I entered into a contract with Bob Burpee/ The Burpee Group in January with a completion date of May. Bob has an ability to make you trust him, and he is a likable person. However, I wish I would have trusted what I heard about Bob and his reputation as a pool builder. Bob took weeks past the promised dig day to finally dig my pool. Then, for weeks on end no one showed up. There were endless excuses- "One of my workers hurt themselves, another pool had a major issue and needed immediate attention, Bob himself was "very sick", Bob's wife was sick, Bob's crew "staged a walk off" (twice), etc." I went along with this, because I trusted in the end it would all be worth it. However, it wasn't. The amount of issues that came up are endless, and would take me hours to type. Bob himself only came to my job a hand full of times, when he had to collect a check. The rest of the time, a "crew" of people who spoke zero English and couldn't even speak to me were who were building my pool. His "main guy" Ruben was who was building my pool- yet he's not a licensed electrician or anything of the sort. Ruben and a few other guys installed my travertine decking, which is not remotely in a french pattern (Bob actually said "a french pattern isn't a pattern" after the fact) and is completely uneven where you stub your toe over and over and over. Numerous pieces rock and wobble. The waterfall wall is so uneven it dips in and out and sticks out in spots. Bob's "crew" put in the coping with bullnose pieces against bullnose so they had to rip it all out and re do it. Bob installed the wrong pool system, and tried to lie and say it was the right one and then tried to manipulate the contract to get more money out of me. He has been sued under his previous company, Burpee's Earthly Wonders because he doesn't pay his subcontractors so instead of using sub contractors who are licensed, he has Ruben doing it all. Bob had a licensed electrician at my house ONE day. The rest of the time he had an un licensed worker running my plumbing, gas, and electric. We had a massive gas leak because Ruben isn't licensed or trained and is who hooked up my gas. The pool wasn't "completed" until August, except when the inspectors came to inspect the pool it failed everything. Bob built a bar outside for me, and didn't get any permits for it. When I asked him what on earth, he said I should have got them. Why on earth would I get permits for something he's building?! However, the biggest issue is that Bob submitted drawings for a pool to the township WITHOUT lights and then he never got the electrical trench inspected and so the entire trench has to be dug up but the biggest thing is that he didn't have the grounded bonding wire inspected. We failed the inspection, and so Bob's answer to fix it was to try and submit photos of the grounding wire. However, the pictures he submitted according to the electrical inspector are "very concerning" and he refused to accept them and said my pool is a hazard and is an electrocution risk and he will not approve the pool. We are in violation of the code and it's now the end of Sept and still can not use the pool. Bob was alerted to the fact that he's in violation and that his pictures do not work because they don't show the grounding wire was done right and he's now just ignoring my calls and the townships calls. They've called him numerous times, as to get approval he has to rip up the pool deck to prove he did the grounding wire correctly (they're very concerned he didn't) and he is just not returning any calls. So now I'm out so much money for a pool we can't use and are in violation of code- and Bob is just ignoring this because he knows he messed up big time. I've had two different pool companies come out for estimates to fix all the endless issues and both have said how Bob is well known as a company you run from. I just wish I knew that and did RUN before I gave him so much money and in return have a pool that's done extremely sub par in terms of aesthetics but the biggest thing is the fact that the pool is not up to code and can't be used. Do yourself a favor, call the next person on your list. I wish I did.
