We are currently building a pool with Pacific Sun. The experience has been fine (rain has caused delays) overall. It's our first pool, so I can't compare it to anything else. The company is responsive, the supervisors are helpful and patient, costs were similar to other higher-end companies we looked at including Mission Pools and California Pools. We liked the design by Dan Cassese and the fact that the company also has a landscape division. We are using them for landscaping also. I'm happy to answer any specific questions you might have.

Thank you. Sure like to hear from you when the pool is finish. So is Dan part of Pacific Sun? We'll have a meeting them in the coming week.

Yes, Dan is one of Pacific Sun's salesmen/pool designers. He's friendly, honest, a good listener, and not at all pushy. Dan may not seem as "smooth" and "polished" as some of the other salesmen you'll meet, but personally we liked this and his down-to-earth personality. Anyway, I'll add more to this post when our pool is finished, hopefully in the next month sometime, weather permitting!

Try Diamond Pools. They are a small outfit, but the customer service has been great. I call them directly for any issues. i.e. light burnt out, heater stopped working. Taken care of the next day. The larger pool companies give you a number to call.
Pacific Sun never showed up for the 2nd appt. Just left the drawings in my mailbox a couple days later. No apology. Any they didn't even have my money yet.

You cannot go wrong with Sandpiper Pools out of Escondido. This family run business was recommended to us by Brian at SD Discount Pool supplies and we chose them over larger companies. They have many years in the business and top notch subs that they manage very well. In our case, they were not the low bidder, but were the best value. We could not be happier with our pool.

http://www.sandpiperpools.com/

I'll second the recommendation for Sandpiper. They just completed our pool and did an excellent job. All of the subs were great to work with and the people at Sandpiper are very responsive. While not the lowest price, they do very high quality work.

Thank you for everyone responses! I'll give Sandpiper a call too.

Versus writing all over again, I just pasted a post I did before. If you search this forum for "San Diego Pool Builders", you will see that there are many good comments about local PB.

Terri

Posted by socal_fun (My Page) on Tue, Dec 4, 07 at 17:33

Give John at Mission Pools a try.
We were very happy with Mission Pools. John Delay came up with a beautiful design, was honest, very thorough, and did not put the heavy sales moves on us. His site foreman Jonny was always available for us, and worked well with our landscaper.

We only wanted to go with one of the more experienced PBs in the San Diego area, not with the smaller outsourcing companies. I'm sure some are good, but after the experiences that two of our neighbors had, we only wanted the more experienced companies out. One neighbor had their PB charge $3,200 more for excavation, even with no rocks (how is that possible). Neither PB filled in the dirt over their pipes, etc., which cost another $1,500 for the landscape contracto to fill for the PB. One PB charged more for the back wall on the pool to be higher (how can they do that if the PB took the measurements?).

Anyhow, we had San Diego Pools, California Pools, Mission Valley Pools, and Mission Pools out to our house. All had good ideas, crazy pictures, and different reasons for this brand and that product. In the beginning, the pricing was close, with Mission Valley being the cheapest and California Pools being the highest. After reviewing the estimates in private, we really noticed just how differently each company "spells out" (or not) their cost for their product. We made a list of items that we for sure wanted included in each PBs second proposals...to compare. Johns (Mission Pools) original proposal was the most transparent, and revealed some items that I assumed were included with the other PBs, but as we found were not. Items like filling up the pipe trenches, installing the surface skimmer where the wind blows, proper plumbing of our freeform spa, included cost for the "standard tile", etc. We then saw each one again (to review the new cost with the items we wanted for sure),and then we saw that Missions Pools pricing was looking better. We were disappointed with the representative from Mission Valley Pools (He was even a family member)who refused to include the filling of their trenches and kept saying "don't worry about that" and "we are the same, but cheaper". My husband liked their portfolio (very much), but feared that they would play more games and just get their profit from somewhere else during the construction. We then went to the remaining three PBs place of business (we felt we should since we were going to spend a little over $75k) and that was the deciding factor. Our designer (John) showed us all the materials, surfaces, concrete colors, tiles, etc., and how the business operates. At that point, there was not a doubt in our minds that Mission Pools was the company that would offer us the most control of their product, was well organized, experienced, and financially stable.

Hi cbad boyspool,
How is your pool coming along?

We used Sundancer Pools (finished in Sept. 2004) and things have been great. Jay was very easy to work with, and I highly recommend them!

-Melissa (Ramona, CA)

Hi Curiosity 2000,
Thanks for asking. We finally plastered today! We're using Gemstone, which is an exposed aggregate product, so tomorrow they come back to acid wash and then we can fill it! It looks great. I'll post a picture later this week.