Hear from Our Customers
Most pool buyers in the Upton area aren’t just buying a pool. They’re buying a place for their family to actually use their land a backyard that finally justifies the property they’ve invested in. When the build is done right, that’s exactly what you get: a permanent structure that fits your yard, holds up to South Georgia summers, and doesn’t require you to replace it in ten years.
Tift County gets around 53 inches of rain a year. That’s not a minor detail when you’re excavating and pouring concrete in Coastal Plain soil. The Tifton soil series the loamy sand and sandy clay loam that runs under most of this county drains well on the surface, but it can hide a plinthite hardpan layer deeper down that catches inexperienced builders off guard. A pool that’s engineered around those actual ground conditions will hold its shape and its structure for decades. One that isn’t might not.
The other thing worth knowing: concrete pools don’t degrade the way fiberglass does, and they don’t need liner replacements every seven to ten years the way vinyl pools do. In a part of Georgia where people invest in their property for the long haul, that permanence matters. Your pool should be something you hand down, not something you replace.
We founded Deep Waters Pools in 2014, but the experience behind it goes back more than three decades. The people building your pool came up through concrete, plumbing, and hands-on construction not sales. That background shapes everything from how a project gets designed to how problems get handled when the ground doesn’t cooperate.
We’re based in Douglas and serve a wide stretch of South Georgia, including Tift County and the communities around Tifton. That regional footprint means we know how Coastal Plain soil behaves, how Tift County’s permitting process works through Community Development Services, and what it actually takes to build a pool on a rural acreage lot like those around Upton versus a standard subdivision backyard.
When you call us, you’re talking to people who have seen this specific part of Georgia its soil, its weather, its county offices and built in it. That’s a different conversation than you’ll get from a builder who’s never dug a hole south of Macon.
It starts with a design consultation. You talk through how your family actually uses your outdoor space entertaining, kids, year-round spa use, or all of it and we put together a 3D rendering of your pool in your actual yard. You see what it looks like before anything gets built. No surprises, no “that’s not what I pictured” conversations after the concrete is poured.
Once the design is locked in, permitting starts. For properties in unincorporated Tift County like Upton, that means working through Tift County Community Development Services for the building permit and plan review, plus any required sign-offs from Tift County Environmental Health. We handle all of it the submissions, the responses, the inspections. You don’t have to figure out which county office does what or chase down a permit status on your own.
Construction follows once permits clear. Excavation, steel framework, concrete, plumbing, electrical, decking, and your custom-fitted safety cover all built in sequence, on a timeline you know about upfront. South Georgia’s spring and summer rain patterns can affect scheduling, and we plan around that rather than pretending it won’t happen. When the work is done, you get a walkthrough, a maintenance plan conversation, and a pool that’s ready to use.
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Every pool we build is a custom concrete inground pool designed around your property, engineered for your soil conditions, and built to last. The full scope covers design and 3D rendering, excavation, steel reinforcement, concrete shell, plumbing, electrical, patio installation, and a custom-fitted safety cover that comes with every single build. That last part isn’t an upsell. It’s standard. In a county where nearly a quarter of residents are under 18, that’s not a detail worth leaving to a separate conversation.
For Upton homeowners on larger rural lots, the design possibilities are genuinely different than what a typical subdivision build allows. More space means more options larger pool footprints, attached spas, sun shelves, extended patio areas, water features. We build the whole outdoor environment, not just the pool. If you want a complete backyard setup, that’s a single conversation with one builder, not a coordination project across multiple contractors.
Ongoing maintenance plans are also available after the build. Weekly service keeps your water chemistry balanced and your equipment running without you having to manage it. For property owners in the Tifton area who already have plenty to take care of, handing that off to the same team that built the pool is a straightforward call.
Yes and because Upton is unincorporated, the permit process runs through Tift County rather than a city building department. That means your building permit and plan review go through Tift County Community Development Services, located at 225 Tift Avenue North in Tifton. Depending on the scope of the project, you may also need sign-offs from Tift County Environmental Health, which handles site evaluations for certain installations.
The process involves submitting construction plans, passing a zoning and setback compliance review, and pulling separate electrical and plumbing permits for the pool equipment. It’s not an overwhelming process, but it has specific steps and timelines that can delay a project if they’re not handled correctly from the start. We manage all of it every submission, every response, every inspection so the permit side of your build doesn’t become a separate job you have to manage yourself.
For a custom concrete inground pool in the Tifton and Tift County area, you’re generally looking at a starting range of $70,000 to $90,000 for a straightforward build, with fully custom projects spa, water features, extensive patio, larger footprint running $150,000 and above. The final number depends on the size and shape of the pool, the complexity of the design, the scope of patio and outdoor living work, and the specific conditions of your property.
One thing worth understanding upfront: concrete pools cost more than fiberglass at the outset. That’s true. But fiberglass pools come in fixed shapes you can’t customize, and they degrade over time in ways concrete doesn’t. Vinyl liner pools need full liner replacements every seven to ten years, which adds up fast. When you’re investing in a property in Tift County for the long term, the cost-per-decade math on a concrete pool tends to look very different than the sticker price comparison suggests. We give you a clear number before anything starts not a range that expands after you’ve signed.
It matters more than most people realize. Tift County sits on the Southern Coastal Plain, and the dominant soil here is the Tifton series Georgia’s official state soil. The topsoil is loamy sand, which is easy to excavate. But as you go deeper, you hit sandy clay loam, and deeper still, you can encounter plinthite a reddish, iron-hardened layer in the subsoil that requires the right equipment and planning to get through cleanly.
Unlike the expansive red clay soils of North Georgia, Tifton soils don’t shift dramatically with moisture changes. But the sandy composition of the upper layers means excavation walls need to be properly stabilized during construction, and drainage engineering has to account for the 53 inches of annual rainfall this area receives. A pool built without accounting for those specific conditions the hardpan layer, the drainage patterns, the water table behavior after heavy summer storms is a pool that can develop problems years down the line. We build with those conditions in mind from the design phase forward.
From the initial design consultation to the day you’re swimming, a realistic timeline for a custom concrete inground pool in the Tift County area is typically four to six months, depending on permit processing time and construction scheduling. The permit phase through Tift County Community Development Services adds time that some buyers don’t anticipate plan review and approval isn’t instant, and submitting incomplete paperwork can push the timeline back significantly.
Construction itself excavation, steel, concrete, plumbing, electrical, decking typically runs eight to twelve weeks once permits are in hand. South Georgia’s spring and summer rain patterns can affect scheduling, particularly during the heavy afternoon thunderstorm season from May through September. We build that reality into the project timeline rather than quoting an optimistic number that doesn’t account for weather. The honest answer is that starting the design and permitting process in late fall or early winter gives you the best shot at a pool that’s ready for the full summer season in Upton and the surrounding area.
It’s not an arbitrary choice it’s a position based on what actually holds up over time. Fiberglass pool shells are manufactured off-site in fixed shapes and dropped into an excavated hole. You can’t customize the shape to your yard, and in areas with high annual rainfall like Tift County, a fiberglass shell can experience hydrostatic pressure issues in extreme cases, the shell can actually lift out of the ground during periods of heavy saturation. That’s not a theoretical problem. It happens.
Concrete pools are built in place. The steel reinforcement and concrete shell are formed around your specific property, engineered for your specific soil conditions, and designed to become stronger as the concrete cures over time. There’s no shell to degrade, no liner to replace, and no shape limitation imposed by what a manufacturer happened to produce that season. For an Upton homeowner who wants a pool that fits their land and lasts for decades, concrete is the only material that actually delivers on that expectation.
That’s actually where custom concrete construction does its best work. Rural acreage lots in and around Upton give you space that most subdivision buyers never have room for a larger pool footprint, a full outdoor living area, an attached spa, a sun shelf, extended patio coverage, or all of it together. We design the entire outdoor environment, not just the pool, so if you want a complete backyard setup rather than a rectangle dropped in a field, that’s one conversation with one builder.
Larger rural properties in Tift County also tend to have fewer HOA restrictions than subdivision lots, which means more design freedom. The main considerations on acreage builds are setback compliance with Tift County’s requirements for unincorporated properties, drainage engineering to handle the property’s natural water flow, and equipment placement relative to the pool and the house. We work through all of those details during the design phase so there are no surprises once excavation starts. If you’ve got the land for a serious outdoor build, the process is straightforward it just needs to be planned correctly from the beginning.
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