Leak Detectives

Based on Gary's reviews we hired him to find a pool leak Gary claimed to find the leak and quoted us $1950 for the repair and said he could do the job the following week. In the interim he left our deck messy and our pool valves disassembled so the pool could not be filtered; these were warning signs not heeded. Gary finished the repair which required digging around a skimmer. He did a very poor job of matching the replacement concrete with the rest of the deck before going on his way. We were unhappy with the quality of his work, especially for the price, but just sighed knowing we would never hire him again. After the repair we suspected our pool might still be leaking but just watched it for awhile. Eventually, it became clear that the pool was still losing water at a rate not commensurate with evaporation. We had a different company come out and they found and fixed a large leak under the equipment pad. Unfortunately,our pool still continued to lose water at an unnatural rate. On a day that coincided with a Geremia Pools visit on another issue, we noticed dampness in a dirt area where Gary had worked. Digging revealed water gushing out of a pipe. Steve, our Geremia guy, arrived shortly after and later described the situation as follows: Diagnosis: Repair underground leak in dirt under other plumbing Leak is at a connection that was repaired by another company 1 year ago. Leak at flex hose to SCH 40 PVC bushing, cut out leaking pipe Flex hose more than half off bushing Owner has pipe to show other company that it was not properly glued We had Geremia do the repair and our pool has been fine since Already aware Gary's shoddy workmanship was out of one-year warranty, we still called him and appealed to his moral character explaining things, providing documentation and ultimately asking him to reimburse us $600 for the cost of the Geremia repair (remember we paid him $1900 originally). After consulting with his "business partner" (his charming wife) Gary refused to do the right thing. Moral of the story: Gary "may" be able to find the leak in your pool but you should think carefully before hiring him to work on your pool. The guy couldn't even put two pieces of piping together properly.