The Great Backyard Place - Knoxville, Tennessee

Paul Wakefield

We bought a spa from The Great Backyard Place and had a great experience with Bill, who was very helpful and expertly answered the large number of questions we had. Delivery was smooth, the tub has been great, and any minor issues we've had were resolved quickly and locally by their great service/parts departments. Would recommend them to anyone!

James Divis

This is long-winded but worth the read if you are considering buying a pool here. We purchased a 15x30 oval pool 4-5 years ago at The Great Backyard. They came the first week of October to level my plot and install the pool. They had to build up quite a bit to make it level. They put it together and put a foot of water in it and completed the assembly. The installer told me that since it was out of season, he recommended I do not run up my water bill. He said to fill it the following summer. The following week we had a bad thunderstorm and the winds collapsed 1 side of the pool, and bent up the top rails. I was sick to my stomach when I got home and found it destroyed. I called the manager, John I believe, and told him what happened. He was in disbelief that his guy told us not to fill it, saying it has to be filled in order to prevent this from happening during wind storms. They did come out and fix it. I had also noticed that they did not use much of the included hardware, including gaskets, plumbing, and Teflon tape. They used there own, non-flexible plumbing and silicone sealant. The sealant did not hold on a few joints and I had to repair these.
After the first year, we noticed the side walls starting to sag outwards a bit. We were told this was due to the dug earth settling, and it should be ok. By the end of last season, it had bowed so far outwards on both sides, stretching the liner at the bottom seams. The water had so much algae this year and after $300 in chemicals and not much change, we opted to drain it. When we refilled it, the seams developed several tears from prior over-stretching, and not being as resilient as before. We had 4 different contractors come out to look at fixing the sides and installing a new liner. They all had the same story and quotes of $3000-$3500 to fix.
They said the original install should have had cement pads under the ends of each side buttress to keep from sinking when the earth settled. This had not been done! Two of the contractors were prior installers for The Great Backyard.
I reached out to Dillon, the regional manager. He explained that all his installers have their own technique, and he isn't responsible for the earth settling. He offered to give me 30% off a $1000 liner, due to my problems I have had.
We had a contractor come out and do the repairs, as well as using their own liner. They found that the original installer did not use the included butterfly gasket, but opted to use standard gaskets. This would not have been a problem, but they only used the inside gasket and a ton of silicone sealant on the outside wall, instead of the additional gasket. In addition to this, they did not use all the necessary screws. You can see where water was getting between the liner, gasket and silicone. It corroded part of the skimmer cut-out and there's a part of it missing where the rust was so bad, it chipped loose. We were told it will need a new wall at some point.
We filled it up, only to find that the sun had made the skimmer brittle, and it had cracks through out. We had to drain the pool again and now are unable to get the new liner back in place correctly!
While the brittle skimmer part is not due to anything by The Great Backyard Place, we have spent close to 3/4 of the cost of a whole new pool installed! I am not happy with the service levels provided by The Great Backyard Place, and do not recommend.

Candlelight Mood Romeo Casanova

What a great place! Bill is a very nice and honest man. John in the service department is a very nice and helpful. All of their service guys that come out on warranty work are great. I’ve met one of the service guys twice now and I can’t remember his name but he is very knowledgeable and very good at his job. I recommend the Great Backyard Place in Knoxville TN for all of your chemicals, hot tub and swim spa, fire pit and etc needs

Laura Dennison

I love the Great Backyard its the ONLY pool service i trust. All the employees are very knowledgeable and so so helpful!
Special shoutout for Bree and Kim!
Unlike other pool service companies, Leslies…cough…the Great Backyard will not sell you products that are unnecessary and expensive.
I have been with Great Backyard for 10years now , but i admit i have tried using other companies, only to realize that I had a great thing in The Great Backyard . I’ll stick with them!

Bret Pearsall

Bought a tub today. The salesman is incredibly knowledgeable and explains the differences between different hottub brands so you can understand.

Great process, I hope the service group is as good as he is.

UPDATE
The service group is amazing as well. The technician was great, and the service manager was awesome, too.

Samantha Elmore

terrible customer service, lies and long waiting period. Bought the pool on 5/5/17 being told it would be a couple weeks to install with exceptions for rain.(to be expected). I was told we would receive a call from the installer and after 2 weeks no contact I called the pool place back. He told me they were having delays due to rain and someone would get back with me. Another week goes by and I finally get a call(friday 26th) they said be home in 2hrs and we can be there. I left work and waited. 3hrs later I got a call that the back hoe had a bad track and they could not come out. Being memorial weekend they probably couldn't get it fixed but they would still come out and would call the night before. No call until Monday morning (Memorial day) and they said they were on the way. When they arrived they told me they needed half the money up front before they started. It was supposedly in the contract (it was not mentioned). I gave them a check for half so they would just get the job done. They were telling me they would be back this week and I would be swimming by Saturday(3rd of June). Saturday morning came and went. I called the pool place and was told the installer had some health issues and he must have gotten behind. The 6th I called the installers myself and they told me they needed to check on it. The 7th I got a call from them that said my pool had just gotten to the warehouse for them to pick up and they will drop it off at my house the next day. The next day I got a call that they were behind and it would be Friday the 9th. Friday NO pool! I called the pool place and told him I wanted to cancel I was tired of all the lies and running around. He assured me that he had never lied to me and that the pool had been in the warehouse from the time I bought the pool!!! I had already paid half on the install so I agreed to give him a couple days more. He called me back and said give him until Wednesday he would make sure it got done. They dropped the pool off at the beginning of the next week and started install on Wednesday. I already had a pool there before that we had removed same size and location. They did not need any heavy equipment to do the pool. I work nights so when I got home that morning I had to wait until they got there to start the ground work. They told me a couple hrs to get that ready and they would start building the pool. I stayed up and at 4:30 that evening he said it was lightning and they would finish in the morning. They had the sand down and the ring base at this point. The next morning I told them I could not stay up another day when they got done let me know. He called to tell me the pool was filling up and he would be back that night to cut the holes in it(he did). The next morning they came back because they had left their trailer and needed paid. All the garbage from the install including lunch was left in the yard for us to remove(while picking up a box that was left the pool warranty information fell out that said we had 30days from purchase date to register pool! guess we missed that window). They said that was also in this contract that I never saw .They also told me they had the proof the pool place sold me a pool that wasn't in stock. One if not both were lying to me the whole time. My opinion NEVER AGAIN!!! The telescoping pole was not there but you have to go back to them to get the chemicals so the bf picked it up and the cover wasn't there I guess that's something we can get in September. I understand things happen and jobs get behind but constantly covering yourself with one story after another is not good business! 5/5/17- 6/16/17

Linda Sheets

Thank you Great Back Yard Place of Knoxville for your great customer service. A special shout out to Jonathan in the parts department for advice and help keeping everything running smoothly. Shout out to Bree for telling me exactly what to do to keep the pool water clean and clear. They are just a phone call away when I have a question.

Johnny Currado

We did a lot of research on the best place to purchase a good reliable spa and we wound up going to the Great Backyard. Samantha was our sales lady and she was absolutely exceptional, full of knowledge, answered all of our questions and was not pushy at all. Being in outside sales for over 28+ years, I could tell she is very genuine and passionate about your job. We decided to purchase our spa from her and from the sale to installation, they have been truly exceptional. We did check out a few other local spa dealers in the area but Samantha and her team went above and beyond and we are very glad we purchased from them. I would highly recommend you check them out if you are in the market for a spa.