Blue Haven Pools & Spas Reviews

We love the pool. It is 22 x 41. There's a shallow end where the stairs go up to. It's eight inches deep for a layout pool on one end. I've got a step that goes all the way across the other end of it to get in and out of the pool with a big slide right there to go in. It's four and a half-foot deep on both ends, but five-foot deep in the middle. I got a volleyball net on it. Blue Haven also built a spa connected to it with a waterfall into it. At first, it was all new to us because we went from an above-ground to an in-ground. The maintenance of the pool is 10 times easier. It stays clear. I had a little issue at the very beginning, but it was because we weren't able to put salt in it at the time. We were still letting it cure and I got a little bit of algae. But as soon as it got algae, they sent their guys out. They scrubbed and got it all cleaned up. When I had one light go out, they came the same day and replaced the light. Other than those, everything has been awesome with the pool.

We have the builders app that the construction team went through. So, they sent us messages on when this was gonna happen, this was the next step here, and who was gonna be here for us. We did have a lot of the direct numbers of a lot of the construction heads. If there was an issue or if something did come up, we were able to get ahold of anyone of our crew members. Within no more than 15 minutes, we were talking to someone about what needed to be done. Our breakers at our house were tripping quite a bit. I was like, "This may put your workers a little bit behind. But I think they're just gonna have to tone down the number of tools they're using right this minute." We were able to get that fixed.

Other than that, there were no real hiccups. We were made to know what was going on very early on to when we knew the next step. There was never a question as to what was going on or how it was going. Everything was well explained in detail and in-depth, and in a manner where we knew and we were always in the know.

We went with an irregular shape. It's not just a regular rectangle. It's a gunite with tanning ledges, bubblers, and some sprinklers throughout the pool system. There are two seats that are built into the side, one in the deep end and one in the more shallow end. Our pool has a bubbler on the tanning ledge that bubbles up the water a little bit. We have three sprinklers throughout the pool design that were added, just to cool down and have the audio feature of water splashing. We didn't really want a waterfall, but it kinda has that water sound. They incorporated three sprinklers throughout the system.

We have LED-changing lights that can be programmed to go throughout all of them or set on one certain design. We have a heater. We did add a heater to our pool so we can have it year-round. The two built-in seats are a really good option for us. We got the PebbleSheen lining, so it's a little bit better. We did get an enclosure, too, and that's a huge thing for us. We really enjoy that. Secondly, we like the tanning ledge. Those are the two main things that we really love about the pool.

I followed the designer from a different pool company because of how good he was. He gave me what I wanted without me even saying anything. He looked at my backyard and got to know me a bit. Unless I had ideas to insert, he just gave me a layout, and I could tweak it from there. We tweaked it a bit after he gave us the initial one. And it's beautiful. I love my pool.

I had a really cool project manager. From start to finish right after we finalized the drawings, he took over, and it was seamless. He told me everything that would happen and after every step, what would happen next and what just happened. And it went by fast. The crews were nice. They would come in and do their parts quickly. And they were pretty clean. That helps.

The hot tub where it's only on one side so you can sit there and look at the rest of the pool was a cool idea. And it has an infinity wall so it runs over like an infinity pool, which is cute and nice when you're sitting in there. He also put a water wall in, and it does make it. It has all the bells and whistles. We have three LED color lights. Everything is manually done through an app on my phone. I can control all of it. It's the Omni package. And it's cool. It also has the anti-freeze so it kicks on. It heats, but it has a heater in it.

One of the things I shared with them was that I wanted make sure it was on the right time line. I laid out the expectation early, and to their credit, Blue Haven scheduled the day well in advance. They came out on a Friday and did all the layout so that when their dig crew came in Monday, they worked very well. Everybody knew exactly what they were doing. They went ahead and dug it, and they did it very expeditiously. Through the week they had come in and put all the steel and pipes in. By that weekend, they had finished the initial plaster. It sat for almost two months. What they relayed to us was the reason it sat longer than it was anticipated to be was because of supply chain issues.

When they got started back on the pool, they had brought the wrong stacked stone veneer. We reported that, and they realized their suppliers sent the wrong ones. They came and replaced the stacked stone veneer before it got installed, which was fortunate. The stacked stone around the spa and one end of the pool went very well. They did a good job of installing it. The cuts are right and the seams were well done. It was a clean job.

The tile guy did a good job on the tile around underneath coping. He was a little bit challenged with laying it around the tanning ledge and the steps because they have curves on them. But he did a good job at the end. They did a very good job on the Pebble Tec. Then, we filled the pool, and it sat for about 30 days. In that 30 days that the pool had been filled, we did exactly as they said, twice a day brushing it and keeping the water moving and making sure none of the chemicals that they put in would get settled in the Pebble Tec. Then Pool School came, and we were looking forward to that. The guy was very nice, but it was poorly done at the end. He did not explain all of the apparatus and options. He just breezed right through it with no written instructions or warranty books. That didn't go the way I thought it should.

The motor is insufficient for the pool. The pump, according to the label on the side of it, should not be more than 10 feet above the elevation of the base drain, and it's 12 or 13 feet above the base level of the drain. The pump can't pull the water like it's supposed to. It's insufficient in terms of its horsepower. It can't hold a vacuum, so therefore, the pump is having to run 24/7 instead of being able to turn it off and not have to burn power to keep the pump going. When you turn the pump off, it loses its vacuum, and it is incredibly difficult to re-prime the whole thing. We spent over $100,000 on this pool, and I don't wanna have to fight just to do basic weekly maintenance. It feels like Blue Haven dropped off once they checked the block. I haven't heard or seen from anybody. We also have one warranty item that we reported on the spa but haven't heard anything on when they're gonna come and correct that.

We had a couple of snags with construction, though. Our fence was supposed to be removed for them to be able to fit into the back. We put in the contract that Blue Haven would remove the fence and put it back afterward and it might have been missed. I got the call and they were supposed to start. The guy had come out to see everything and said our fence isn't down. I said they were taking the fence down and he said they weren't. It turns out, it was in the contract and it was overlooked. Another snag was that it was a saltwater pool and they had hooked it up to be a chlorine pool. It was another miscommunication because it was always a saltwater pool. They had to come back out and change the equipment, which wasn't a big deal. We had two different project managers and there were some miscommunications from that. But all of them were always taken care of and worked out.

It hasn't been a completely seamless experience, but it's a great one and we love our pool. We have been very happy with the final product. It's exactly what we wanted. We had a couple of issues with the pump and every time, Blue Haven would come out and fix them. We lived in our pool all summer long and we can't wait to do it again this summer.

I don't really like my pool. The coping is chipping and I realized now after I talked to another pool installation company that coping is not a necessity, which I was led to believe that it was. Now, it's constantly chipping and the grout in between the coping is coming out. I'm gonna have somebody have to come out and redo the coping and my pool is just over a year old.

Also, I have the multi cyclone, which I think was a waste of money. I didn't really need but they upsold that. I don't like it. It's hard to clean. Then, they didn't leave me a manual with the pump. They told me it didn't come with a manual. It took me about six months after getting my pool installed to get them to give me a manual. They lead me to believe that Blue Haven is the manufacturer of the pump so the Blue Haven name is all over it, but Blue Haven is not. It's actually a Hayward pump.

They ended up giving me the umbrellas but the holes are too close because they're not centered right. I can't use both of the umbrellas at the same time.

As a person who never had a pool, I was looking for Bob to give his guidance and instruction. Now that I've owned one and I understand it, you need to have a pool to be able to know how to shop for a pool. If you come in cold, then you need someone to tell you, "If you pick this option, then you're gonna have to do this and this is how you're gonna have to maintain it. This is the drawback of doing this, but here are the positive of doing this." In the case of our discussion, we never had those types of conversations. On the placement of the pool equipment, we could have had a discussion about that and what the drawbacks would have been of putting the pool equipment where you put it versus somewhere else and possibly me not having to have the sound of the pool motor right on the other side of the wall of my bedroom. Bob just gave me a price and I thought a pool is a pool is a pool, but it's not. I thought I had made the biggest mistake of my life.

The pool is very well-installed from a building perspective. Bob was here all the time and monitored. He made sure everything was as it should be from an installation standpoint. But he never gave me instructions on how to use my pool. I asked how long does the motor run but they didn't know. Most pool owners will tell you to run your pump 24 hours a day and at variable speeds. The utility bill is as high. I could get away with running it at 1,000 RPMs, which you wouldn't even hear it at all, but I can't run it at 1,000 RPM because I was told the water features, at 1,000 RPMs, water won't make it into the pool. It'll splash on the edge. It's more important for me to have a very quiet pool all day and run the pump 24 hours a day and we probably don't need to put these waterfalls everywhere.

It's important for people to come meet with you and make sure you understand every component of it, what your pool pavers are, what coping is and where that is on the pool, what it takes to learn how to use the machine that you're buying to run the pool, who can you work with if you wanna put other features on the pool or if you have questions, and ask if it's important to you that it connects to your phone. That wasn't told me. I can't control my pool from my phone. All those things need to be part of the pre-pool meeting before you sign with someone.

The customer service deteriorated as the pool got built. Blue Haven never followed up with me. I've had several issues after the pool was built and it seems I have to beg for them to come help with that. The price was exorbitant too. As time went on, the prices got even higher. As we started building the pool, there were all these gotchas that came up along the way that crept the price up. They were things that Bob should have mentioned from the minute we were sitting down and that would have been very helpful.

Also, I wanted to see more examples of the plaster color. It was a really hard decision for me. It would have been nice to be able to look at different tiles if they had a sample in their showroom. I kept wanting to go back to the showroom to look at the tiles, but it was kind of awkward because that's not really what they're there for.

Also, there was an issue with the concrete and we didn't really get our way. But they cared. When they saw that there was a problem and that they were responsible for it, they don't even think about it. They fix it. When we did our contract, the rep told us the price of the concrete. We were unsure of the shape of the pool and how much to use for the patio decking. But he told us we had time. When they draw our pool out, we'll see it and we can change it. When it was time to do the concrete, we added more. But then, they charged us more per square foot.

That was wrong because we were in a contract. In the beginning, the specific question was asked. “Will it be the same price?” In the end, when we figured out that they charged us quite a bit more, that bothered us. If the rep said before we added concrete on, “Look, you can still add on, but the price has gone up.” we would have still added on. This was the only negative. For everything else, I would recommend them to anyone. They did an excellent job. All of our equipment is top-quality.

Blue Haven started super fast with the installation and then it was at a standstill. In two days, they had this pool dug. We thought we were gonna have this pool in a month. But after that, nothing happened. We just sat there watching this hole. We kept waiting and then it was two months. We were told that it would be a three-month process. There were a few times where my husband did a lot of yelling and there were times where he would call and the project manager wouldn't return his calls. So we weren't always happy. There was also a time when there was something with the gate and they had to put the mesh on the gate for the code. It was the only thing keeping us from having our final inspection. My husband had to go to the company that does the gates and tell them off. But the pool itself turned out nice and everything looks and runs good.