Hear from Our Customers
When the heat index pushes past 100°F in July and August which it does in Tifton, reliably, every year a backyard pool stops being a luxury and starts being the best decision you made for your family. You’re not just adding square footage to your property. You’re creating the place where your kids spend the summer instead of somewhere else, where you actually use your backyard instead of avoiding it, and where your home becomes the one people want to come to.
Tifton’s swim season runs from roughly late March through early November closer to eight months than the national average of five or six. That’s a long return on your investment every single year. But only if the pool was built to handle it. We engineer concrete pools specifically for South Georgia’s clay-heavy soil. They don’t just look good at installation they hold up structurally for 30 years or more when the drainage is designed right and the construction doesn’t cut corners.
For homeowners in neighborhoods like Olen Heights or Pebblebrook, a custom inground pool also adds measurable value at resale. Tifton’s median home values have climbed significantly over the past decade, and a well-built concrete pool in this market is an asset, not just an amenity. The key word is well-built. That part is entirely on who you hire.
We founded Deep Waters Pools in 2014, but the experience behind it goes back more than 30 years. Before the company existed, our founder spent decades in concrete construction, plumbing, and custom pool building across South Georgia watching too many Tifton-area families get burned by contractors who promised one thing and delivered another. That’s the honest reason we exist.
Based out of Douglas, GA and connected to Tifton via the US 82 corridor, we’re a genuine regional neighbor not a company parachuting in from Atlanta or chasing leads across five states. Our team knows Tift County’s soil conditions, understands the local permit process, and has built pools in this specific climate and geography. That regional familiarity isn’t a marketing line. It’s what keeps a concrete pool performing correctly 15 years after the crew leaves your backyard.
We build custom concrete pools exclusively. No fiberglass shells, no vinyl liners just one thing, done right, with the depth of experience to back it up.
It starts with a conversation about your backyard, your vision, and what’s actually feasible on your specific property. Lot size, soil conditions, existing drainage patterns, setback requirements all of it gets factored in before a single design goes on paper. In Tifton, where clay-heavy coastal plain soil can shift seasonally with moisture changes, that site evaluation isn’t a formality. It directly affects how your pool is engineered and how it performs long-term.
Once the design is finalized, we handle the full permit process and in Tifton, that means two separate tracks. You need a building permit from the City of Tifton Building Division and a separate permit and inspection from Tift County Environmental Health, located at the health department on East 12th Street. Many contractors especially those unfamiliar with this jurisdiction miss the Environmental Health requirement entirely. That creates legal exposure for the homeowner and can trigger costly corrections. We handle both. You don’t chase paperwork.
From permit approval, most custom concrete pools in the Tifton area reach completion in 8 to 12 weeks. That timeline is stated upfront, not discovered after you’ve signed. If you’re hoping to be swimming before Tifton’s peak heat hits in June, contracting in January or February puts you comfortably on track. At project completion, you get full system training, a balanced and tested pool, and a clean site. The goal is simple: you should be able to swim in it the afternoon we hand it over.
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We build custom concrete pools from the ground up, but our work doesn’t stop at new construction. If you have an existing pool that’s showing its age surface cracking, faded plaster, outdated tile and coping, or equipment that’s overdue for replacement our renovation and resurfacing services handle that too. A lot of Tifton-area pools built in the 1980s and 1990s are at or past the point where a full resurfacing makes more sense than another round of patch repairs.
Beyond construction and renovation, we offer pool repair, pump and filter service, and custom safety covers. Every pool we build includes a custom safety cover as a standard part of the project not an add-on, not an upgrade. With Tifton’s extended swim season and the reality of what an unsecured pool means for families with young children, that’s not a line item we negotiate out of a build. Georgia pool safety code sets the baseline; we go a step further.
For homeowners in Tift County and the surrounding communities whether you’re in Ty Ty, Chula, Omega, or anywhere else that calls Tifton home for services we cover the full corridor. We also handle spa construction and custom patio work, so if the goal is a complete backyard setup rather than just a pool, that conversation is worth having from the start.
Yes and in Tifton specifically, you need two of them. Most homeowners and even some contractors assume a single building permit covers everything, but pool construction in Tifton requires a building permit from the City of Tifton Building Division at 204 North Ridge Avenue and a separate permit from Tift County Environmental Health, located at the health department on East 12th Street. The Environmental Health permit governs water quality, safety compliance, and site inspection it’s not optional, and skipping it creates real legal exposure for the homeowner.
This dual-permit process is one of the most common places out-of-area contractors get tripped up in this jurisdiction. They pull the building permit, start construction, and then hit a compliance problem at inspection because the Environmental Health piece was never initiated. We handle both permit tracks as part of every project in Tifton. You don’t manage the paperwork we do, and we know exactly what each office requires.
For a custom concrete pool in the Tifton area, most projects fall in the range of $60,000 to $100,000 or more, depending on size, design features, and site-specific conditions. Pools with elevated spa features, custom water features, or more complex patio integration will run toward the higher end or beyond. That range reflects what you’re actually getting: a permanent, fully engineered concrete structure built for South Georgia’s soil and climate not a prefabricated shell dropped into a hole.
Tifton’s cost of living is well below the national average, which means your dollar goes further here than in most markets. But a pool is still a significant investment, and the biggest cost risk isn’t the upfront price it’s hiring someone who cuts corners and leaves you with drainage problems, structural cracking, or code violations that cost far more to fix than they would have to prevent. The conversation about cost should always include the conversation about what’s actually being built and by whom.
For most custom concrete pool projects in Tifton, the build window from permit approval to project completion is 8 to 12 weeks. That timeline is stated before you sign anything not discovered midway through the project when it becomes inconvenient to hear. The factors that most commonly affect that window are permit processing time, weather delays (Tifton’s climate is wet year-round, and South Georgia rain events can pause exterior construction), and site-specific conditions that require additional engineering work.
If your goal is to have a pool ready for Tifton’s peak swim season which typically runs from late March through early November the math is straightforward. Contracting in January or February, accounting for permit processing time, puts you on track for a late April or May completion. That’s the full season. Waiting until April to start the conversation usually means you’re swimming in August at best, and you’ve missed the first half of the season you were trying to plan around.
For most properties in Tifton and Tift County, yes but it depends heavily on how the pool is engineered, not just what material it’s made of. South Georgia’s coastal plain soil is clay-heavy, and clay shifts seasonally as moisture levels change. A concrete pool that isn’t designed with proper drainage and structural engineering for that soil behavior can develop cracking, movement, or drainage problems over time. The material itself isn’t the risk the engineering behind it is.
When a concrete pool is designed correctly for this specific soil environment, it outperforms every other option in terms of longevity, customization, and structural integrity. Vinyl liner pools require liner replacement every 8 to 12 years. Fiberglass pools are limited to pre-molded shapes that may not fit your specific lot or design vision. A properly engineered concrete pool built for South Georgia’s conditions can last 30 years or more before any major structural work is needed. The key phrase is “designed correctly” which is exactly why the experience of the contractor matters as much as the material they use.
Yes. Renovation and resurfacing are a significant part of what we do, and it’s genuinely needed in the Tifton area. A lot of pools built here in the 1980s and 1990s are at or past the point where the surface, tile, coping, or equipment has degraded to where repairs no longer make financial sense. At that stage, a full resurfacing and often a mechanical upgrade to pumps and filtration is the more cost-effective path forward.
The renovation process starts the same way a new build does: a site evaluation to understand what you’re working with, what’s structurally sound, and what needs to be replaced versus restored. From there, the scope is defined clearly before any work begins. If you’ve been patching the same surface issues for a few seasons and the repairs aren’t holding, that’s usually a sign the underlying plaster or gunite shell needs proper attention not another coat of paint over a problem that’s going to come back.
In Georgia, pool contractors are required to hold a state-issued license through the Georgia Secretary of State’s licensing division. You can verify a contractor’s license status directly through the Georgia licensing portal it’s a public search, and it takes about two minutes. What you’re looking for is an active license in the appropriate classification for swimming pool construction. If a contractor can’t give you their license number or gets vague when you ask, that’s a meaningful red flag.
Beyond the state license, ask specifically whether they carry general liability insurance and whether their workers are covered under workers’ compensation. In Tifton, where word travels fast in the local community, an unlicensed or uninsured contractor who causes property damage or a worksite injury creates problems that land squarely on the homeowner. Licensing and insurance aren’t bureaucratic formalities. They’re the baseline protection you have if something goes wrong on your property. Any contractor worth hiring will hand you that information without hesitation.
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