Most of our precast concrete and fiberglass pools are completed in 4 to 12 weeks. An inground pool in this region is a general contracting job that happens to end in water. The grading, the drainage, the retaining walls, the concrete, the plumbing, the electrical work and the patio all have to be sequenced and inspected in the right order. On a sloped property most of the difficulty is finished before the pool itself arrives, and all of it is work we take off your hands.
Which pool is right for your Asheville property?
If your lot is steep
Yes, you can put a pool on a steep lot, and most of the lots we work on are not flat. We design inground pools to fit the mountain topography of your property. Depending on how your land sits, we can dig the pool into the hillside, or we can build retaining walls that hold the ground back. Retaining lets us position the pool exactly where you want it, and it gives you a more level yard to use at the same time.
At the site visit we will go through how much of the project is ground work, because on a steep property that is usually the largest part of the quote after the pool itself. We will work with you to figure out exactly which pool type is most suitable for your backyard.
If access is tight
Narrow driveways, sharp turns, low branches and overhead power lines are normal around here. Any one of them can stop a pool shell that is 16 feet wide from ever reaching your backyard.
None of that stops us putting a pool in. Precast concrete pools start at around 7 feet wide and fiberglass pools at around 8, so we can bring a finished shell down a driveway that a full size pool would never fit. There is more choice at that narrow end in precast than there is in fiberglass, where only a limited number of models are made that small. Gunite pools are built in your yard instead of being delivered, so there is nothing to bring in at all.
We look at your access before we design anything, so you find out early what fits rather than after you have settled on a pool. We will work with you to find one that suits your backyard and the way into it.
If your yard is small
An inground plunge pool could be the perfect pool for a small yard. Precast plunge sizes start at around 7 feet by 7, and although fiberglass pools begin at around 8 feet wide the choice of models that narrow is limited. Either way, a compact precast concrete pool or a smaller fiberglass pool still functions as a pool while being so much easier to maintain, heat and cool.
The reason a smaller pool is easier to live with comes down to how much water you are heating and treating. A plunge pool warms up far more quickly than a full size pool, it costs noticeably less to heat through spring and fall, and it needs a fraction of the chemical to keep the water clear. In the mountains, where a heater gives you a season worth having, that difference shows up every month you are using the pool.
Both leave room for a patio, which is what actually makes a small yard usable. When we design a small backyard we lay the whole space out with you at the same time, so that the pool, the seating, a shaded spot and somewhere to put a table all have room. Fitting the pool in first and squeezing everything else around it afterward is how small yards go wrong.
If you want to swim rather than cool off, we can build swim jets into a precast shell so that you swim against a current in a pool a fraction of the length. We will walk you through that decision before the shell is made, because anything built into a precast pool cannot be added later.
Building a large pool on a small lot can limit the functionality of the backyard. We will come out, measure what you have and work through the sizes with you, so that you can see what the pool leaves you before you commit to anything.
If you want a custom shape
A gunite pool is the one type that has no limit on shape, because the outline is drawn rather than chosen from a range. We can build a freeform pool that follows the line of your hillside, or a beach entry that walks in from the patio with no step at all. We can build a spa into the pool structure so that it spills into the water, or run a vanishing edge along a property where the ground falls away behind the pool.
Gunite costs the most of the three and it takes the longest, because it is built in your yard rather than delivered. If the shape matters that much to you, it is worth both.
Before you commit to that expense, look at what the other two can do. Precast concrete pools come in sizes from around 7 feet by 7 up to roughly 12 by 26, with tile finishes, spa jets, waterfalls and lighting all built in at the factory. Fiberglass pools come in a very large range of shapes and sizes. Widths run from around 8 feet up to 16 and depths reach around 8 feet, with steps, bench seats, tanning ledges and swim outs molded into the shell. Many people arrive expecting to need a custom pool and find that one of the two delivered options is already what they had in mind, for less money and in a fraction of the time. We will show you both before you decide.
If your pool is for a vacation rental
Short term rental property in this area gains more from a pool than from almost any other improvement, and the priority is usually getting it finished and earning rather than getting it perfect. That points toward a precast concrete or fiberglass pool, because the shell arrives complete and the project is measured in weeks rather than months.
A rental pool is also used harder than a family pool, which makes the interior finish, the cover and the barrier worth thinking about properly. We would recommend confirming what your county and your insurer require of a pool that guests use before the design is settled, and we are happy to work through that with you.
If you want your pool finished quickly
Precast concrete and fiberglass pools are both set into the ground in a single day, because the shell is manufactured before it ever reaches your property. Most of these projects are completed in 4 to 12 weeks, from the first day on site to the day you swim. Everything else in that schedule belongs to the work on your lot: the dig, the base the pool sits on, the plumbing and electrical, filling in around the shell, and then the patio and the drainage.
A gunite pool is measured in months rather than weeks, and the 28 day cure on the concrete is the part of that which cannot be shortened.
If you are on a septic system
A great deal of this market is on septic, and the septic system decides where the pool can sit and sometimes how large it can be. Nothing can be built over the tank or the drain field, including the patio and the equipment pad, and the field also has a reserve area that has to stay clear so that it can be replaced one day. The reserve gets built over by accident more often than anything else, because there is nothing to see on the surface.
Locating the tank, the field, the reserve and the buried lines is one of the first things we do on a site visit, and a narrow pool has options that a wide one does not. Working around a septic field is one of the most common reasons a precast concrete pool of 7 or 8 feet wide turns out to be the right answer. A small fiberglass pool sometimes works on the same properties, where a full size shell simply would not fit.
