar and Champion were the two names that I heard were excellent. If we didn’t have our budget restrictions, I would be working with one of those two companies. I would also recommend hiring Brent Copeland of Copeland Construction, if you need an excellent Contractor to manage your entire project or pool project. Copeland Construction came to my rescue and I highly recommend him.