My Pool Guy

Get comfortable, I’m gonna let it all out, and it’s been bottled up for a while. But if you’re on the run and don’t have the time to read much, I can sum it up with if I had a lot of money, and Ryan wanted to take over the pool industry, I’d invest way big in him. Austin’s pool industry needs a savior, and Ryan is its jesus. To me, serving my clients is about justice. If a client of my company’s isn’t treated well, in a thoughtful way and with only the best of intentions, it’s an injustice, no excuses. As a result, I’ve got any eye for, and appreciation of, businesses that just get it. And I was about to give up on the pool industry until I crossed paths with Ryan (top-​rated on Angie’s List, FYI). If the Hall of Justice had a pool, Ryan would be their pool guy.
I’m new to Austin and a first time homebuyer and it came with a pool, and both needed a lot of work. In other words, I was fresh meat to service providers. What I’ve learned in a short amount of time is that all Austin service providers are nice, and most will rip you off, from plumbers, to roofers, to electricians, to pool guys, to tree guys, to A/​C guys. And I don’t mean like they charge a lot, but I mean confirmation that I was ripped off, and then going and getting my money back from guys who could kick my ass. And getting four estimates for everything, and seeing how three out of four will put in outrageous bids, some wildly outrageous, and then you get the one guy who is fair about it.
And while I know this may sound bad, it’s true, the pool industry doesn’t employ a lot of brainiacs. My experience has been they’re either flat out not that bright, or really good at remembering a lot of facts and pieces of equipment and will talk your ear off about 50 different solutions to a problem to show you how smart they are, but they don’t know how to problem solve. This means if you’re in a pool store, they’ll consistently and earnestly and with the best of intentions jump to the wrong conclusions, after not asking the right questions and generally not being able to connect dots. Even when they come out to your house, and I mean 4 – 5 star reviewed guys, they’re just nice guys who know how to skim a pool like nobody’s business (and will charge you $ 50 f’n dollars to do it… give me a break!!!). But when it comes to fixing problems, not much there.
So the call before I called Ryan was to who I thought were going to be my pool guys for the rest of my life. I called them up and tell them I’ve had it with the piece of shite barely working saltwater system the prior owners left me with but somehow got to work during inspection. They give me a price of $ 1,800, exactly double what it costs to get online. Double. And then there is the labor. I call them back and they tell me the warranty won’t be any good, and you don’t know what you’re going to get, and they support local business, and then, the cherry on top, was they have a family to support. So, I call the maker of the saltwater system, and they said the online company in question was their biggest buyer, and they have three warranty guys lined up just to service their products this company sells. They also tell me that if anything is missing from the box, they will provide it free of charge, as they do with all of their suppliers. I get the same story from the online company. I call my former pool guys back, and the owner gives me the same sob story, and then says at the end, two things that finally made me realize who I was really talking to. He said that he wouldn’t sell it at that price to his grandmother, and that he may have had fat fingers when putting together the estimate. When I tell him I’ll be writing a negative review, he seemed to think there was nothing wrong with putting in a ridiculous bid, as «it’s just a bid.» Idiot.
So fast forward, I call Ryan, and he says he’ll install whatever I want but no guarantees on warranty. I get it. I did the research. I’m good. I ended up doing more research, and found a better system (Pentair, very happy). I asked him to get a bid, and he told me the name of his local supplier and what they’re charging. It was about $ 200 more than online, and I went with it to keep things simple. He installed a new pool light (found a 500 watt for same price as 300 watt), fixed my polaris, installed the Pentair saltwater system, and installed a new lever thing for the pump/​filter for get this, $ 1,800 (parts & labor)!! Him and his brother worked their asses off all day long, and nailed it. It would have been easier to install the Pentair one way, but he did it another way as it looked better. The pool light was jammed thanks to the dumb ass sellers of the house, and he went home and got a bathing suit and jumped in and unjammed it (after more than an hour, being careful not to damage the pool interior). And he charges a very competitive monthly (see five week months…) pool cleaning rate. Give this guy your business in the name of justice.

Ryan is fantastic and dependable. After looking at various places for some one with knowledge and who is reliable, we went with Ryan. Over the last 2 years, he has advised about things that can be done to the pool to keep it healthy, repaired the polaris, the connection to the polaris. We will definitely use Ryan’s services again, if anything is needed for the pool.

About a year ago we switched to My Pool Guy because our current service kept raising their rates. I found My Pool Guys website and contacted Ryan Kelly. He responded right away and we liked his price of $ 150 per month cleaning service he quoted us, which includes all chemicals. We have a large deep pool so this was a great price. We had been wanting to replace our dated filter system and Ryan took care of this with an extremely competitive price. A couple of months into our service I mentioned to Ryan that we were planning a out door pool party, he came by the day before our party to make sure everything was clean and ready for guests. Just recently, we discovered that we had a broken underground pipe. Between my husband and Ryan they worked together to dig it out and fix the pipe. When we asked Ryan what we owed him he said nothing. Wow, he has gained some loyal customers of us and would highly recommend him to anyone.