Venture Custom Pools

[samaritan71]

After contacting and meeting with several different pool builders in the North Dallas area, we are down to 2 that we are currently considering for our new pool. One is Venture Custom Pools and the other is Clear Tech Custom Pools. Venture Custom Pools has been around awhile, but I've not seen anyone on any forum site that mentions them. I know they do all the pools for Grand Homes. Is anyone here familiar with them or had a pool built by them? Clear Tech is fairly new, they've been around 6 years. If anyone has any knowledge of either of these companies I'd love to hear about it. Thanks in advance and I'm so glad I found this website, lots of great info for a newbie that's never owned a pool before.

[sweepstx]

After contacting and meeting with several different pool builders in the North Dallas area, we are down to 2 that we are currently considering for our new pool. One is Venture Custom Pools and the other is Clear Tech Custom Pools. Venture Custom Pools has been around awhile, but I've not seen anyone on any forum site that mentions them. I know they do all the pools for Grand Homes. Is anyone here familiar with them or had a pool built by them? Clear Tech is fairly new, they've been around 6 years. If anyone has any knowledge of either of these companies I'd love to hear about it. Thanks in advance and I'm so glad I found this website, lots of great info for a newbie that's never owned a pool before.

I was wondering if you had made a choice yet, as I am in the final days of deciding between 2 companies: one is Venture Custom Pools and the other is Pool & Patio Landscaping, Inc. I am also a newbie and this is my first pool. What a process to go through, eh?

Regards,

sweepstx

[krbrou]

After contacting and meeting with several different pool builders in the North Dallas area, we are down to 2 that we are currently considering for our new pool. One is Venture Custom Pools and the other is Clear Tech Custom Pools. Venture Custom Pools has been around awhile, but I've not seen anyone on any forum site that mentions them. I know they do all the pools for Grand Homes. Is anyone here familiar with them or had a pool built by them? Clear Tech is fairly new, they've been around 6 years. If anyone has any knowledge of either of these companies I'd love to hear about it. Thanks in advance and I'm so glad I found this website, lots of great info for a newbie that's never owned a pool before.

Venture is currently building our pool and at this point I do not recommend them. They dug the pool on August 20th and it is now Sept 29th and they still are not finished. We would go days and days with no activity and so we call them then a crew shows up and do some work. Then nothing for days after that. They rarely call back when they say they will. the craftsmanship is rather disappointing at this point. The scheduling is awful and the customer service is well below what you would expect from a purchase of this magnitude.

They finally came out and plastered the pool this past Wed. we filled it up over night and called them back Thursday so they could come start the pump and filters and they tell us they cant get out here until Monday? So once again their customer service and scheduling have left us thoroughly disappointed and disgusted.

We have several other issues during the process including having to pay an extra $1000 to put our sprikler system back together even though this was discussed upfront and we felt it had been built into the price we were paying them. So we will be writing letters of complaint to anyone who will listen when they FINALLY finish on Monday. (we are not holding our breath they will show up)

The pool should work fine even though there are still exposed areas on the outside of the pool and wires sticking up out of the ground, but functionally we expect no issues, but service, scheduling and additional unexpected costs cause me to have to give them a negative grade at this point.

[Venture Custom Pools]

After contacting and meeting with several different pool builders in the North Dallas area, we are down to 2 that we are currently considering for our new pool. One is Venture Custom Pools and the other is Clear Tech Custom Pools. Venture Custom Pools has been around awhile, but I've not seen anyone on any forum site that mentions them. I know they do all the pools for Grand Homes. Is anyone here familiar with them or had a pool built by them? Clear Tech is fairly new, they've been around 6 years. If anyone has any knowledge of either of these companies I'd love to hear about it. Thanks in advance and I'm so glad I found this website, lots of great info for a newbie that's never owned a pool before.

Venture is currently building our pool and at this point I do not recommend them. They dug the pool on August 20th and it is now Sept 29th and they still are not finished. We would go days and days with no activity and so we call them then a crew shows up and do some work. Then nothing for days after that. They rarely call back when they say they will. the craftsmanship is rather disappointing at this point. The scheduling is awful and the customer service is well below what you would expect from a purchase of this magnitude.

They finally came out and plastered the pool this past Wed. we filled it up over night and called them back Thursday so they could come start the pump and filters and they tell us they cant get out here until Monday? So once again their customer service and scheduling have left us thoroughly disappointed and disgusted.

We have several other issues during the process including having to pay an extra $1000 to put our sprikler system back together even though this was discussed upfront and we felt it had been built into the price we were paying them. So we will be writing letters of complaint to newspapers, on the internet and to the BBB when they FINALLY finish on Monday. (we are not holding our breath they will show up)

The pool should be fine even though there are some exposed areas on the outside of the pool, but functionally we expect no issues, but service, scheduling and additional unexpected costs cause me to have to give them a negative grade at this point.

[Venture Custom Pools]

The pool built for krbrou was actually excavated on August 23 of this year, not the 20th as he claimed. The pool was plastered on September 26th which means the pool was completed in 1 month 3 days, or 25 business days, which includes three days of rain during the process which often cause delays beyond the day of rain. Some processes are not possible to complete in the mud or if the pool is weaping, the act of water seeping into the pool from ground water before it is plastered, the final step. The pool was completed on schedule and in the time promissed. Most customers would be more than thrilled to have their pool completed in a month, even less when you consider the rain delays. As for charging to repair the sprinkler system, this was discussed with krbrou who declined at the time he signed the contract to pay for those repairs and this is reflected on the front of his contract. In addition, we have every customer sign off on the pool before it is excavated. This sign off also reflects krbrou's acceptance of responsibility for his sprinkler system; krbrou was well informed or his responsibility for the repairs. Some customers opt to repair their own systems while others think the price is a little high. Most of them end up changing their mind as krbrou did when they find the actual cost to do the repairs is often higher than what we actually charge and find the price we charge is an excellent value. Krbrou's pool was built as promissed and exactly as he contracted Venture Custom Pools to build it. At no time did Venture ask krbrou to pay for anything he was not responsible for, apprised of, and agreed to when he signed his contract. He is correct when he remarks that the finished product meets his expectations. Venture Custom Pools is proud of our long list of overly satisfied customers which now number more than 1600 in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. We pride ourselves on going above and beyond for our customers as well as our build times which are among the best in the industry. If anyone has any questions or concerns regarding Venture Custom Pools including krbrou, I encourage them to call me personally. My number is 972-377-9002. Thanks, John Carney, General Manager, Venture Custom Pools.

[krbrou]

The pool built for krbrou was actually excavated on August 23 of this year, not the 20th as he claimed. The pool was plastered on September 26th which means the pool was completed in 1 month 3 days, or 25 business days, which includes three days of rain during the process which often cause delays beyond the day of rain. Some processes are not possible to complete in the mud or if the pool is weaping, the act of water seeping into the pool from ground water before it is plastered, the final step. The pool was completed on schedule and in the time promissed. Most customers would be more than thrilled to have their pool completed in a month, even less when you consider the rain delays. As for charging to repair the sprinkler system, this was discussed with krbrou who declined at the time he signed the contract to pay for those repairs and this is reflected on the front of his contract. In addition, we have every customer sign off on the pool before it is excavated. This sign off also reflects krbrou's acceptance of responsibility for his sprinkler system; krbrou was well informed or his responsibility for the repairs. Some customers opt to repair their own systems while others think the price is a little high. Most of them end up changing their mind as krbrou did when they find the actual cost to do the repairs is often higher than what we actually charge and find the price we charge is an excellent value. Krbrou's pool was built as promissed and exactly as he contracted Venture Custom Pools to build it. At no time did Venture ask krbrou to pay for anything he was not responsible for, apprised of, and agreed to when he signed his contract. He is correct when he remarks that the finished product meets his expectations. Venture Custom Pools is proud of our long list of overly satisfied customers which now number more than 1600 in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. We pride ourselves on going above and beyond for our customers as well as our build times which are among the best in the industry. If anyone has any questions or concerns regarding Venture Custom Pools including krbrou, I encourage them to call me personally. My number is 972-377-9002. Thanks, John Carney, General Manager, Venture Custom Pools.

The pool was dug on August 23rd, plastered on Sept 26th and turned on October 1st. I am glad you let me know I should be happy about this, but it was a series of scheduling and customer service issues along the way that caused us to be dissatisfied with your company’s efforts.

But for you to say I shopped around for prices on sprinkler companies then came back to Venture to do the work is a bold faced lie on your part. The truth is, it reached a certain stage in the process when we realized the sprinkler reroute was not taking place and that is when we inquired about it. We would not have known to inquire about that step if we had not discussed it upfront with Bo – we DID NOT deliberately refuse it, then change our minds as you suggested. That is total BS. Did we screw up – obviously, but to call me either an idiot or a liar for this miscommunication shows exactly where our frustration with Venture stems from.

We gave you a check for the $1000 sprinkler reroute – so it was not about the money as much as it was about receiving the services that we had discussed upfront with your salesperson Bo. Again that is our fault for not making sure every detail of this process (which we had never been through before) had been accounted for in the paperwork and built into the price.

The pool is now finished and while it looks like crap due to raw outside walls of the pool sticking up out of the ground (which is our fault too I'm sure, but we will figure out how to hide the exposed areas) functionally it works fine.

Its one of the oldest adages in business – do a good job for someone and they may tell a few people, do a bad job and they tell everyone…

[Loomer]

The pool built for krbrou was actually excavated on August 23 of this year, not the 20th as he claimed. The pool was plastered on September 26th which means the pool was completed in 1 month 3 days, or 25 business days, which includes three days of rain during the process which often cause delays beyond the day of rain. Some processes are not possible to complete in the mud or if the pool is weaping, the act of water seeping into the pool from ground water before it is plastered, the final step. The pool was completed on schedule and in the time promissed. Most customers would be more than thrilled to have their pool completed in a month, even less when you consider the rain delays. As for charging to repair the sprinkler system, this was discussed with krbrou who declined at the time he signed the contract to pay for those repairs and this is reflected on the front of his contract. In addition, we have every customer sign off on the pool before it is excavated. This sign off also reflects krbrou's acceptance of responsibility for his sprinkler system; krbrou was well informed or his responsibility for the repairs. Some customers opt to repair their own systems while others think the price is a little high. Most of them end up changing their mind as krbrou did when they find the actual cost to do the repairs is often higher than what we actually charge and find the price we charge is an excellent value. Krbrou's pool was built as promissed and exactly as he contracted Venture Custom Pools to build it. At no time did Venture ask krbrou to pay for anything he was not responsible for, apprised of, and agreed to when he signed his contract. He is correct when he remarks that the finished product meets his expectations. Venture Custom Pools is proud of our long list of overly satisfied customers which now number more than 1600 in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. We pride ourselves on going above and beyond for our customers as well as our build times which are among the best in the industry. If anyone has any questions or concerns regarding Venture Custom Pools including krbrou, I encourage them to call me personally. My number is 972-377-9002. Thanks, John Carney, General Manager, Venture Custom Pools.

[Loomer]

The pool built for krbrou was actually excavated on August 23 of this year, not the 20th as he claimed. The pool was plastered on September 26th which means the pool was completed in 1 month 3 days, or 25 business days, which includes three days of rain during the process which often cause delays beyond the day of rain. Some processes are not possible to complete in the mud or if the pool is weaping, the act of water seeping into the pool from ground water before it is plastered, the final step. The pool was completed on schedule and in the time promissed. Most customers would be more than thrilled to have their pool completed in a month, even less when you consider the rain delays. As for charging to repair the sprinkler system, this was discussed with krbrou who declined at the time he signed the contract to pay for those repairs and this is reflected on the front of his contract. In addition, we have every customer sign off on the pool before it is excavated. This sign off also reflects krbrou's acceptance of responsibility for his sprinkler system; krbrou was well informed or his responsibility for the repairs. Some customers opt to repair their own systems while others think the price is a little high. Most of them end up changing their mind as krbrou did when they find the actual cost to do the repairs is often higher than what we actually charge and find the price we charge is an excellent value. Krbrou's pool was built as promissed and exactly as he contracted Venture Custom Pools to build it. At no time did Venture ask krbrou to pay for anything he was not responsible for, apprised of, and agreed to when he signed his contract. He is correct when he remarks that the finished product meets his expectations. Venture Custom Pools is proud of our long list of overly satisfied customers which now number more than 1600 in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. We pride ourselves on going above and beyond for our customers as well as our build times which are among the best in the industry. If anyone has any questions or concerns regarding Venture Custom Pools including krbrou, I encourage them to call me personally. My number is 972-377-9002. Thanks, John Carney, General Manager, Venture Custom Pools.

John,

We were very disappointed in the installation of our pool, and after repeated attempts to get it straightened out Venture Pools and you ignored us.....

Some examples:

The day of installation, Venture decided it needed to use a small bobcat to do the work, costing us $400 more than the quoted price.

After the decision was made to make the pool 8' deep, they (you) relocated the stairs without talking with us, making the patio in the wrong place.

The stairs leading to the pool had no edges so mud would just flood the stairs. We finally provided the materials, and venture made the walls that should have been there.

3 months after installation, the decking was 1 1/2" above the coping. We went into Venture and you said, well we can't control the ground.

We wrote to the Better Business Bureau and for some reason, it is still not resolved. Its 3 years and our pool looks like crap.

We considered setting up a tent infront of Venture Pool to communicate our dissappointments.... Every time we called, the "Customer Service" person was rude and actually mean. This was our first pool purchase, and a very disappointing one.

[King Tickles]

Sounds like you got what you paid for.

You built with a reputable, yet budget pool builder. There's nothing wrong with that at all, and I have met more than a few satisfied Venture customers. If Venture's timeline is correct, then that is FLYING for pool construction, and you should thank them instead of slamming them. There are custom pools that take 8 or more weeks for construction, and those people probably spent a lot more money than you did. A high quality custom pool in the Dallas market costs an average of $55k. If you didn't, wouldn't, or couldn't step up to that budget, then is that really the builders fault? Or is it caveat emptor?

Keep in mind that I am in the pool business, and I see people disappointed every day because they have champagne taste on a beer budget. I have no love or hate for Venture. Venture could have done a MUCH better job setting your expectations and communicating more effectively. The $400 bobcat shuttle was their mistake, and shouldn't be passed along to you. Most pool builders don't screw around with fences, landscape, and sprinklers. If you wanted them to 'turn-key' the project, then you would have the cost of work + pool builders mark-up. Since I'm sure budget was an issue already, Venture did you a favor by sending you to find your own guys for that work.

I'm not defending Venture, quite the opposite. It's obvious that there were things they could have done better. I'm defending builders against their customers ignorance (which is partly the case here), but also challenging builders to set accurate expectations and stand by their work. There are any # of reputable high-end builders (Leisure Living, Hauk Custom Pools, Louis Pools of Frisco, Mirage Custom Pools, Waterford Pools, Riverbend Sandler, and I could go on) in the area, but you the consumer have to make the decision to pony up, or to not be disappointed by a more budget friendly product. Would you buy a Toyota and expect a Lexus!? Of course not. Make no mistake, Venture is perfectly capable of building the ultra high end pool you expected. In the end though, did you PAY for an ultra high end pool? I'm guessing not.

[King Tickles]

By the way: If you signed a copy of your plan, it is as admissable in court as your contract unless specifically excluded. If you signed a plan with the stairs here and walls there, and that is not what happened, and Venture can not produce a change order that you signed, then you have a legal case against them. BBB arbitration can take a long time, but they are usually very responsive with legitimate complaints. I would re-read your contract and plan before pitching any tents. I you have a case sue them. If not, then I hoped you learned a lesson about saving a few bucks.