Earth Dynamics Poolscapes

Thank you for a job well done. My wife and I took a long time thinking about trade signing our yard and pool, you guys made the process smooth and simple. Couldn’t be happier!

Was looking for a company that we could rely on and that would follow up with us in a timely fashion. We found that in Earth Dynamics Poolscapes. The owner, Mike Chaffee, was professional and very knowledgeable (I was amazed to learn that he and his wife lived and worked in Saudi Arabia many years ago and worked on large scale projects for pools, wells, and HVAC systems). I used to own a pool service business about 20 years ago, so I knew something about the systems and designs available. Mike was great, helping me keep my design costs down – design time is not free so I found out. Anyway, the layout I wanted didn’t take too long to design. if you are looking for brilliant design and great execution, then this is the company for you. And I have to say, the other comments here notwithstanding, my experience was completely opposite of what I read here.

It important that I share my experience about this compoany as to inform people as to what they could expect. The point of this review is not to discourage you from working with this company as much as it is to educate and provide as much insight as possible. My wife and I met with Michael Chaffee first at the Sacramento home and garden show. We were very impressed with Michaels professional booth, wealth of information at his booth and, how knowledgeable he appeared about the pool building process and industry. He explained how he operated and how everything would be communicated through his website. My wife and I were impressed. An appointment was set for Michael to come by the house to see what he was working with and start the process to bid the job. Oddly enough, early on the day of our appointment, Michael sent us a conceptual design of our pool using information, plot plans and pictures he pulled from the internet without really asking us what we wanted– how can a design be made without input fro us?. Cart before the horse? Maybe. The design was sent to us via a website but, there was no login, no specific information and it was uploaded to some random page with several stock photography and canned information.
When we met with Michael, he took notes about what we told him we wanted and he made several doodles on the preprinted designs he brought with him to get closer to what we wanted. He then left and said he would get back to us later that week. After a week, I called his office and a woman, presumably his wife, answered who put me on hold for about 15 minutes when I asked about the status for our design. When she came back on the line she told me that there are still three designs ahead of mine and it would be another week or so. Two hours later, I get an email from Michael with a link to his site where my updated design should be. When I clicked the link it took me to someone else’s design and project. after letting Michael know, he changed the page and we tried again.
After reviewing the second design, we noticed that it was just another conceptual design that looked like a click and drag of some other canned design he had ready made. Aside from the apparent lack of effort, the lack of security between projects on his website I asked Michael where the elements we spoke about during our meeting were. I also asked him to remove the plans from the website as we did not feel comfortable with them there. I got a reply from Michael with several paragraphs explaining how all of his other customers were fine with the internet site and that no identifiable information was ever posted but he would honor our request. he did not address the design issues or missing elements. I then replied specifically asking him again about the missing elements and what our next steps were — no reply.
To sum up, three weeks since we started and we have no design, no price, no replies to our email. Today, I officially dismissed Michael and his company of any further work as we will not be considering him any longer.
In short, I cannot in good faith recommend this company to anyone. If it is this difficult to work with someone before the sale of a very comlicasted and expensive project, how could we possibly communicate positively during the project.

it’s now July. We have to fill the pool every few days or so when it’s really hot because the water autofill does not work. We were told by our weekly pool guy that it seems to have been put too far away from the pool, we don’t really know, but it does not fill the pool. If all it needs is an adjustment, then that is something that should have been done before collecting the balance of our pymt!

We talked to the owner of this company (I think he and his wife own this company) about building us a spa. From the initial conversation he was asking me questions like what kind of equipment I wanted and whether or not I wanted to move our ac unit. I felt totally overwhelmed by this as I have never built or designed a spa before & was counting on him to give us a couple of suggestions or options.
We ended up meeting with him & he made a beautiful design based on the pictures that we showed him, so we asked for a bid.
The bid was above the budget we had discussed at our meeting.
When we asked if the design could be altered to accommodate our budget, he replied with an email that I found condescending, and didn’t address or answer the question we had asked, and so we crossed him off of the list of contenders. He had a nice design, but poor people skills.