How we build your pool, from first visit to first swim

It starts with a conversation 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 also the time to mention a spa, an outdoor kitchen or a fire pit you might add later, so the design leaves room and the utility runs are planned once.

Then we walk the yard. We look at 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, septic fields or wells on rural lots, overhead wires, and how far the equipment pad will be from your electrical panel.

Every pool we build is designed in 3D before anything is dug. You see the pool on your lot with the steps, deck, equipment pad, fence line and the view from the back door. 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 model and size. Our installed packages run from $68,400 to $103,900 and include Pentair equipment and a 4 ft concrete deck. For ICF concrete and vinyl liner pools, the design sets the custom shape and size. The design becomes a written quote that lists the package and every site item, such as fencing, extra decking or dewatering, as separate lines. If you are financing, this is when the lender gets involved.

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

Permits are the widest variable in the schedule. River Pools, a fiberglass manufacturer, puts permitting at anywhere from 1 to 10 weeks depending on the county, and towns here vary a lot. Before digging, Ohio law also requires the excavator to notify OHIO811 at least two working days ahead so utilities can mark their lines. Tell us about private lines the utilities will not mark, like a feed to a detached garage or a gas line to a grill.

We lay the pool out with paint and stakes, check the elevations against the design, and dig. The hole is cut to the pool's shape and depth plus room for the base and backfill. Heavy, wet clay makes poor fill, so most of it usually leaves the site on trucks.

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. In our soils that is not optional.

For fiberglass, the floor of the hole gets a compacted, leveled stone base. The shell arrives finished from Liberty, is lifted in and checked for level. Latham, which makes Liberty pools, describes the set as taking up to 3 days.

ICF and vinyl pools are built in place instead. ICF walls are stacked from insulated concrete forms, reinforced and filled with concrete on site. Vinyl liner walls are assembled and braced, the floor is shaped, and the liner goes in once the structure is done. Both take longer than a fiberglass set, and we give you a realistic schedule with the design.

A fiberglass shell is backfilled while it fills with water, so the pressure inside and outside the wall stays even. Latham describes alternating about six inches of water with six inches of gravel all the way up, and puts backfill at 1 to 4 days. We use clean crushed stone, which drains where native clay would hold water against the shell.

The plumbing goes in as the backfill comes up. Pipes run from the skimmer, drain and returns to the equipment pad, where the Pentair pump and filter go along with any heater, salt system or automation you chose. The lines are pressure tested before they are buried, because finding a leak later means breaking up a deck.

With the pool set and backfilled, we form, reinforce and pour the concrete deck. Every package includes a 4 ft 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, and downspouts and yard drainage are tied in at the same time.

Around the deck, the electrical is connected and inspected, the barrier fence goes up in the order your town requires, and the town inspects the pool. Concrete needs dry weather and, late in the year, protection from freezing. The American Concrete Institute treats anything below 40°F as cold weather, and the National Weather Service puts the average first fall freeze at Akron-Canton on October 19, so fall pours get planned carefully.

We grade and clean up the site, then bring the pool to life. We start the pump and filter, set the pump speeds, test the lights and balance the water with the starter chemicals that come in your package.

Then we walk you through it: the filter gauge and when to clean it, the baskets, the pump schedule, testing and chemicals, and how the pool gets closed for an Ohio winter. You get the cleaning kit from your package and the warranty paperwork for the shell. A fiberglass pool stays full through winter, and we explain why before we leave.

If you would rather not do the upkeep yourself, our pool service handles openings, weekly cleaning, repairs and closings.