Can’t recommend this company. We have an older pool that we know is in need of a remodel, but it has been holding water just fine until about two months ago, at which point we noticed a drop in water level and chemicals that wasn’t due to evaporation.
I reached out to this company based on reviews to try and locate this new leak. The test was scheduled on the day we were flying out of state for a few days. The tech that showed up did a pressure test and confirmed it wasn’t the plumbing, which was helpful. However, I don’t think much effort was put into finding the leak beyond that. The estimate I got afterwards basically said it is leaking everywhere (skimmers, light fixtures, drain and return jets) and wanted $2500 to “fix” it all. I know it’s an older pool, but the entire point of this was to find the specific, larger leak that developed in the last two months.
When the tech reinstalled the valve covers, he cracked the main one on the suction side of the system, causing an air leak. At high speed the pump would maintain prime, but the pump basket would be full of bubbles, which it wasn’t doing before. It’s a variable speed pump configured on a schedule to run at low speeds 24/7, so as soon as it kicked into low speed, the water would drain from the pump basket and it would lose prime because of the air it was sucking in through the valve.
I turned off the pump and called the company. They said they’d send someone out to fix it. I told them I was flying out of state, so they needed to make sure it was either fixed or shut off before they left. They texted me later that afternoon saying it was fixed, with a video showing it running at high speed, still with a ton of bubbles in the pump basket. I was skeptical but we were already at the airport so there was nothing I could do. We get back from our trip, and sure enough, the pump had been running the entire time with only a trickle of water flowing into the pump.
The worst part of all of this is that when I reached out to the tech to explain the situation, I was told that they take video before every job and that my pump had already been sucking air before they started. Without saying it directly, he basically implied that they didn’t cause the issue and I was either wrong or lying. He sent me the video they took “before” the job, which was the same video they had sent to me after the tech came back the second time to fix the problem. When I pointed that out, he sent me a second “before” video, also showing a lot of air in the pump basket. I had to pull security camera footage with timestamps and send screenshots showing the tech reassembling everything 10 minutes *before* the video was taken to prove that it was not a from before they started work. After that he said he’d look into it. I never did get an actual before video, so either one doesn’t exist, or someone was trying to pull one over on me. The whole thing was just bizarre and absurd. If I hadn’t had the security camera footage I guess I’d just be out of luck.
In the end I had to order a new valve to replace the valve cover. Total cost was about $50 and I swapped it myself in about 10 minutes. The company agreed to reimburse me for that cost, at my request.
Frankly this was not worth the $375 fee. The test took all of 45 minutes, they didn’t locate a specific leak, and ended up actually causing an air leak. They also reinstalled the return jets without aiming them properly, so I have to go back and re-adjust them all. I also still have to do a dye test myself to figure out where the actual leak is. They did confirm it’s not the plumbing, so I guess that’s something. Now I’m just hoping there wasn’t any damage to the pump or the SWG cell after running for four days at low speed without much water.