The pool building process, step by step

Every project starts in your backyard. We walk the site and look at the things that decide how a pool gets built here: access for an excavator and a shell on a trailer, the slope and where water runs after a storm, signs of wet clay or a high water table, trees and their roots, septic fields or wells on rural lots, overhead wires, and how far the equipment pad will be from your electrical panel.

We also talk about how you want to use the yard. A pool for laps, a pool for young kids and a pool for entertaining lead to different shapes, depths and deck sizes. This is the time to mention a future spa, outdoor kitchen or fire pit, even if you are not building them yet, so the design leaves room and the utility runs can be planned once.

Every pool we build is designed in 3D before anything is dug. You see the pool on your actual lot, with the deck, steps, equipment pad, fence line and the view from the back door. It is the cheapest place to change your mind. Moving a pool three feet on a screen costs nothing. Moving it after the dig costs days.

For fiberglass, this is where you choose a Liberty Composites model and size. Our packages run from $68,400 for the Dignity 10x20 and Enrichment 9x17 to $103,900 for the Virtuous 16x40, installed with Pentair equipment and a 4 ft concrete deck. Extras like larger decks, fencing, retaining walls and covers are priced on top from the design. For ICF concrete and vinyl liner pools, the design sets the custom shape and size.

With a final design, you get a quote that separates the package from the extras line by line. If you are financing, we work with lenders including PoolLoan.net and HFS Financial, and getting approved before the design is final keeps this step from holding things up.

We handle the permits. Depending on your town, that can mean a building permit, zoning review for setbacks, an electrical permit and a review of the barrier. Rules differ from one Northeast Ohio community to the next, so the plans are drawn for your town's requirements. If you live in an HOA, its approval usually runs alongside the permit, and many associations meet on a fixed schedule.

The barrier gets planned now, not at the end. The model pool code, the International Swimming Pool and Spa Code, calls for a barrier at least 48 inches high with self-closing, self-latching gates, and towns write their own versions of that rule.

Before any digging, the utilities have to be marked. Ohio law requires the excavator to notify OHIO811 at least two working days, not counting the day of the call, and no more than sixteen calendar days before excavation begins. Utilities then mark their lines with paint and flags. Private lines that the utilities do not own, such as a line to a detached garage, a gas line to a grill or an irrigation system, are not covered by those marks, so tell us about anything you know is buried.

Then we lay out the pool on the ground with paint and stakes, check the elevations against the design and confirm where the spoils will go.

Dig day is loud and fast. The excavator digs the hole to the shape and depth the pool needs, plus extra room for the base and backfill. Dirt is loaded onto trucks or moved to wherever the grading plan says. Heavy, wet clay makes poor fill for anything that has to carry weight, so most of it usually leaves the site.

In Northeast Ohio, water is the thing to watch. A dig in slow-draining clay with a seasonal high water table can collect groundwater or rain. When it does, we pump it out and build in a way to relieve groundwater pressure under the pool. That relief is standard advice from fiberglass manufacturers, and in our soils it is not optional.

For a fiberglass pool, the floor of the hole gets a compacted, leveled bed of gravel, and the shell is lifted in, usually by crane, and checked for level. Latham, another fiberglass manufacturer, describes the dig as a few inches deeper than the pool so a gravel or sand base can be set and screeded smooth, and the shell set level using lifting straps.

For an ICF pool, the walls are stacked from insulated concrete forms, reinforced, and filled with concrete on site, then the floor is built. For a vinyl liner pool, the wall panels are assembled and braced, the floor is shaped, and the liner goes in after the structure is complete.

Pipes run from the skimmers, main drain and returns to the equipment pad, where the Pentair variable-speed pump and DE filter go, along with any heater, salt system or automation you chose. Good practice is to pressure-test the lines before they are buried, because finding a leak later means digging up a deck. The pad itself sits on a solid base where it drains well, stays out of the path of roof runoff and snow sliding off the house, and leaves room to service every piece. It is placed close enough to the pool to keep pipe runs short, which saves pump energy, but away from bedroom windows and the neighbor's patio.

A fiberglass shell is backfilled while it is filled with water, so the pressure inside and outside the wall stays balanced. Latham describes alternating about six inches of water inside with six inches of gravel outside, all the way up. River Pools, which builds and manufactures fiberglass pools, explains why gravel is the backfill of choice: after switching from sand to gravel, they report that fitting leaks, wall bulges and settling problems went away. The fill water for this step is the start of your pool water.

Our package includes the electrical hook-up at the equipment. The run from your house panel to the equipment pad is priced from the site visit, because it depends on distance and your panel. The electrical code also requires bonding of the pool and nearby metal, and the electrical work is inspected before it is covered.

With the pool set and backfilled, the deck gets formed, reinforced and poured. Every package includes a 4 ft concrete wrap deck, and many projects add more patio in broom finish, exposed aggregate, stamped concrete or pavers. The deck is pitched so water runs away from the pool and the house, with control joints cut so any shrinkage cracks follow a straight line instead of wandering across the slab. Downspouts and yard drainage get tied in here too, so roof water from a summer storm does not end up running across the deck and into the pool. Concrete needs dry weather to place and, in fall, protection from freezing while it gains strength, so weather has the most say over this step.

The barrier fence goes up and the town inspects it along with the rest of the pool. Some towns require the barrier to be in place before the pool is filled, so the order here depends on where you live. Then the site is cleaned up: disturbed lawn is graded, exposed soil is covered or seeded, and the access path is repaired.

The last step is bringing the water up to proper chemistry and starting the system. We start the pump and filter, set the pump speeds, test the lights and balance the water with the starter chemicals included in your package. Then we walk you through it: the filter gauge and when to clean, the baskets, the pump schedule, testing and chemicals, and how the pool gets closed for an Ohio winter. If you want us to keep handling it, our pool service covers openings, weekly care, repairs and closings.

Dustin S., one of our customers, summed up how the process feels from the homeowner's side: "Pick out your fiberglass pool and they handle the rest." That is the goal of every step above.