Anthony & Sylvan Pools Reviews

In the end we are told that it is our responsibility to cover these renovations and that we are well beyond the warranty period. My brother-in-law has had his inground pool for 25+ years now from a different builder and only recently had to replace a short stretch of tiles. 3 surrounding neighbors with pools not installed by Anthony Sylvan experiencing these problems. Anthony Sylvan will not accept responsibility for any fault in the construction. I find it extremely disturbing that this company sells an expensive product that apparently has a lifespan of only 5-6 years before major problems begin to appear.

I have read about similar issues occurring with other Anthony Sylvan pool owners and only wish I had seen these types of reviews before I contracted with them. The “buyer beware” saying seems quite appropriate right now. I would not recommend this company to any family or friends contemplating purchasing a pool. Please read the reviews on the web. The news media needs to do a segment on these issues since it seems to be a systemic problem with this company.

There was delay after delay. One of the things that upset me the most was that they had us start the full loan (meaning that the job was complete) and THEN told us that there was another $5,000 worth of work that needed to be done. They hadn't known that was needed because they hadn't seen the opened pool before (even though they'd gotten all of the inspector's reports, including photos). And then, since our loan had already started, we had to pay that $5,000 directly out of pocket.

Oh, and then, when we opened the pool this year, we found out that our pool could electrocute us because the way that the light was installed didn't have any kind of grounding on it. Now, the electricity itself isn't Anthony & Sylvan's fault exactly, but the project manager, Benjamin, even told us that it's standard procedure to cut the grounding wire on that kind of light installation. So that's another several thousand dollars of work we have to do to make the pool truly safe.

There were a bunch of small issues, such as not having the pool jet returns have covers (we still don't have those, by the way, despite being told many times that they would get those to us). And not having any kind of railing installed (I'm disabled and they knew that, both from being at the house multiple times and because we had originally asked about the possibility of installing a ramp instead of stairs). They told us after it was all done that that kind of thing has to be done additionally, but they'd never mentioned it until we brought it up after they were "done." (We spoke with Benjamin about getting a railing added after-the-fact and, despite many reassurances, we haven't heard anything from them about scheduling or planning for that.)

Overall, I'm extremely frustrated. Yes, the pool looks nice, but it came at lots of extra cost and stress and things still aren't "done" even 7+ months after the project was "complete." (I was also waiting to do a review until we'd seen if these problems were handled or not in the new year, but as things have remained unfinished, I finally decided to write a review.)

Once again, they are denying any responsibility. They want to know if we want a renovation specialist to come out. No thanks. We've already spent 10s of thousands of dollars with this company. I'm not going to give another cent for shoddy work. We didn't even get 10 years out of our remodel. The service of this company has gone downhill over the years. If anyone has any recommendations for a company that takes pride in their work and stands by their product, please let me know.

We then brought in multiple independent engineers, all of whom confirmed that the damage was due to poor materials and delamination — not anything we did. Even with those expert opinions, the company refused to accept responsibility. It wasn’t until we hired a lawyer and made the issue public that they finally responded. But even then, their offer of a partial repair came with strings attached: we had to sign a non-disclosure agreement and remove all public reviews.

The repairs should have taken two days. Instead, the process dragged out for months due to legal back-and-forth. Anthony & Sylvan seemed far more interested in protecting their brand than fixing the problem. In our experience, they deny valid claims, shift blame, and use legal tactics to silence dissatisfied customers. I would not recommend them to anyone.

1. My pool was supposed to be 400 square feet, but when the Town rejected the permit, Anthony took it upon himself to change our contract to 300 square feet without my consent. I discovered this discrepancy and, although they offered me a free heater as compensation, I believe I had grounds for a fraud claim.

2. The pool was installed too low in the ground, causing mud and debris from the surrounding grass and dirt to damage it every time it rained. They provided me with $1,500 for drainage, but I had to spend over $70,000 to completely redo my yard with pavers to resolve the issue.

3. After enduring all this stress with the pool company, they offered me a discounted plaster job for $6,500, which I agreed to after the work was completed. While the plaster initially looked great after filling the pool with water, I soon noticed numerous cracks and black marks throughout, resembling concrete seeping through the plaster. The quality of the job is subpar and not professionally done, with rough areas in the plaster. When I contacted them, their warranty department stated they could not assist me, claiming it was not covered.

This company does not stand behind its promises. I strongly advise against using them, as they seem to look for excuses to avoid fixing problems and often settle for small compensation. It appears we may soon be in court over these issues. There are many other pool companies that provide better service and stand by their warranties!

Update 12/21/24 I finally received a response, a boilerplate email. It basically said for me to do a bucket test. Then, if I see it’s leaking for me to contact a leak detection company. If a leak is detected in the shell then I can re-contact Anthony Sylvan to determine the next steps. Otherwise, if it’s outside the shell, I’m on my own. This pool is less than three years old. I received no phone call, no communication to determine how bad the leak is. It’s just their terrible customer service on repeat. So here are some pictures. It was completely full on Tuesday, these pictures are taken on Saturday.

UPDATE 12/19/24!!! My pool is leaking. I noticed the water level very low on Monday morning. Spent the entire day and half of Tuesday filling it. Wednesday morning, it's low again. Low enough that it's below the skimmers. I'm not sure where the water is going. I don't see any drainage from around the pump or the pool. Still waiting to hear from warranty. Again, buyer beware!

If you are considering using Anthony & Sylvan I highly, highly recommend that you do your due diligence and look at other companies. Unfortunately, A&S is more focused on sales versus quality of construction. The sales people might be great, but the follow through with the construction process is horrific. And it shows!

4. Added the wrong size seat wall and had to fix.

8. And finally today, all but 2 of my large flagstones that were to be used in a step project are gone. Site cleanup either covered them up or removed them

At every mistake all I got was the excuse that they were swamped with business.

I have looked a hundreds of inground pools and never have seen one you step up into. There is also an issue now with the water level being about 2" difference from one end of the pool to the other. I am waiting patiently for a response from them on this issue. This experience with them has been terrible and I would not recommend using them at the League city, Tx location.

It was issue after issue with the project manager. There was NO communication initiated on there part during the pool build. We would always have to call and figure out when they were coming out. They would show up unannounced and we have a dog that goes in the back yard. The workers would not knock on the door, they would just start working. This is unacceptable! David **, the General Manager, needs to make this right!

After that flurry of activity there was a long lapse to wait for the other phases. A&S is a pool *general* contractor. They bring in other companies to do the work and do very little of it themselves. Apparently, they had difficulty getting contractors to work on my job and what was supposed to be 14 weeks stretched into 6 months before startup as we were delayed for gunite, and then even further delayed for plaster because I chose Pebbletech, and there was only one certified contractor in the area that could do it. But startup was the beginning of many more challenges.

Throughout the entire engagement I've had considerable difficulty with communication from this company. The project manager assigned to my job was unresponsive to text and e-mail and only responded when I threatened escalation. There was a stretch of a few weeks where the PM told me another PM was taking over, but then the other PM didn't take over, and the original one apparently stayed on my job. It was especially frustrating not knowing who was responsible for my job. On the week of my pool startup, the original PM told me he was going to a different pool company, so I can see now that he was totally disengaged with his current customers and didn't really care what happened.

At startup, the pool heater didn't work. The PM said it was a simple electrical issue and said they would send electricians to fix it. A few days later an electrician showed up, but it wasn't fixed. The heater did not work for over three weeks. I complained to A&S and they said they were working to replace it. They didn't. Instead, they submitted a warranty claim on the heater and a local pool shop that services Jandy heaters was supposed to come and make the repair. It took over a week to get them on site once the repair was scheduled. So, a month after startup, the heater finally worked.

The cover has been a disaster. I bought a removable, insulating cover as part of the deal so that I can use the spa in the winter on a regular basis. When it was time to make the cover, the manufacturer said they couldn't warranty it. I don't know why - they gave no reason. The salesperson had been so sure it would be no big deal, but here was a major problem in usability of the spa. Eventually, A&S just refunded me an amount which I assume was the line item for the cover and I have had to shop elsewhere to find one. That activity has been a huge waste of my time and something a good pool company would have spared me instead of just throwing up its hands and saying "oh, well!"

The pool also had leaks where the pipes had sagged in the gunite wall. To their credit, A&S corrected this quickly and the technician they sent to do it was very helpful. He also helped me get a message back to the office that my job was not going well, and it did seem to help as I started getting e-mails from others in the office to push things along.

Then there's the county code fiasco. The PM told me I had to have the gates in my fence reversed so that they opened outward in order to meet code. This had to do with children trying to get into the pool area and strategies to keep them out, as expressed in the county code. So, I got the fence contractor to reverse the gates.... and failed inspection.

A&S clearly doesn't know and didn't research the residential pool code for Montgomery County, Maryland, though they do business here. At least, the PM didn't but spoke with authority on the matter when he shouldn't have. After I failed the inspection, I found out the code says nothing about the direction of gate swing. It requires auto-closing gates of at least 5' height and auto lock/latch on each gate at or above 4'. Now, back to the fence contractor for upgrades and further delay of finalizing the permit. I'm probably another month away from finalizing the permit because of bad information from A&S.

I would never use this company again. It's been nothing but a headache. National companies like this have the advantage of lower cost and perhaps more influence with delivery contractors, but that latter benefit I didn't really experience. I think I would go with someone local if I did this again that really understood the code and had more personal interest in the business. I ended up paying more in the long run to have work redone by others because A&S advised me so poorly.

We explained to the first person on day one, where to park and to be careful of driving on our driveway, which is long and windy. We also asked that they not back down our driveway. Every time a new subcontractor showed up, they drove on our grass, blocked us in, backed down and parked in the wrong place. Their subcontractor used our well water, without even as much as a heads up, to "wet blast" the pool. Within one hour, our well ran dry. I had to contact them and not so much as an apology or a warning in advance, knowing we were on well water.

Their contract says they MAY use subcontractors at their discretion. In this case, everyone was a subcontractor. Their scheduler sends boilerplate emails asking for money, she pushes you to send them money before they will schedule the next leg of the work. The dates and schedule changed multiple times which I find to be disruptive. Once I received an email asking for a $4K payment. When I asked about it they said it was a mistake and to ignore it.

Finally, they require money paid in advance. I should have pushed back at contract signing. I would say if you are going to work with them, do NOT sign their contract this way. You should never pay a contractor in full until the work is completed. We are super disappointed. We interviewed several small local reputable companies but believed in A&S's sales rep. We regret choosing this large, bureaucratic national company.