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A gunite pool in Rentz gives you six to seven months of usable outdoor living April through October in a part of Georgia where summer doesn’t ask permission before it shows up. That’s a long season. And a pool that’s engineered correctly takes full advantage of every week of it.
The soil in southwestern Laurens County, where Rentz sits, is the kind that expands when it rains and contracts when it dries out. That movement is exactly what fiberglass competitors point to when they try to scare you away from gunite. What they don’t tell you is that the cracking problem they’re describing is a builder problem, not a material problem. A gunite shell built with the right wall thickness, the right rebar density, and the right curing time doesn’t crack from soil movement. It holds for decades.
What you end up with is a pool that fits your property your yard’s specific shape, your family’s specific needs not a prefab mold dropped in a hole. You also get a structure that adds real value to your home. In a community like Rentz, where properties tend to have the kind of lot size that actually gives you room to build something worth building, that investment holds and grows.
Deep Waters Pools is based in Douglas, GA, and we’ve been building custom inground pools across South Georgia since 2014. But our team spent more than thirty years in concrete, plumbing, and pool construction before that which means by the time we took on our first official project, we’d already seen most of what can go wrong and learned how to prevent it.
We serve Rentz and the southwestern Laurens County area regularly. It’s about forty-five miles from our shop in Douglas, and we know the drive. We also know the soil out here, the permit process through the Laurens County Building Inspection Department, and what it means to build in a community where everyone knows everyone. A pool that doesn’t hold up doesn’t stay quiet for long in a town this size.
Every permit building and electrical is handled by our team. Every phase of construction is done by our crew, not a subcontractor. That’s not a selling point we throw around lightly. It’s how we’ve built our reputation, project by project, across this part of the state.
It starts with a site evaluation. We look at your property, your soil conditions, your lot layout, and what you’re actually trying to build. For properties in and around Rentz, that evaluation includes a real look at drainage the southwestern corner of Laurens County sits in the Little Ocmulgee River sub-basin, and the way water moves through this land matters when you’re putting a shell in the ground.
From there, we handle the permits. That means the building permit and the electrical permit through the Laurens County Building Inspection Department no forms for you to track down, no inspectors for you to schedule. Once permits are approved, excavation begins. Our crew digs, sets the rebar, and applies the gunite. The shell then cures and this part doesn’t get rushed, because cutting the cure short is the single most common reason pools develop surface problems years later.
After the shell is solid, we move into plumbing, electrical bonding and grounding, surface finishing, and decking. The full timeline from groundbreaking to swim-ready is typically three to six months. That’s the honest number. Builders who quote eight to twelve weeks are either skipping steps or setting you up for a conversation you don’t want to have mid-project. We’d rather give you the real timeline upfront and deliver on it than promise something fast and walk it back later.
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A Deep Waters gunite pool build covers the full scope excavation, rebar installation, gunite application, plumbing, electrical, surface finishing, and decking all performed by our own crew. No phase gets handed off. That matters more than it might sound, because every handoff between subcontractors is a gap in accountability. When the same team is responsible for every step, there’s no one to point fingers at if something’s off.
The electrical work on every build is bonded and grounded to NEC Article 680 standards the federal safety code that governs pool electrical systems. Georgia Power and local EMCs won’t activate power to pool equipment without Building Inspection Department sign-off, which means cutting corners on electrical isn’t just a safety issue, it’s a hard stop before your pool ever runs. We don’t cut corners.
Once your pool is built, we maintain it. Deep Waters services every major equipment brand Hayward, Pentair, Jandy, Sta-Rite, and Zodiac so the team that knows your pool’s exact configuration is the same team keeping it running year after year. For homeowners in Rentz and the surrounding Laurens County area, that kind of continuity is worth something. You’re not explaining your pool’s history to a stranger every time something needs attention. You’re calling the people who built it.
This is the question worth asking, and it deserves a straight answer. The soil in southwestern Laurens County including the area in and around Rentz is clay-heavy, and clay moves. It swells when it’s wet and pulls back when it dries out. That ground movement is real, and yes, it can stress a pool shell that wasn’t built to handle it.
The key word there is “built.” A gunite pool that’s properly engineered for South Georgia soil conditions adequate wall thickness, correct rebar density, a solid bond beam doesn’t crack from normal ground movement. The cracking stories you’ve likely heard are almost always tied to shells that were built too thin or cured too fast, not to the material itself. Gunite has been the standard for custom inground pools for decades precisely because, when it’s done right, it’s one of the most durable structures you can put in the ground. We’ve built pools in Rentz that have held solid through multiple wet seasons and dry spells without a single structural issue.
For a residential gunite pool in the Laurens County area, you’re generally looking at a range of $75,000 to $150,000 depending on size, shape, finish, and what’s included in the surrounding deck and equipment setup. That’s a wide range, and the honest reason for it is that custom pools are genuinely custom a straightforward rectangular build with standard equipment lands differently than a freeform design with a spa, water features, and premium surfacing.
What’s worth understanding is what that number gets you over time. A well-built gunite pool in this part of Georgia adds roughly 7% to your property value and gives you six to seven months of usable outdoor living every year. Annual maintenance typically runs $2,700 to $4,000, and a quality gunite surface holds for ten to fifteen years before it needs resurfacing. When you run those numbers over the life of the pool, the investment holds up especially compared to alternatives that need liner replacements every five to nine years.
If you build with Deep Waters Pools, you don’t touch a permit form. We handle the building permit and the electrical permit through the Laurens County Building Inspection Department and we schedule every required inspection at each phase of the build. You don’t need to research the process or figure out which department handles what.
That matters more than it might seem upfront. Pool construction in Georgia requires a building permit and a separate electrical permit, and Georgia Power and local EMCs will not activate power to your pool equipment without Building Inspection Department approval. That means an unpermitted or improperly permitted build doesn’t just create legal exposure it creates a hard stop before your pool ever turns on. We’ve been through the Laurens County permit process enough times to know exactly what’s required and how to keep things moving without unnecessary delays.
The real timeline for a quality gunite pool from groundbreaking to swim-ready is three to six months. That includes permit processing through Laurens County Building Inspection, excavation, rebar installation, gunite application, curing, plumbing, electrical, surface finishing, and decking. Each phase has its own timeline, and some of them particularly the curing phase simply can’t be rushed without creating problems that show up years later.
Builders who quote eight to twelve weeks are usually either skipping steps or not accounting for the permit and inspection schedule. In Laurens County, permit processing alone takes time, and inspections are required at multiple phases. If you want your pool ready for next summer’s swim season, the best move is to start the conversation now fall and winter are actually the ideal time to begin construction in South Georgia. Permit queues are shorter, crews are more available, and you’re not watching a construction site through your kitchen window during the hottest months of the year.
It depends on what you’re optimizing for, but if long-term durability, design flexibility, and total cost of ownership matter to you, gunite holds up well in the comparison. A properly built gunite pool lasts thirty to fifty years. The shell doesn’t fade, doesn’t pop out of the ground, and doesn’t limit you to a manufacturer’s catalog of preset shapes and sizes. When it’s time to resurface which happens every ten to fifteen years with a quality build you can choose any color or finish you want.
Fiberglass pools have their place, but the claims you’ll see circulating in South Georgia about gunite needing replastering every three to seven years and cracking in Southern soil describe what happens with poorly built pools, not well-built ones. The more useful question isn’t which material is better in the abstract it’s which builder has the experience and the process to build it correctly for your specific property and soil conditions. In southwestern Laurens County, that distinction matters.
Yes and that continuity is something we think is genuinely worth considering when you’re choosing a builder. We offer ongoing maintenance for every pool we build, and we service all major equipment brands including Hayward, Pentair, Jandy, Sta-Rite, and Zodiac. Weekly, monthly, and seasonal programs are available depending on what your pool needs.
The practical value of this for homeowners in Rentz is straightforward. When something needs attention five years after your pool is built, you’re not starting from scratch with a maintenance company that has never seen your pool before. You’re calling the same team that designed the plumbing layout, set the rebar, and finished the surface. We know your pool’s exact configuration which means diagnostics are faster, repairs are more accurate, and you’re not paying someone to figure out what they’re looking at before they can fix it. For a community forty-five miles from our Douglas shop, that relationship and accountability matter just as much after the build as during it.
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