Precast Concrete Pools in Asheville, NC

Pool Builders of Asheville installs precast concrete pools across Buncombe, Henderson and Madison counties. A precast pool is a reinforced concrete shell, cast and cured in a factory and craned into place on your property already finished. Because the pool is built before it arrives, most of our precast projects are completed in 4 to 12 weeks rather than in months.

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Most of our precast projects are completed in 4 to 12 weeks. A conventional concrete pool is built in your yard over months, whereas a precast pool arrives complete, so the only work on your property is ground work: the dig, the base, the drainage, any retaining walls and the surround. On mountain land the ground work is the part worth controlling anyway, and it is the part we take off your hands.

Why precast suits what most people want

Most people who call us about a precast pool want three things at once. They want a pool that looks like it belongs in their yard, they want the whole backyard finished rather than a pool sitting in a building site, and they want to be swimming this year.

Precast delivers all three, which is why most of our conversations end up here. The shell is concrete, so it can be finished in real tile and it sits in a landscape the way a built pool does. The pool arrives already made, so your yard is open for weeks instead of a whole summer. And because the pool is a known quantity before it reaches you, we can spend the design time on the part that varies, which is your land and everything you want around the water.

A stronger pool than concrete poured in your yard

A precast shell is cast in a factory, not in your backyard. The difference shows up in the concrete. Indoors the mix is measured rather than judged by eye, and it can carry additives a truckload delivered to a job site cannot. The shell is filled evenly the whole way around, so no part of it is left with air pockets or thin spots. What comes out is harder and much denser than concrete placed in a yard in whatever weather that week happens to bring.

Density matters as much as raw strength does at this elevation. Water that cannot soak into the concrete cannot freeze inside it and force it apart, and a pool up here goes through a freeze and thaw cycle every winter of its life.

What a precast pool installation involves

The site visit

Before anything is priced, we come out and measure your yard. We check how much your land slopes where the pool would go, how deep the rock is, where water runs in a heavy rain, how wide and how steep your driveway is, and how far it is to your electrical panel. We also work out whether there is anywhere a crane can park and still reach the backyard. Those few measurements decide the design and most of the price.

Design

The design stage is where the pool, the levels and its position in the yard are really decided, and we do that part together with you. We work out where the water should sit in relation to the house, what you look out at from it, where the afternoon sun falls, and where the seating and the fire feature want to be. We also plan how the whole space is lit once the sun drops behind the ridge. The pool follows that conversation rather than starting it.

Specifying the shell happens here as well, and with precast it happens early. Spa jets, swim jets, tile, steps, benches, lighting, heating and the water feed are all built into the shell when it is cast. None of them can be added afterward, so we go through the whole list with you before anything is ordered.

Permits

The application goes to the county with the pool engineering drawings and the footing details, which come from the factory and are matched to the kind of ground you have. We handle the permitting from application through final inspection, so you do not file anything and you do not chase an inspector.

The dig and what the pool sits on

The hole is dug wider than the pool so there is room to work around it and room to fill it back in properly afterward. A precast shell is one solid piece of concrete and it never sits straight on dirt, because anything soft underneath it will let the pool settle and you will see the result.

We set ours on a poured concrete base rather than the compacted gravel a lot of installers use. A solid slab spreads the weight evenly and there is nothing underneath it that can shift or wash out. On a lot cut into a slope, where part of the ground is original and part is fill that has just been placed, that matters, because the two do not settle the same way.

The slab costs more and we think it is worth it. Whichever company you go with, it is a fair question to ask all of them: what is the pool actually sitting on?

Delivery day

The pool arrives on a truck and a crane lifts it straight off and sets it into the hole, using lifting points built into the shell for exactly that purpose. Delivery is the day everything else is planned around, which is why we measure your driveway on the first visit. On a mountain lot with a switchback drive and mature trees overhead, finding somewhere the crane can park and still reach the backyard is often the hardest part of the whole project.

Backfilling and drainage

Gravel goes in around the outside of the shell a layer at a time, so that rainwater drains away from the pool rather than sitting against it. On sloping ground the drainage around the shell matters far more than it does on a flat lot. The electrical work is done by a licensed electrician and inspected before anything is covered over.

Plumbing and equipment

The skimmer and the water inlets are already built into the shell, so the plumbing is a matter of connecting them and running the lines back to the equipment. The equipment pad carries the pump, the filter, whatever you are using to keep the water clean, and a heater if you want to be swimming in May and September, and that work is inspected too.

Coping, patio and drainage

The coping caps the rim of the pool, and then everything around it goes in: the patio, the walkway and the steps. A large share of the budget goes into the surround, along with almost all of how the finished space looks, because poured concrete, stone and tile are three very different prices and three very different results.

Drainage is built at the same time, because on sloping ground the question was never whether rain reaches the pool area. The question is where the water goes once it arrives.

Filling and handover

Once the pool passes its final inspection we fill it, which takes a few hours on a garden hose or minutes if a water truck brings it. We then balance the water, start up the equipment and show you how all of it runs.

Not sure which pool suits your property?

Tell us where you are and what you are picturing, and we will work through the options with you.

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What size precast pools come in, and what you can change

Precast pools come in set sizes, because they are made in a factory and trucked to you whole, so how large they get is limited by what can travel a road and be lifted over a house. Shells run from small plunge sizes of around 7 feet by 7, up to about 12 feet by 26, which is a full swimming pool. The water runs to a uniform depth of up to 5 feet, so the pool is deep enough to swim and cool off in and shallow enough to stand up anywhere, although it is not built for diving.

Set sizes do not mean a standard pool. A great deal of what you actually notice about a finished precast pool is chosen by you: the tile, the lighting, the steps and benches, the spa jets, the swim jet, the heating, the water features and the whole surround. What you are choosing from is a fixed outline rather than a fixed pool.

The narrow end of that range matters for a second reason. A shell of around 7 or 8 feet reaches properties that a full size pool never will, down driveways that would stop a 16 foot load before it started.

Precast will not suit everybody, and it is worth saying so plainly. If you are picturing a 40 foot pool, a deep end for diving, or a shape that does not exist as a mold, then no amount of site work will make precast the answer. Gunite is built in your yard and can be any size, shape or depth, which is what it is for and what it costs.

What we can build into a precast pool

Far more goes into a precast shell than most people expect, and all of it is specified before the pool is cast.

A spa built into the pool

The shell can be cast with spa jets, an air blower and the pump and controls to run them. What you end up with is a pool and a hot tub in one structure, rather than a pool with a separate tub sitting next to it. One set of equipment runs both, so there is one thing to heat, one thing to maintain and one thing to look at.

Jets are a change to the shell itself, which means they are decided before the pool is cast rather than afterward. Almost nothing on this list can be added once the shell is made, and that is the single most important thing to understand about buying a precast pool. The decisions happen early, at the order, and the build is fast because of it.

Heating and cooling

A gas heater, a heat pump, or a unit that both heats and chills. At this elevation heating is not a luxury addition, because it is the difference between a pool you use for three months and one you use for six. A chiller sounds excessive until August, when a small pool with a dark finish in full sun runs warmer than anybody wants.

Waterfalls and swim jets

Waterfalls, extra jets, and a swim jet that pushes a current you swim against, which is the practical answer when the pool is not long enough for laps.

Lighting, sanitizing and automation

Color changing LED lighting, salt chlorine generation instead of handling chlorine yourself, and app based automation for the pump, the heater, the lights and the jets.

Covers and cleaning

An insulating cover cuts evaporation, holds heat overnight and reduces how much chemical the pool needs, all of which matter more here than in a warm climate, because clear mountain nights draw heat out of a pool quickly. A robotic cleaner handles the floor, the walls and the waterline.

Tile

Tile can replace a plain interior on a precast shell, either fully tiled or with tile along the waterline, in glass, porcelain or stone. Tile is the finish that separates a pool that looks built from one that looks installed, and it changes the look of the water more than anything else you can spend money on.

The same tile can carry into the surround, so the coping and the patio can be tiled to match or to contrast. Surround material is one of the handful of choices that decide both how the finished space looks and a real share of the budget.

The small things that get built in

The shell can be cast with sockets in the steps so that an umbrella or a table drops straight in, and with fixings that let a timber deck attach directly to the pool. You can add a system that tops the water up on its own, tile along the waterline, and the interior finish carried over the top edge. You also choose the steps and benches, whether that is a single step, a full set of them, or a square corner seat.

A pool and a hot tub in one structure

People search separately for pools and for hot tubs, and then discover they can have both in the same shell.

A precast pool with spa jets gives you a heated seating area inside the pool itself, run from the same pump, the same heater and the same controls. There is one structure to look at, one thing to maintain and one utility bill rather than two, and no separate tub taking up a corner of the patio.

The trade is that the spa has to be decided at the order, because the jets and the plumbing are cast into the shell. If you are unsure, we would suggest deciding in favor of it, since adding the capability later is not possible and running it is optional.

Where a separate spa genuinely suits the design better, we build that too, alongside the pool and plumbed to work with it.

Pool equipment pad with a heat pump, filter and pump

One company, one quote

The grading, the pool, the decking, the lighting and the planting run as one project on one schedule, rather than five separate trades for you to coordinate.

We handle the permitting from application through final inspection, so you do not file anything and you do not chase an inspector.

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Why precast works on Western North Carolina properties

Most lots around here are not flat, and a sloped lot punishes anything that has to be built slowly in place. A poured or sprayed shell needs forming, steel and curing time on ground that has been freshly cut and left open to the weather throughout, so every wet day in that window is a day of erosion on an open site.

Most of that exposure disappears with a precast shell, because the pool is cast and cured under cover and the open ground phase of your project is compressed into the days between the dig and the set.

Septic is the constraint nobody mentions until it is a problem

A great deal of property around here is on septic rather than city sewer, and the septic system changes where a pool can physically go.

Nothing can be built over a septic tank or a drain field, and that includes the pool, the patio and the equipment. The drain field has to stay open so that water can soak away, and putting a pool, concrete or heavy machinery over it can wreck a system that costs a great deal to replace. Well lines, the power feed to the house, propane lines and other buried utilities all matter too, and on a rural lot none of them are where you would assume.

Locating all of that is one of the first things we do, along with working out what is left over. On a good number of properties, once you have kept clear of the septic system and its reserve area, the genuinely usable spot is smaller than the yard looks.

Septic is a real argument for a smaller pool. A compact shell fits a place a large one will not, and it fits without moving a septic system or fighting for every foot. Working around a septic field is one of the most common reasons a precast pool turns out to be the right answer on a mountain property.

On a slope, the pool can be the retaining wall

A precast shell is a structure, not a liner. On a sloped lot it can hold the ground back on the downhill side, which means the wall you were going to build anyway becomes the pool itself. You pay for it once instead of twice.

On a mountain lot the ground usually costs more than the pool. Flattening a slope means cutting into it, hauling the spoil off your property and then building a wall to hold back what is left. Setting the shell into the land instead keeps the dirt where it is and turns the retaining into part of the finished pool. On a steep lot that difference runs to tens of thousands of dollars.

Precast is not the right answer on every sloped lot. Sometimes the better move is to step the pool down with the slope and let the deck and the planting follow. We work that out standing in your yard rather than from a rule. What we do not do is force a flat lot design onto a lot that is not flat.

Precast or gunite? What actually differs

Both pools are concrete, so the material and the idea are the same. What differs is where the pool is made, and the place of manufacture turns out to matter more than most people expect.

Precast is made in a factory, gunite is made in your yard

A precast pool is cast indoors, in a mold, under conditions somebody controls, which covers the mix, the temperature and the timing, the same way every time. Gunite is sprayed onto steel in your backyard, and how well it turns out depends on the crew holding the nozzle, the weather that week, and how faithfully somebody keeps it watered while it cures.

Concrete built on site can be perfectly good work, and plenty of it is. The difficulty is that nobody can promise you in advance that it will be, because it depends on the crew and the weather that week. A factory shell arrives already finished, already cured and already tested.

Gunite has to cure in your yard, and that takes weeks

Once gunite is sprayed it is not yet a pool, only a wet shell that has to sit and harden.

Curing takes about a month, and the shell has to be kept wet for most of it. Only then can the tile, the coping and the plaster go on, and only after that does the pool get filled.

So a month goes by before the finish even starts, in a part of the country where it rains a great deal, and your yard is an open site for all of it. A precast pool arrives already cured, so it is set, connected, filled and running while a gunite shell of the same date is still being watered.

What that is worth to you

You get in the water sooner. Most precast projects are completed in 4 to 12 weeks. A gunite build runs to months, and often into the following season if it starts late in the year.
Your yard is torn up for less time, which on a sloped lot also means less rain falling on open ground.
The concrete is stronger, because it is mixed and placed in a factory rather than in your yard.
The quality does not depend on the weather the week your pool was sprayed.
The price is more predictable, because most of what could go wrong on site has already been done indoors.

Gunite is still the right answer when the design genuinely needs it, whether that is a shape nothing is molded in, a particular footprint or a deep end, and we build those too. But if what you want is a concrete pool and precast comes in a size that fits your yard, precast gets you a stronger version of the same material, sooner, with fewer unknowns.

How much does a precast pool cost in Asheville?

Installed, most precast concrete pools here land between $65,000 and $150,000.

The range is wide because the pool is the predictable part of the project. Your property is what moves you inside it: how much cutting and filling the slope demands, whether rock turns up, how far the crane has to reach, and whether the downhill side needs holding. How much surround you are laying, and in what material, moves it again. The additions count as well, because jets, heating and automation are separately priced line items.

Two things move the number more than anything else, and they are how large the pool is and what you put around it.

Size is the obvious one and it is not a small effect, because a 12 by 26 is a different project from a 7 by 7 in the shell, the dig, the water and the equipment.

Everything around the pool is the other half. How much decking and concrete you are laying, whether the surround is plain concrete, stone, tile or rockwork, and whether you are adding water features, lighting, a shaded area or a structure. Those choices routinely add up to as much as the pool itself, and because people leave them until last, the number comes as a surprise.

Your ground is the third thing that changes the price, and on a steep site it changes it further than anything else. The lowest figure in the range assumes a level site, which means flat ground, easy crane access and a modest patio, and around here that is the exception rather than the rule.

Two neighbors on the same street can land at opposite ends of that range for reasons that have nothing to do with the pool they picked.

What drives the cost of a pool in this region

Built for mountain property

Three things decide a pool project in this region: the slope of your land, the ground underneath it, and how easily we can reach the backyard. Our recommendation follows your property rather than a catalog, which on mountain ground matters a great deal more than it does anywhere flat.

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How long does a precast pool take to install?

Most precast projects are completed in 4 to 12 weeks from the first day on site to the day you swim, and the shell itself is set in a single day.

The permit comes first, and after that everything is ground work. That covers the dig, the base the pool sits on, setting the pool and filling in around it, then the plumbing, the electrical work and the patio, with an inspection between most of those steps.

What varies from one project to the next is almost never the pool. Your ground is what decides the schedule, so a level lot with a straight driveway sits at the short end of that range, while a steep lot needing retaining walls, drainage and a long crane reach sits at the other.

Weather is a real part of the schedule here, because ground work during a wet spell does not slow down, it stops.

Is a precast pool right for your property?

A precast pool suits you if

The flat area you have is compact and expensive to enlarge
You want a concrete pool without months of building work in your yard
You are working to a date, whether that is a summer, a rental season or a house being finished around it
You want a pool and a spa in one structure rather than two
You want a tiled pool, which fiberglass cannot give you
The design wants a raised edge on the low side, which a precast shell handles as a matter of course

How precast compares

Against gunite: the same material at a higher concrete strength, weeks rather than months, and a result that does not depend on the weather the week it was sprayed.

Against fiberglass: fiberglass is a molded composite shell with a colored surface layer, and it comes in a wider choice of shapes and depths. Precast is concrete, and it can be finished in real tile, which fiberglass cannot. Precast also starts narrower, at around 7 feet, and only a limited number of fiberglass models are made that small.

A precast pool is the wrong choice if

You want a pool larger than about 12 by 26, a deep end for diving, or a shape that is not molded. That is gunite, and it is what gunite is for.
Nothing at all can reach the yard. A gunite pool needs no delivery whatsoever, so that is the conversation to have.

We install precast, fiberglass and gunite, and our recommendation follows your property. Precast suits more mountain lots than anything else we build, which is why it is usually where the conversation starts, although a shell that does not fit your site is not a bargain at any price.

Talk to us about a precast pool

Tell us where you are and what you are picturing. We will come out, measure what you have, and work through with you which pools suit your property and what each one would cost.

Precast Concrete Pools in Asheville, NC FAQs

What is a precast concrete pool?

A precast pool is a reinforced concrete shell that is cast and cured in a factory, delivered whole and craned into position in your yard. The material is the same concrete used in a traditional pool, but the order of the work is completely different, because the pool is finished before it reaches your property. Everything that happens on your land is ground work.

How quickly can you install a precast pool?

Most of our precast projects are completed in 4 to 12 weeks from the first day on site to the day you swim, and the shell itself goes into the ground in a single day. A pool that is formed and cured in your yard takes months, and often more than one season, because the concrete has to harden where it sits.

Is a precast pool stronger than a pool poured on site?

In terms of the concrete itself, yes. A precast shell is cast in a factory rather than in your backyard, which means the mix is measured rather than judged by eye and the shell is filled evenly the whole way around. What comes out is denser and stronger than concrete poured or sprayed on a job site in whatever weather that week happens to bring.

What sizes do precast pools come in?

Precast shells run from small plunge sizes of around 7 feet by 7, up to about 12 feet by 26, which is a full swimming pool. The water runs to a uniform depth of up to 5 feet, so the pool is deep enough to swim in and shallow enough to stand up anywhere, although it is not built for diving.

If the sizes are fixed, how much can I actually customize?

The outline of the shell comes in set sizes, but a great deal of what you notice about a finished pool is chosen by you. Spa jets, swim jets, waterfalls, heating and chilling, colored lighting, salt chlorination, automation, a tile finish, the steps and benches, and sockets in the step for an umbrella are all specified when the shell is ordered. The constraint is timing rather than choice, because everything built into the shell has to be decided before it is cast.

Why would I choose precast over a gunite pool?

Mainly time, strength and predictability, and the material is concrete either way. A precast shell is cast and cured in a factory, so it arrives finished and stronger than a site mix. A gunite shell is sprayed in your yard and then has to cure there for about a month before the tile, the plaster and the filling can even start. Gunite is the right choice when the design needs a shape or a depth that precast does not come in.

Can I have a tiled pool?

Yes, either fully tiled or with tile along the waterline, in glass, porcelain or stone. Of everything you can spend money on, tile changes how the water looks more than anything else, and it can carry into the coping and the patio as well, which is how a pool starts to look built rather than installed.

Can you build a spa into a precast pool?

Yes. The shell can be made with spa jets, an air blower and the pump and controls to run them, so you get a pool and a hot tub in one structure rather than a pool with a separate tub sitting beside it. The decision has to be made before the shell is cast, because anything built into a precast pool cannot be added afterward.

I am on a septic system. Can I still put in a pool?

In most cases yes, although the septic system decides where the pool can sit rather than you. Nothing can be built over the tank or the drain field, including the patio and the equipment, and the field also has a reserve area that has to stay clear. Locating all of it is one of the first things we do, and a compact shell often turns out to be the better answer, because it fits a space that a large one will not.

How much does a precast pool cost around Asheville?

Most projects land between $65,000 and $150,000 installed. Your property decides where inside that range you sit, based on how much the ground has to be cut and held back, whether there is rock, how far the crane has to reach, and how much patio and coping you are laying.

What does the pool actually sit on?

A poured concrete slab, which is better than the compacted gravel a lot of installers use. The weight spreads evenly across solid material and there is nothing underneath that can shift or wash out. On a lot cut into a slope, where part of the ground is original and part is fill, that is worth paying for. It is a fair question to put to any quote you are comparing.

Can a precast pool go on a sloped lot?

Yes, and it is often the better answer on one. Sometimes the shell steps down with the land, and sometimes it sits raised with the low side held by a retaining wall, which gives you a more level yard at the same time. The question worth answering before slope is access, because the crane still has to reach.

What if the crane cannot get to my backyard?

We check that first rather than last. Narrow driveways, sharp turns, overhead power lines and mature trees are the usual limits around here. Precast shells start at around 7 feet wide, so a compact shell reaches properties a full size pool cannot, and a gunite pool is built in your yard, so there is nothing to deliver at all.

Do I need a permit for a pool in Buncombe County?

Yes. We handle it from application through final inspection, so you do not file anything and you do not chase an inspector.

How long is the swimming season at this elevation?

Longer than most people assume, provided the pool is heated. The middle of summer looks after itself, and May and September are what a heater and a cover buy you, because clear mountain nights draw heat out of a pool overnight, so an unheated pool warms up late in spring and cools off early in fall.

Do you build the deck and surround too?

Yes, and it belongs in the same quote. The coping and the patio and decking, in concrete, stone or tile, go in alongside the drainage, the lighting and the planting, so the levels and the water all work together rather than being retrofitted afterward.

Locations We Serve Near Asheville, NC

Get a Quote for Your Pool

Tell us where you are and what you are picturing. We will come out, measure what you have, and work through with you which pools suit your property and what each one would cost.

Request a Quote Call (828) 539-4201