We are in the middle of our build, up in San Luis Obispo county. First - check references really carefully! Second, do not accept their contract too readily. Write in performance guarantees/bonuses. Dig deep into the contract and the builder's experience and references! Also, make sure that the people doing the build are the same ones that did the work from the references!

If you ever think something is wrong - stand up. Our guy keeps saying "no problem", but is not following the pool design and keeps making stupid, expensive mistakes. He is supposedly the best in over 100 miles. I would hate to have to deal with one of the poorer ones!

I have been told the best contractors are in Bakersfield - not that far (in this economic climate) via I5.

Good luck!

Can you tell, ours is a nightmare?

Bakersfield??? I'll check it out, but a reputable San Diego pool builder would be nice. Also... anyone have some ideas on a water feature fun for the kids? Other then a slide.

We are about half way done with our pool build and we chose to go with Sundancer Pools out of Escondido. As my pool is not quite completed I will say that they have been great to work with. Do a search on them on the boards and you will find a lot more nice comments about them. Jay Zier is the guy we deal with over there. We also had bids from Mission Valley Pools and Mission Pools. We so far are very happy with our decision.

Thanks sandiegolew
Sundancer has been out, and I am waiting on there bid and design, how did there bid compare to the Missions ones?

I would recommend avoiding Mission Pools at all costs. Our neighbors here in Carmel Valley (3-4 houses) all went with them and all of them have nightmare stories about delayed projects and people not showing up for weeks or a month in one case. I got a bid from them and when I heard the news, I never replied.

I would however highly recommend our builder, Mission VALLEY pools. Very reputable and have been in the business for 4 decades. Also, California Pools gave us a bid and they seemed professional but were pricy.

I also thought Pacific Sun was excellent and my friend, who is a contractor/spec home builder, uses them in all of his homes. The only reason we went with MV pools in the end is because they were a bit cheaper for what they offered.

Click on the link below for our pool build from start to finish!

Katherine in Carmel Valley

Here is a link that might be useful: Our Pool Build -- San Diego Sunshine

Sudancer came in the middle of Mission Valley (Low) and Mission (High). What we liked about them is that Jay is both your salesman and the supervisor of the job. We have been in constant contact with him from the day we signed the contract and are able to make changes as needed. He also will give you a VERY detailed description of what is included in his bid, and you are able to pick/choose the upgrades/downgrades that you want. We thought Mission Valley was hiding some things in their bid since they were quite a bit lower. More of a get what you pay for sort of thing for me. But as you can see from SDKath's pictures, they do build a nice pool.

Definitely no hiding anything during out pool build. They gave us state of the art equpiment (that we asked for and specified) and upsized pipes to 3" and the nicest stone we could find in the stone yard. Plus Pebble Tec (the real one, not the "pebble finish" that some companies try to sell you as the "same thing."

That said, we paid an arm and a leg for our PB. But we knew EXACTLY what we were getting from day one.

Katherine

We got bids from Mission Pools, California Pools, and Mission Valley Pools. They all came up with really nice designs.

We chose Mission Valley because we wanted a rock waterfall/grotto and accent rocks around the pool, and in our opinion, they did the best rock work in San Diego. Check out their website. Another plus was that they used the top of the line Pentair equipment (Intelliflo, Quad DE, Intellitouch, and MasterTemp). And that's the equipment we were going to ask for. The other companies offered a different brand. We feel that with Mission Valley we're getting the most bang for our buck.

Our rock work came out great! And the mason's did a beautiful job with the quartzite. We hope to complete it soon.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tsunami's Pool

I didn't invite Mission Valley out to bid, I was trying to stick with contractors that had A+ rating from BBB, but I am considering calling them due to this board.

Was wondering if anyone has heard anything good or bad about Del Rancho PB?

We received there bid today and got a look at the 3D rendering, I got jazzed just thinking about our family spending time in our new pool.

Eric

Unfortunatley the BBB does not reflect the best builders in their rating system. They survive on dues paying members rather than an accurate rating system. A good way to research companies is through the Secretary of State. You can find out who is behind the company and how long they have really been in business.

One thing that we did to decide on who we wanted to go with was call around and talk to the subcontractors that each of them use. We wanted to know if they had any problems getting paid or any other issues that they have experienced with working with each poolbuilder. All these builders should be able to provide you with the names of each subcontractor that they use which you can call them to find out how they actually are viewed in the business. One sub that all will use is Gardner Pool Plastering if they do PebbleTec. Call them up and drop some pool builder names and they can steer you away from the shady ones. We searched and searched and could not find any bad comments or issues with Sundancer. The same could not be said about others that you are looking at.

Ive never heard of Del Rancho.

Thanks for the feedback and info sandiegolew, I hope to hear back from Sundancer with pool design and price this week.

Eric