Hear from Our Customers
Most homeowners in Cadwell aren’t buying a pool on impulse. You’ve thought about it, saved for it, and now you need to know the investment is going to hold up. A properly built gunite pool engineered to your specific lot, not pulled off a shelf is a structure that gets stronger as it cures. Thirty-plus years of reliable use is realistic. That’s just what concrete does when it’s done correctly.
Out here on the southwestern edge of Laurens County, your lot is probably bigger than anything a suburban buyer deals with. That matters. It means you have room for a pool that’s actually designed around how your family uses the space not a compromise shape squeezed into a tight backyard. And with Middle Georgia summers running hot and humid from April through October, that’s seven months of real use every year. The pool pays for itself in ways a spreadsheet can’t fully capture.
The other thing worth saying: Cadwell sits near the Ocmulgee River corridor, and the soil and drainage conditions in this area vary more than people expect. A builder who evaluates your specific site before excavation begins not one who shows up and digs without looking is the difference between a pool that performs for decades and one that gives you problems in year three.
We were founded in 2014, but our founder spent more than 30 years working in concrete, plumbing, and pool construction before that first shovel ever hit Georgia soil under our company name. When we show up to your property off SR 117, you’re not getting someone learning the trade on your job. You’re getting someone who’s already solved the problems your build is likely to present.
We’re based in Douglas and serve communities across Middle and Southeast Georgia including Laurens County, Cadwell, and the surrounding area between Dublin and Eastman. We build only custom gunite pools. Not fiberglass. Not vinyl liner. One thing, done at a level we’re willing to put our name on.
Every permit gets pulled in our name. The same crew that digs your pool installs your plumbing and finishes your deck. No handoffs, no strangers on your property halfway through the job. That’s not a policy we advertise it’s just how we operate.
It starts with a site evaluation. Before anything is designed or priced, we look at your property the grade, the drainage, the proximity to any low-lying areas near the Ocmulgee corridor that might affect excavation or shell engineering. In Cadwell, that step isn’t a formality. It’s how we make sure the build is right for your specific lot, not just right in general.
From there, we move into design. You’ll see a 3D model of your pool before a single permit is filed. Once you’re locked in on the layout, we handle every permit required through the Laurens County Building Inspection Department including the land disturbing activity permit that pool excavation triggers under the county’s soil erosion ordinance. You don’t make phone calls. We do.
Excavation comes next, followed by the rebar cage installation. Georgia requires an inspection of that rebar before gunite is applied we schedule it, we’re there for it, and we don’t move forward until it passes. Then comes gunite application, plumbing, NEC Article 680-compliant electrical bonding and grounding, equipment installation, and deck work. The same crew handles all of it. When we hand you the keys, the pool is finished including your custom safety cover, which comes standard with every build.
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One of the most common complaints in pool construction is the gap between what the contract said and what the final invoice showed. Change orders for deck work. Surprise costs for electrical. Permit fees nobody mentioned upfront. We write a complete, itemized scope before excavation begins and that scope covers everything: the gunite shell, all swimming pool plumbing, NEC-compliant electrical, equipment installation, pool deck, and your custom safety cover. No line items that appear later.
For Cadwell homeowners, that transparency matters more than it might in a larger market. When a pool represents a significant portion of your property’s value, you need to know exactly what you’re committing to before you commit. The median home value in this area sits around $142,000. A pool is a serious investment relative to that and it should be treated like one, with a contract that reflects the full scope, not a low number designed to win the bid.
Beyond the build itself, we also offer pool maintenance, equipment service, and renovation work for existing pools. If you’re in the Dublin or Eastman area and have a pool that was built years ago and is showing its age, we can evaluate what it needs. But for most Cadwell homeowners coming to this page, the conversation starts with new pool project management and that’s where we spend most of our time.
Yes and there’s more than one permit involved. Pool construction in Cadwell falls under Laurens County’s building permit jurisdiction, which means you’ll need a building permit through the Laurens County Building Inspection Department. But excavation also triggers a separate land disturbing activity permit under the county’s Soil Erosion and Sedimentation Control Ordinance. That’s a step a lot of homeowners don’t know about until it slows down their project.
Georgia also requires a mandatory inspection of the rebar cage before gunite can be applied no exceptions. That inspection has to be scheduled, passed, and documented before the next phase begins. We manage every permit and inspection in-house, under our name. You don’t have to track down the right department or figure out which form to file. We’ve done this in Laurens County before, and we handle it from start to finish.
Gunite pool pricing in Georgia typically starts in the $60,000–$80,000 range for a custom build and can go higher depending on size, depth, deck scope, and features like a spa or water elements. Every project is different, which is why we don’t publish a flat price but we also don’t believe in low-balling a number to win the job and making it up later in change orders.
What we do is write a complete, itemized scope before anything starts. Every line item is accounted for: shell, plumbing, electrical, equipment, deck, and safety cover. For Cadwell homeowners where a pool can represent 30–50% of a home’s current value, that kind of upfront clarity isn’t optional it’s the baseline. You should know exactly what you’re building and what it costs before you sign anything. That’s how we operate on every project.
A typical custom gunite pool build runs 8 to 12 weeks from permit approval to completion, assuming no major weather delays. In Middle Georgia, rain is a real scheduling factor Cadwell sees around 50 inches of precipitation annually, and heavy rainfall can push back excavation or delay gunite application. We factor weather into our scheduling from the start and communicate clearly when it affects the timeline.
The good news is that Georgia’s mild winters mean pool construction isn’t a seasonal-only window. If you sign a contract in the fall, you can realistically have your pool ready before summer. We don’t recommend waiting until March to start the conversation if you want to be swimming by Memorial Day the permitting and design process takes time, and getting ahead of it is always the right move for Cadwell homeowners planning around the swim season.
Gunite is a concrete-based pool shell that’s engineered and applied on-site, directly to your lot, in any shape or size you want. Vinyl liner pools use a pre-formed steel or polymer frame with a vinyl liner stretched over it. They’re less expensive upfront, but that liner needs to be replaced every 10 to 15 years and replacement costs add up quickly over the life of the pool.
Gunite pools, when properly built, don’t have that recurring cost. The shell gets stronger as it cures over time, and with correct water chemistry and maintenance, a well-built gunite pool is a 30-plus-year structure. For Cadwell homeowners who are building for the long term not flipping a house in two years gunite is the better investment. It also gives you complete design freedom. We build only gunite, and only custom because that’s the version worth building.
Larger rural lots are actually ideal for custom gunite pool construction and Cadwell homeowners tend to have exactly that. More land means more design freedom: you’re not constrained by tight setbacks, HOA rules, or a small backyard that forces a compromise on the pool’s shape or footprint. If you want a longer swim lane, a deeper end, a generous sun shelf, or a pool deck with real space around it, a one-to-five-acre lot gives you room to build it right.
The main thing to evaluate on rural properties is drainage and soil conditions, especially on lots near the Ocmulgee River corridor where water table and saturation levels can vary. That’s why we do a site evaluation before design begins not after. Understanding what’s happening beneath your property affects how the shell is engineered and how excavation is planned. It’s not a complicated issue when you know what to look for, but it’s the kind of thing an out-of-area contractor who doesn’t know this part of Laurens County is likely to miss.
It can, though the value increase in a rural market like Cadwell works differently than in a suburban one. Industry estimates typically put the resale value bump from a pool at around 5–7% of the home’s value. On a $142,000 home, that’s roughly $7,000–$10,000 in added equity meaningful, but not the whole story.
The stronger case for a pool in Cadwell is lifestyle ROI, not resale math. You’re looking at seven months of usable swim season in Middle Georgia April through October on a property you plan to keep. That’s years of your family using your own backyard instead of driving to a public pool or planning around someone else’s schedule. And because gunite pools are built to last 30-plus years without the recurring cost of liner replacement, the long-term value calculation looks very different than it does with a cheaper alternative. For most Cadwell homeowners, the decision isn’t really about what it does to the Zillow estimate it’s about what it does to the next two decades of summers on your property.
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