Best pool builders in Portage County

Portage County is a mix of college town, small cities, suburbs and a lot of rural township land. A good builder here has to be comfortable with all of it: a tight lot in Kent, a new subdivision in Streetsboro, and a few acres on a well and septic system in Rootstown, Mantua or Garrettsville. The criteria below apply to any builder you are considering, including us. We are based in Ravenna, so we have tried to be especially careful to keep them fair.

• Knows which permit and zoning offices apply to your address.
• Has a clear method for wet soil and groundwater in the dig.
• Plans around wells, septic fields, drainage ditches and overhead lines on rural lots.
• Designs the pool, deck and barrier on your actual lot before you commit.
• Puts the full scope and equipment in writing, with a payment schedule tied to the work.
• Offers or arranges openings, closings and repairs.

It depends on where you live. The Portage County Building Department is certified by the State of Ohio to review plans, issue permits and inspect residential and commercial projects across much of the county. Its own page tells residents of Kent, Ravenna, Streetsboro and Aurora to contact those cities directly for permits. It also points plumbing, wells and septic questions to the Portage County Health Department.

Townships usually add a zoning step. A pool in a township often needs a zoning permit showing setbacks from property lines before the building permit is issued. Cities have their own zoning too. The City of Ravenna, for example, enforces its building code through permits and inspections and warns that work without the necessary permits can bring stop-work orders, delays or fines.

A builder who handles permits should manage all of that. Ask each one to name the offices for your address and the order they go in. We handle permits on every pool we build and draw the barrier into the plans.

Because much of the county sits on wet glacial till. The Ravenna silt loam, a soil series that shares its name with the county seat and is extensive across northeastern Ohio, is described by the USDA as somewhat poorly drained, with a dense fragipan layer and a perched water table 7 to 11 inches below the surface from October through June in typical years. That is most of the year, including the spring build season.

In a soil like that, a pool excavation can fill with water overnight. A builder has to pump the hole, set the pool on a stable base, provide a way to relieve groundwater pressure under it, and backfill with material that drains. For fiberglass pools in particular, the shell should never be left empty, because groundwater can push it upward. Ask every builder how they deal with this, and ask to see a recent job in similar ground. It is the most important question on a Portage County pool.

Water also has to be managed at the surface. Slow-draining soil means rain sits on the lawn. A good design slopes the deck away from the pool, sends downspout water somewhere sensible and keeps the equipment pad dry.

A lot of Portage County homes outside the cities have a private well and a septic system. Both affect where a pool can go. The leach field cannot be driven over with heavy equipment or dug up, and the health department has rules about what can be built near a septic system and a well. The Portage County Health Department is the office to confirm those with.

A good builder will ask where your septic tank, leach field and well are before proposing a location, and will plan the equipment route around them. They will also look at overhead lines, drainage ditches and the distance from the house panel to the equipment pad, which can be long on a big lot.

If you fill or top up the pool from a well, ask about water quality too. Well water with dissolved metals can stain or tint a pool when chlorine is added. A pre-filter on the fill hose and a metal treatment at startup can prevent that.

The questions shift from wells and leach fields to access and neighbors. Older neighborhoods in Kent and Ravenna often have narrow side yards, detached garages near the back line and houses close together. A builder has to get an excavator in and the spoils out, and for a fiberglass pool, a shell over or around the house, sometimes with a crane. Setbacks and the barrier take a bigger share of a small yard, so a compact shell and a well-planned deck often beat the biggest pool that technically fits. Both cities issue their own permits, so the builder should know their processes as well as the county's.

Portage County sits between Akron-Canton and Youngstown on the National Weather Service's freeze maps. The average last spring freeze is April 29 at Akron-Canton and May 4 at Youngstown, and the first fall freeze is October 19 and October 14. The northern townships, closer to the lake-effect snowbelt, often see more snow than the south of the county.

For a builder, that means a compressed season. Excavation waits for ground that is not saturated, concrete decks need mild weather and every pool has to be opened and closed each year. Ask how the builder schedules around a wet spring and when you would need to sign to swim by early summer. Most people should start design in fall or winter.

A good builder should be able to explain the trade-offs for your site rather than push one answer. Fiberglass goes in fastest, which matters in a short season, and it has no liner or plaster to maintain, but it depends on careful groundwater handling because the shell is light. Vinyl liner pools are usually the least expensive to build and can take almost any shape, though the liner is a wear item. ICF concrete pools are heavy, strong and insulated, which helps hold heat and can suit sites where the shape or size needs to be custom. On wet ground, the quality of the base, drainage and backfill matters more than the pool type.

Less than in some neighboring counties, but it is worth knowing. The Ohio Department of Insurance lists Portage among the counties where mine subsidence coverage is optional rather than automatic. If you are in an area with a mining history, ask your insurance agent about it and mention it to your builder.

A pool needs attention every spring and fall, and repairs do not wait for convenient times. A builder or service company close by can get to an opening, a closing or a repair call more easily than one based far away. It also helps when the company that built the pool services it, because they know where every line runs.

That does not mean you should only consider nearby builders. It means you should ask any builder, near or far, who will open, close and repair the pool, and how quickly.

We are Ohio State Pools, a veteran-owned builder based in Ravenna, and Portage County is home. We build fiberglass pools with Liberty Composites shells, ICF concrete pools, gunite on request and vinyl liner pools with Latham liners. Every pool is designed in 3D on your lot before we dig, and we handle the permits. Our full scope includes site layout, excavation, grading, drainage planning, plumbing, electrical coordination, backfill, concrete decking and final startup, and we build patios, retaining walls and drainage systems as well.

Our fiberglass packages start at $68,400 installed and run to $103,900, with a Pentair variable-speed pump, Pentair DE filter, Pentair LED lights, a 4 ft concrete wrap deck, a cleaning kit, starter chemicals, installation and the electrical hook-up at the equipment. Fencing, extra decking, spoils haul-off, dewatering and the run from your panel are quoted after a site visit. We work with lenders including PoolLoan.net and HFS Financial, and after the build we do openings, weekly service, repairs and closings.

One customer summed up what he was looking for: "He's very knowledgeable and his team is on time and professional. Hard to find that combo with fair prices these days." Another, Dan B.: "Couldn't be happier with the fiberglass pool that I had them install."

Pick two or three, have each walk your yard, and ask the same questions: which offices permit your address, how they handle groundwater, where the pool can go around your well and septic, what their price includes and who services the pool afterward. The builder with the most specific answers about your property, not the glossiest brochure, is usually the right one.