What is their warranty? How is it the best?

Please see the AS warranty below. Their warranty is also transferable when you sell the house. They have a better warranty on plumbing, swim jets, pebble finish, and cartridge and filters than The Pool Man Inc does.

The lifetime warranty is on Pool shell, plumbing, swim jets, skimmers, main drains & pebble finish.

The cartridge tank element & paper filters have a 3 year warranty along with LED light & Polaris.

No pool company in Houston gives a warranty on decking. We ensure it to be free of cracks once complete.

Coping & tile have a 1 year warranty.

The electrical is encased within conduit, nothing should happen to it once electrician gets it wired properly.

That does sound like a good warranty. I have a few friends who warned me not to use them. Apparently, after they get your pool built, it is not likely that they honor their warranty. It's their sales pitch and then once they've got you, you are screwed.

I did not use them so I have no first hand knowledge of this, but from what I've heard, I steer clear. Can they give you the names and numbers of some recent clients that you can call?

They did give me some references that were very good. I am actually looking at a pool they built on Sat. Thanks for the input.

I didn't use A&S or even call them out because I don't trust big national builders due to the stories I've heard. Of course A&S would give you references that they knew would be good ones. I did call the Pool Man out (didn't use though) and I can tell you that you are comparing two different leagues of pool builders. I wouldn't use A&S no matter what the deal or warranty was.

Heard great things about the Pool Man though.

Trust me, they honor the warranty. It is in the contract.
If they didn't, they would have been sued out of existence long ago.

I actually have 2 friends that have AS pools and they are happy 2 and 3 years later.

Thanks so much. I was beginning to worry no one had anything good to say about AS but then how are they building 1,500 pools a year in Houston? It just doesn't compute for me.

I am not saying these guys do, but make sure when you sign the contract you do not sign away your right to sue them (aka binding arbitration) it can often cost more to go to arbitration than it will to fix the problem.

They have been around since I was a kid, true -- but I'd be questioning anyone building any pool that will give you a transferable lifetime warranty on the pool finish. I would question what lifetime, is that the pebbles or the actual surface holding them too (pebbles themselves will last our lifetime) and what conditions have to be met to keep it. The warranty won't be worth anything if they require you to keep printed water quality tests with things not always tested for and you don't have them all in a binder of folder waiting for the "maybe."

I'm not a pool builder, but I am a consumer. I can be fooled, but I also know that if something sounds too good, you'd better look deeper. That doesn't sound right to me. Start looking for exclusions, qualifications, normal wear and tear, water chemistry requirements, verification requirements. I can't tell you if they are good or bad, but I wouldn't buy a pool based on a warranty that sounds too good without reading all the fine print, understanding it, and seeing if what I had left was really worth much. Just sayin'.....

Thanks for the advice. I will look for an arbitration clauses and at the fine print now, thanks to you.

I did sit down and get an estimate from a Houston A&S, but decided to go with another PB. There were too many things that I was wary of with the A&S fine print and construction. However, I have not (nor do I know anybody) that has used them, so I am unable to give a recommendation.

Please note that you will need to define a 'lifetime warranty' in writing with the PB you choose. In Texas, a lifetime warranty is not the life of the owner, but the expected life of the product. If a normal plastered pool would expect to last 7 years, then a lifetime warranty is the 7 years. As soon as you through variables of pH levels and owner negligence, the length of time might decrease the expected lifetime. The PB would no longer be under obligation to cover the product under warranty.

Please note that this is not unique to A&S and I would encourage you to do more research by having the PB you choose define all the terms....including 'lifetime' and 'limited' warranty.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lifetime warranty loopholes

I signed a contract with The Pool Man Inc. Just too many scary stories about A&S.

dont believe all of the negative things you read about anthony sylvan pools because they just aint true. they just finished my pool/spa in spring. the pool is nearly perfect. we had bids from several builders including cody pools, houston pool builders, platinum pools and precision pools. cody and platinum were by far the worst. they didnt seem to care if they sold you a pool or not and just offerd to build a basic pool. our salesman phil at a and s
was outstanding and had the best pool design. the quality of work from the contractors was outstanding and right on schedule. they told us we could go pick out our own pallet of coping which we did but the coping crew didnt know about it and brought out the wrong pallet. they had even started to cut some of the pieces. within minutes of finding out the crew returned with the pallet we picked out no questions asked. now that is good customer service! period. also our cool deck color wasnt applied quite evenly and didnt look right. the construction supervisor noticed it and he said we will fix that right away. they addressed everything quickly. i was concerned at first about the stories i read on the internet about a and s but now i know for a fact that you cant believe everything you read. actually there are complaints about just about every pool builder out there not just a and s. i dont think people really realize just how involved building an inground pool really is. there is bound to be a couple of things happen along the way. this has been a very positive experience and i would recommend anthony sylvan pools to anyone.

Hmm, just how/when did you happen to see this thread?

I have seen enough A&S threads over the years to not raise an eyebrow at this. I am happy for you don't get me wrong, Its just a bit outside the norm from what people have had happen. I hope it happens to more people, country wide.

Scott

i really dont care what experiences other people have had. a and s is a huge pool builder nationwide. maybe people in other parts of the country have had major problems, i dont know and dont really care. what i DO know is that OUR pool is nearly perfect in every way. that is all that matters to me. i dont know what you mean by outside the norm. what is outside the norm is listening to other people. maybe we were just lucky this time and got the only good pool a and s has ever built but i really doubt it. iam just stating the facts of how our experience was in spring texas. do what you think is right.

As I said, I am happy it went well for you. It does for many. For others, it's been a project management nightmare. That seems to be the biggest issue. I see it locally all the time too.

Scott

our project manager was on sight quite often overseeing the project. they are building a lot of pools right now and you cant expect them to be there every minute of the day. some things you have to take care of yourself. sprinklers are one of them. yeah they broke sprinklers all over the place and they clearly say that in the brochure that its going to happen. its unavoidable. i capped and rerouted all of them myself during the whole process. having some more help with the color choices of tile and coping would have been helpful. a neighbor of ours down the street just had a pool put in by platinum and they told us they werent impressed with them at all. they all seem to have issues. all i know is a and s was all over this pool from start to finish. if there was an issue they would have taken care of it. there are other a and s pools in our area and no they arent falling apart.

Anthony & Sylvan is terrible. They DO NOT honor their warranty. They say they will but then you never hear from them. No one answers the phone, unless of course you are a potential customer. My pool is 3 years old and the plaster is falling off. They told me this is covered over a month ago and now no one gets back to me about fixing it. I'm not sure how this site rates them as best, that is ridiculous. There are Facebook pages created to tell of the horrible experiences people have and are having with Anthony & Sylvan, web pages and numerous negative reviews on Google, BBB, ripoffreport.com, redit.com and the list goes on.