Hear from Our Customers
Most pool buyers don’t realize the difference until it’s too late. A pool that wasn’t designed for your specific property your yard’s dimensions, your soil, your drainage is a pool that causes problems. In McRae-Helena, where the ground near the Little Ocmulgee River corridor runs sandy loam over clay with water tables that shift seasonally, that’s not a minor detail. It’s the difference between a pool that holds up for 30 years and one that cracks, shifts, or floods your yard every wet season.
When your pool is designed from scratch for your Telfair County lot, you’re not just getting something that looks good on day one. You’re getting drainage engineered into the plan, a shape that works with your property lines, and a finished product that actually matches what you approved before construction started. That last part matters more than most people expect the gap between what a homeowner imagined and what got built is one of the most common regrets in this industry.
A well-designed pool also changes how your family uses your property from April through October and year-round with a heater. McRae-Helena’s South Georgia climate gives you a legitimate seven-plus months of swimming without any heating at all. That’s a backyard that earns its place every single summer.
We’re based in Douglas, Georgia about 24 miles southeast of McRae-Helena on US 341, the same road you’ve driven a hundred times. We’re not a national franchise with a regional rep. We’re a South Georgia builder who has spent over 30 years working in concrete, plumbing, and custom pool construction in this specific region its Coastal Plain soil conditions, its county permitting processes, and its climate.
We build exclusively in concrete and gunite, which means every pool we design is custom. No catalog. No pre-formed shells. We work with your property in Telfair County whether you’re in an established neighborhood near downtown McRae-Helena, a lakefront lot in Whatley Vineyards, or a property closer to the Little Ocmulgee River where drainage requires more careful planning.
When you hire us, the person overseeing your project has seen what South Georgia soil does when a builder isn’t prepared for it. That experience doesn’t show up on a brochure, but it shows up in the finished pool.
It starts with a conversation about your property and your family not a sales pitch. We want to know how you use your backyard, what you’re envisioning, and what your lot actually looks like. Properties near the Little Ocmulgee River floodplain behave differently than properties on higher ground in McRae-Helena, and we evaluate your specific site conditions before anything else happens.
From there, we move into design. You’ll see your pool in 3D before a single piece of equipment arrives at your property. The shape, the coping, the water features, the patio integration all of it rendered so you can make real decisions rather than guessing from a drawing. If something doesn’t look right, we adjust it at this stage, not after the concrete is poured.
Once the design is approved, we handle every permit in Telfair County in our name as Georgia law requires for licensed contractors. We coordinate every inspection from pre-construction through final sign-off. If your property has a septic system, we manage the environmental health approval too. Construction typically runs six to eight weeks from excavation to completion, which means families in McRae-Helena who want a pool ready for summer need to be in conversation with us by late winter. We don’t push through unexpected site conditions and bill for them later if something comes up during excavation, we stop, communicate, and talk through options before moving forward.
Ready to get started?
Every pool we build is concrete not because it’s the only option, but because it’s the right one for what most McRae-Helena families actually want. Concrete gives you unlimited shapes, sizes, and features. Fiberglass gives you a catalog. If you want an infinity edge overlooking your backyard, a tanning ledge for the kids, a spillover spa, or a custom waterfall those aren’t possible with a pre-formed fiberglass shell. They’re standard possibilities with a concrete build designed from scratch.
Custom water features are part of the design conversation from day one, not an upsell at the end. We integrate them into the pool’s structure and plumbing so they function properly long-term not bolted on as an afterthought. The same goes for outdoor living space design: if you’re thinking about a patio, an outdoor kitchen, or fire features alongside the pool, we plan that all together so the finished backyard works as a unified environment, not a collection of disconnected projects.
Every new pool we build also includes a custom-fitted safety cover as a standard part of the project. In a community where nearly a third of households have children under 18, that’s not a checkbox it’s something we include because it matters. Landscape and pool integration is part of the design process as well, so your finished yard doesn’t look like a construction site that stopped halfway through.
Most custom concrete pool projects in the McRae-Helena area run between $50,000 and $85,000, depending on the size of the pool, the features included, and the specific conditions on your lot. A straightforward rectangular pool with standard finishes sits toward the lower end of that range. A design with an infinity edge, integrated spa, custom water features, and full outdoor living elements moves toward the higher end.
One thing worth understanding in Telfair County specifically: site conditions affect cost. Properties near the Little Ocmulgee River or Sugar Creek may encounter higher water tables or drainage challenges that require additional engineering work during excavation. We evaluate your specific lot before quoting, so the number you get reflects what your project actually requires not a low number designed to win the bid that grows after construction starts. We provide itemized quotes so you know what’s included.
Concrete is the better choice for McRae-Helena’s soil conditions and not just because of aesthetics. The Georgia Coastal Plain around Telfair County features sandy loam topsoils over clay subsoil, and properties near the Little Ocmulgee River can have elevated water tables, particularly after heavy rain. Fiberglass shells are manufactured to a standard shape and dropped into the ground they’re not engineered for your specific site. A reinforced concrete pool, by contrast, is built in place with drainage designed into the project from the start.
Sandy soil is also classified as Type C under excavation standards the most challenging category which means the excavation phase requires specific shoring and dewatering management. A builder experienced with South Georgia’s Coastal Plain conditions knows how to handle this correctly. A builder who primarily works in piedmont clay conditions further north may not. That difference in soil knowledge is one of the most practical reasons to work with a builder who has spent decades in this specific region.
Yes, a building permit is required for residential pool construction in Telfair County, and Georgia law is clear that the permit must be pulled in the licensed contractor’s name not the homeowner’s. If a contractor asks you to pull your own permit, that’s a serious red flag. It almost always means they’re not licensed to pull it themselves, and if something goes wrong during or after construction, the legal and financial liability falls on you.
As the county seat of Telfair County, McRae-Helena is where the permitting offices are physically located. We handle the entire permit process application, coordination with county building officials, and every staged inspection from pre-construction through final sign-off. If your property runs on a private septic system, we also coordinate the environmental health approval that’s required before construction can begin. Properties in or near designated flood zones along the Little Ocmulgee River may face additional requirements, and we factor those in during the site evaluation before your project starts.
McRae-Helena’s South Georgia climate gives you a comfortable swimming season from April through October without any heating that’s seven months of use at minimum. With a pool heater, you’re looking at year-round swimming. For a community that’s 2.5 hours from the Atlantic coast and 2.5 hours from Atlanta, a well-designed backyard pool is a genuine alternative to resort travel not just a nice feature.
The outdoor recreation culture in McRae-Helena is already strong: Little Ocmulgee State Park draws families to its sandy beach lake and championship golf course two miles north of town. A custom pool brings that same outdoor living experience home, on your schedule, without the drive. From a home value perspective, industry data consistently shows that a well-executed inground pool adds 5–8% to home value in warm-climate markets, which translates to real dollars on a McRae-Helena home even at current median price points.
From excavation to completion, most custom concrete pool projects run six to eight weeks. That timeline assumes the permit process is handled correctly upfront, inspections are scheduled efficiently, and no significant unexpected site conditions arise during excavation. In Telfair County, the permit and inspection process involves multiple stages pre-construction, structural, electrical, and final and each one needs to be coordinated with county building officials. Working with a builder who knows this process well keeps the timeline from stretching unnecessarily.
The practical implication for McRae-Helena families is that if you want a pool ready for summer, you need to be in the design and planning conversation by late winter ideally January or February. Starting that conversation in April or May usually means the pool is done in July at the earliest, which cuts into the early part of your swimming season. The design phase, permit submission, and approval process all happen before excavation begins, so the earlier you start, the more of the season you protect.
Yes, and honestly this is how most families in McRae-Helena should be thinking about it. A pool on its own is a pool. A pool designed alongside a covered patio, an outdoor kitchen, and integrated landscaping is a backyard that becomes the place your family actually spends time the kind of space that makes staying home feel like a choice rather than a compromise.
We design outdoor living spaces as part of the same project, not as a separate contractor’s job bolted on afterward. When the pool, patio, and landscape integration are planned together, everything connects properly drainage flows where it should, the patio layout complements the pool shape, and the finished yard looks intentional rather than assembled in pieces. For families in Telfair County who are already oriented toward outdoor living whether that’s weekends at Little Ocmulgee State Park, fishing on the Ocmulgee, or just spending evenings outside a well-designed backyard pool environment is a natural extension of how you already live. It’s worth designing it that way from the start.
Local Resources
Useful Links
