Hear from Our Customers
Southwest Georgia doesn’t give you a two-month summer. From April through October, the heat index in Smithville regularly climbs past 100°F. A custom inground pool isn’t a luxury in this climate it’s a practical investment in how your family spends the better part of the year. When it’s done right, it gets used constantly.
Most of Smithville’s residential properties sit on acreage real land with real character, not a tight suburban backyard. That means your pool can actually be designed around your property, not squeezed into it. Gunite construction gives you that flexibility. Any shape, any depth, any footprint. The pool fits your yard, not the other way around.
There’s also the long-term value side of it. Smithville’s median home price sits around $199,900. A properly built gunite pool adds roughly 7% to your property value that’s close to $14,000 in equity on a home at that price point. It’s a permanent structural improvement that’s there when you sell, when you refinance, and every summer in between.
We were founded in 2014, but our founder spent over 30 years working in concrete, plumbing, and pool construction before opening our doors. That experience doesn’t sit in a brochure it shows up in how we evaluate your Smithville property, how we engineer for Lee County’s clay-bearing soils, and how we manage every phase of your build without handing it off to strangers.
We serve communities throughout Southeast and Southwest Georgia, including Lee County and the Albany MSA. We know the soil conditions around the Flint River watershed that affects Smithville and the surrounding area. We know Lee County’s permit requirements inside and out. We know what can go wrong when a builder skips the site evaluation or lets a subcontractor run a phase they’ve never seen before.
Every pool we build is handled by the same crew, start to finish. No subcontractors, no handoffs, no gaps in accountability. In a community like Smithville where people talk and word travels that’s the only way we’d want to operate.
It starts with a site visit. Before anything is designed or priced, we come out to your property and actually look at it. Lee County’s soils include clay-bearing layers that expand and contract with moisture properties near Muckaloochee Creek and the surrounding drainage corridors can also have water table variables that affect how deep we excavate and how we engineer the shell. We account for all of that before a shovel goes in the ground.
Once the design is finalized and the permit is pulled we handle that entirely, including Lee County’s enclosure permit requirement excavation begins. Our crew digs the site, installs the plumbing, sets the rebar cage (which requires a mandatory inspection before gunite is applied under Georgia building code), and then applies the gunite shell. Every one of those phases is handled by the same team.
After the shell cures, we move into finishing: tile, coping, decking, and interior surface. Your custom safety cover is included as a standard part of the build not an add-on. Final inspection, certificate of compliance, and you’re done. The whole active construction process typically runs six to eight weeks once permits are in hand, and we keep you informed throughout so you’re never left wondering where things stand.
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When you hire us, you’re not managing a general contractor who farms out phases to whoever’s available. Gunite pool building, pool excavation, swimming pool plumbing, pool deck installation, and full project management from permit to final inspection it all stays in-house. That’s not a selling point we invented. It’s how we’ve built every pool we’ve ever built.
On the permitting side, Lee County has specific requirements that catch a lot of homeowners off guard. A permanent enclosure a fence or barrier must be in place and an enclosure permit must be posted before your pool can receive its certificate of compliance. Permits are also voided if inspections aren’t scheduled within six months of issuance. We manage all of it: the building permit, the enclosure permit coordination, the inspection scheduling, and the Notice of Commencement required for projects over $5,000. You don’t make a single call to the Lee County Building Inspection Department.
Every build also includes NEC Article 680 electrical bonding and grounding as a baseline standard not an upgrade and a custom safety cover sized to your specific pool. For families in Smithville with acreage lots, open land, and kids who spend time outdoors, that cover matters. It’s part of every build because it should be.
Yes completely. We pull the permit in our name, manage the inspection schedule, and coordinate the enclosure permit that Lee County requires before your pool can receive its final certificate of compliance. A lot of homeowners in Smithville don’t find out about the enclosure requirement until late in the project, which can delay the finish and add unexpected cost if it hasn’t been planned for. We walk you through that requirement at the start, not the end.
Lee County also voids permits if no inspection is made within six months of issuance, or if six months pass between inspections. That’s a hard rule that requires active project management not something you want to discover after the fact. We track the inspection timeline on every job and make sure nothing lapses. From the Notice of Commencement (required for projects over $5,000) to the final sign-off, it’s all handled on our end.
Active construction on a custom gunite pool typically runs six to eight weeks from the day excavation starts. That covers excavation, plumbing rough-in, rebar cage installation, the mandatory rebar inspection required under Georgia building code, gunite application and cure time, tile and coping, deck work, interior surface, and final inspection. It’s a real process with real steps anyone quoting you a two-week timeline on a gunite pool is cutting corners somewhere.
The part that adds time before construction starts is permitting. Lee County’s permit process typically adds two to eight weeks depending on current volume at the building department. If you’re planning to have a pool ready for summer in Smithville, the right time to start the conversation is late winter January or February at the latest for a Memorial Day target. We’ll give you a realistic timeline upfront based on where things stand with the county at the time you’re ready to move forward.
Lee County sits in the Flint River watershed, and the soils in this part of southwest Georgia include clay-bearing layers that expand and contract as moisture levels change. That movement is a real structural concern for inground pools. A fiberglass shell is manufactured off-site in a fixed shape and set into an excavated hole if the soil shifts, the shell shifts with it. There’s no engineering for your specific site because the shell was never designed for your site.
Gunite is different. The shell is built in place, on your property, after we’ve evaluated the actual soil and drainage conditions of your specific lot. The rebar cage is engineered for the site, the gunite is applied to that cage, and the result is a structure that’s designed to handle what’s underneath it. A properly built gunite pool in Lee County will last 30 or more years. Fiberglass pools typically require resurfacing every 10 to 15 years and aren’t engineered for the soil variability you’ll find in this part of Georgia.
A custom gunite pool in Smithville and Lee County typically starts in the $60,000 to $80,000 range for a standard residential build, depending on size, shape, depth, deck material, and any additional features like water elements or upgraded interior finishes. Larger or more complex designs will run higher. We give you a detailed, itemized quote after the site visit not a ballpark number over the phone because the actual cost of your pool depends on what’s on your specific property.
One thing worth keeping in mind for Smithville specifically: with a median home price around $199,900, a well-built pool represents a significant percentage of your home’s value. That’s exactly why the quality of the build matters. A pool that cracks, shifts, or needs major repairs in year five isn’t a bargain at any price. Pool-specific financing is also available through lenders like Lyon Financial, with terms up to 20 or 30 years, which makes the monthly cost more manageable for most families without stretching the budget uncomfortably.
Yes, and acreage lots are actually where gunite construction has the clearest advantage. Larger rural properties in Smithville often have irregular drainage patterns, variable soil across the lot, and in some cases proximity to drainage corridors that feed into Muckaloochee Creek and the broader Flint River watershed. Those variables affect where the pool should be placed, how deep excavation should go, and how the structure should be engineered.
We do a site evaluation before any design work begins. That visit lets us assess drainage, soil conditions, setback requirements under Lee County’s zoning code, and the best placement for both function and safety. Some lots need minor grading adjustments around the pool deck to manage runoff others are straightforward. Either way, you get a clear picture of what your specific property requires before you commit to anything. There are no surprises buried in the fine print after the contract is signed.
It does, and the data backs it up. Georgia real estate data points to roughly a 7% increase in property value when a pool is added on a Smithville home priced around $199,900, that’s approximately $14,000 in added equity. That’s a real return on a real investment, not just a lifestyle upgrade.
The other side of the value question is how long you plan to stay. Smithville draws families who are specifically choosing Lee County for the schools, the space, and the lower cost of living people who are planting roots, not staging a quick sale. For that buyer, a pool isn’t just about resale. It’s about how your family spends seven months of the year on your own property. The heat in southwest Georgia from June through August is serious. A pool that’s well-built, properly permitted, and maintained correctly will be used hard for decades and in a town where people know each other and talk, the families who have them tend to be glad they built one.
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