Why Çilek Havuz? In the Industry Since 1993: Trust in Choosing a Pool Company

Experience, however, is not a slogan; it is a verifiable track record. The simplest way to understand how long a company has really been doing this work is to ask for its year of foundation and find out whether it has worked continuously in the same field since then.

Çilek Havuz was founded in 1998; our team has been working in pools, saunas, hammams and spas since 1993. That means a team that has learned, by living through them, the materials, regulations and technical standards that have changed over the decades. A newly founded company can deliver good work; but when a problem arises, a company that has stood for years differs both in its experience and in the record it leaves behind.

When looking for concrete evidence, ask: 'Can you show me a pool you built five years ago?' A company that has genuinely been working for a long time can show both its newly finished, gleaming projects and work that has been in use for years and still runs without problems.

That is why references matter: every completed project is proof of what that company can really do. Look beyond the images in the brochure and ask for a list of completed work and, where possible, examples you can see on site.

Behind Çilek Havuz stand projects completed since 1993 and work carried out in 14 countries. They cover a wide range, from villa pools to hotel and facility pools, from saunas to the Turkish hammam. Having work of different scales and levels of difficulty side by side shows that the team does not repeat a single type of job; it develops solutions according to the conditions.

Our references include a public project covering Türkiye's deepest training pool (10 m, 3,600 m³). Putting our name to such work is an independent confirmation of technical competence and institutional trust, because projects at this scale are awarded to companies whose references and engineering capacity are rigorously scrutinised.

The pool we completed for C.K. in Şile, H.G.'s overflow pool in Hadımköy, another overflow pool built for R.L. in Çekmeköy and Z.M.'s overflow pool in Silivri show how the same system is applied under different site and architectural conditions. The infinity pool we completed for M.S. in Çatalca required a different hydraulic approach; the infinity edge works with an additional balance tank and a more powerful circulation line.

Beyond residential work, corporate and public-scale projects are also part of our portfolio. The corporate pool project we completed for Efor Holding met the technical requirements of a social facility that a business provides within its own premises. The 10-metre training pool mentioned above belongs to a different category: a documented and inspected project with capacity and durability requirements that differ from those of a standard residential pool.

In two separate projects in Yalova (the hammam we completed for Kudu and the hammam and sauna combination we completed for S.T.), we brought traditional hammam architecture together with modern plumbing and heating systems; in projects of this type, ventilation and humidity balance are as decisive as the pool itself.

At hotel scale, we completed a facility at Tenzile Erdoğan Termal Otel in Ayder comprising an indoor pool, salt rooms, a sauna and a salt wall; this project is an example of how strictly the inspection standards for public social facilities must be upheld. Abroad, we completed a spa project within the Sofitel hotel in Algeria comprising pool, hammam, sauna, hydrotherapy and Vichy shower areas; this required us to work to an international hotel chain's own technical specification. All the references we share are our real work; most of them are still in use, and we continue to maintain them.

Fitting the boxed pump, filter or ready-made shell is the visible part of the job. The invisible part is the soil survey, structural calculation, hydraulic design, waterproofing layers and the correct sizing of the plumbing.

When this invisible part is set up wrongly, the pool may look trouble-free in its first year, yet costly problems such as water leaks, ground settlement or insufficient filtration appear in the years that follow. Correcting these later costs far more than doing them right from the start.

Çilek Havuz treats the work as an engineering problem. Designing the whole, from pool to sauna and from hammam to spa area, and building it on a turnkey basis is a different responsibility from selling individual parts. Be sure to ask the company you are speaking to: who draws the structural and hydraulic design of this pool, and will these documents be handed over to you? We draw the entire structural, electrical and architectural design ourselves and also run the municipal permit process.

The real question is whether the company making that promise will still be standing and reachable throughout the warranty period. A five-year warranty from a newly founded company, or from one that often changes its name, means nothing if the company closes two years later.

That is why, when assessing a warranty, you should look at the company's history. A company that has worked for many years in the same field under the same identity has the institutional continuity to stand behind its word. The same applies to service: knowing whom to call for maintenance, season opening or a fault once the pool is built is at least as important a part of the job as the installation itself. We provide a 2-year warranty on our workmanship.

There is a practical way to gauge how seriously a company takes service: does it give you a maintenance plan or a user guide after handover, or does contact break off as soon as the work is finished? A good company does not end the relationship when it hands over the pool; it takes on a long-term responsibility.

Some companies remove critical items from the quote to make the figure look low: waterproofing, correct filtration capacity, structural reinforcement or plumbing details do not appear in the quote, and once work starts they come back as 'extra costs'. So when comparing quotes, look not at the total figure but at what that figure covers.

A sound quote is written item by item and shows clearly what is included and what is excluded. If a company gives you only a single-line price, you have every right to ask which works are hidden beneath that price. A transparent quote is also an indication of how well the company has planned its work.

Our advice at Çilek Havuz is simple: obtain quotes from at least two or three companies, put the questions in this article to all of them, and base your decision not on price alone but on demonstrable experience, references and the honesty of the quote. When you choose the right partner, your pool will satisfy you not for years but for decades.