Hear from Our Customers
When the temperature climbs past 90 in Ellenton and it does, for months your outdoor space either becomes the place everyone wants to be or the place nobody uses. A custom inground pool changes that math completely. You stop dreading the summer and start planning around it.
One thing that makes pool design in Ellenton different from the suburbs up north is that you likely have real land to work with. That acreage isn’t just grass to mow it’s room for a design that actually fits your life. A tanning ledge for the kids, a water feature that adds something to the whole yard, a patio that flows naturally from the back door to the water’s edge. That’s a different conversation than fitting a rectangle into a 60-foot suburban lot.
The other thing worth knowing is that Ellenton sits in Tifton soil country well-drained, sandy loam that doesn’t swell and shift the way red clay does further north. That’s genuinely good news for pool construction longevity. But “good soil” doesn’t mean “no engineering required.” The right builder designs for what’s actually under your yard, not what they assume is there. That’s what separates a pool that holds up for 30 years from one that starts showing problems at year five.
Deep Waters Pools was formally established in 2014, but our team had already spent more than three decades doing hands-on concrete, plumbing, and pool construction work across South Georgia. That’s not a marketing angle it’s just the timeline. By the time we incorporated, the experience was already there.
We’re based in Douglas and serve the broader South Georgia region, including Colquitt County and the communities around Ellenton and Norman Park. We handle the full scope of a pool project: custom design, permitting through the Colquitt County Compliance Department in Moultrie, construction, and final inspection sign-off. You don’t have to chase down a single form or inspector.
What actually sets us apart from the fiberglass companies serving the Ellenton area is the material itself. Concrete pools are designed and built from scratch your shape, your features, your vision. No catalog. No shell that gets dropped in and called custom. If you’ve been thinking about what your backyard could actually become, that distinction matters.
It starts with a conversation about your property and what you want from it. Not a sales pitch an actual discussion about how you use your outdoor space, what your yard looks like, and what kind of pool design makes sense for your situation. From there, we build out a 3D rendering so you can see the finished design before anything gets built. You can adjust the shape, move features around, change materials, and see the results in real time. What you approve is what gets built no surprises on the back end.
Once the design is locked in, we pull permits through the Colquitt County Compliance Department in Moultrie. We manage that entire process, including scheduling the site inspections that are required at multiple stages of construction. For most homeowners in Ellenton, this is the part of the project they least want to deal with and it’s handled entirely without them having to make a single call to the county.
Construction on a custom concrete pool typically runs six to eight weeks depending on design complexity and weather. South Georgia’s summer thunderstorm pattern is a real factor in scheduling concrete and excavation work, and our experienced crew plans around it rather than being caught off guard by it. The best time to start the design process is fall or winter, so you’re swimming by March or April right when Ellenton’s outdoor season kicks back into gear.
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Our custom pool design covers the full picture not just the pool shell. That includes infinity edge pools for properties with a natural grade or view worth framing, tanning ledges, integrated spas, and custom water features like waterfalls, fountains, and grottos. Landscape pool integration is part of the conversation from the beginning, so the finished product connects to the rest of your yard rather than sitting in the middle of it like an afterthought.
For homeowners in northeastern Colquitt County who own larger rural properties around Ellenton, this is where the real opportunity is. You have the space to design something that genuinely transforms how your family spends time at home. Outdoor living spaces covered patios, hardscape, connections to an outdoor kitchen can be incorporated into the design so everything flows together. The pool becomes the anchor, not the whole story.
Every pool we build also includes a custom-fitted safety cover sized to the pool’s exact dimensions. That’s not a standard feature you’ll find everywhere, and for families with children or grandchildren in a rural community like Ellenton, it’s not a small thing. Our design process also accounts for Colquitt County’s specific permitting requirements, so what gets designed is always buildable under the county’s compliance standards no redesigns after the permit office weighs in.
Yes any pool construction in Ellenton falls under Colquitt County’s permitting jurisdiction, administered by the Colquitt County Compliance Department in Moultrie. Since Ellenton is a small incorporated town without its own standalone building department, all residential construction permits including pools go through the county compliance office.
The process involves a building permit application before any excavation begins, along with site inspections at key stages of construction: before digging, during the structural and electrical work, and a final inspection before the pool can be filled. Under Georgia law, any construction project over $2,500 requires a licensed residential contractor, and pools are well above that threshold. We manage the entire permitting process on your behalf application, documentation, and inspection scheduling so you never have to navigate the county compliance office yourself.
For a custom concrete inground pool in the Colquitt County area, most projects fall somewhere in the $60,000 to $90,000 range depending on size, shape, and what features are included. More complex designs infinity edges, integrated spas, custom water features, extensive hardscape will push that number higher, while a clean, well-designed pool without a lot of add-ons can come in at the lower end.
What’s worth understanding is how that investment actually performs in a warm-climate market like South Georgia. Inground pools add roughly 7% to 10% or more to home value in states like Georgia, where buyers actively search for homes with pools and the outdoor season is long enough to make a pool genuinely usable. The National Association of Realtors has estimated homeowners recover around $50,400 at resale on a $90,000 pool installation and that figure improves with higher-end custom designs. For a homeowner in Ellenton who plans to stay in their property, the value calculation goes well beyond what shows up at closing.
Construction on a custom concrete pool typically takes six to eight weeks from the time the permit is issued and excavation begins. That timeline can stretch depending on design complexity, site conditions, and weather South Georgia’s afternoon thunderstorm season during summer months is a real scheduling factor for excavation and concrete work, and a builder who doesn’t account for it will fall behind.
The smarter approach for homeowners in Ellenton is to start the design conversation in fall or early winter. That gives time for the 3D design review, permit approval through the Colquitt County Compliance Department, and construction to complete before the outdoor season hits its stride in March or April. If you wait until May to start the process, you’re likely looking at mid-summer at the earliest and in Ellenton’s heat, that’s a long wait for something you could have been using for months.
The core difference is design freedom. Fiberglass pools are manufactured in a factory as pre-molded shells you pick a shape from a catalog, and that shell gets dropped into your yard. The shapes are fixed, the sizes are limited, and there’s no meaningful ability to customize the design beyond color and a few add-on options. For a homeowner with a straightforward rectangular pool in mind, fiberglass can work fine. But if your vision goes beyond that, you’re constrained by what the manufacturer already built.
Concrete pools also called gunite pools are designed and constructed on your property from scratch. The shape, size, depth profile, water feature placement, tanning ledge dimensions, and integration with your patio or landscaping are all decisions you make during the design process. That’s why concrete is the only realistic option for infinity edge pools, freeform shapes, and truly custom outdoor living designs. For Ellenton homeowners with the land to build something substantial, that flexibility is the entire point.
Yes and rural properties in northeastern Colquitt County are often well-suited for it. An infinity edge, also called a vanishing edge or zero edge, works best when there’s a natural grade change or a view worth framing at the far end of the pool. Many rural properties around Ellenton have exactly that: a yard that slopes toward a tree line, a field, or an open horizon that creates a natural visual payoff for the infinity effect.
The design process for an infinity edge pool requires more detailed site evaluation than a standard pool the grade, drainage, and structural engineering all need to account for the recirculating water system that makes the effect work. That’s not a reason to avoid it; it’s just a reason to work with a builder who has done it before and knows what the site needs to support it correctly. We design infinity edge pools as part of our custom concrete work, and the 3D rendering process lets you see exactly how the finished edge will look against your specific property before construction begins.
Ellenton sits in Tifton soil country the same well-drained, sandy loam soil series that dominates much of South Georgia and is actually named for the city of Tifton in neighboring Tift County. Unlike the red clay soils you find further north in Georgia, Tifton soils don’t swell and shrink significantly as they wet and dry. That’s genuinely favorable for pool construction it reduces the risk of the kind of seasonal soil movement that can stress a pool shell over time.
That said, “favorable soil” doesn’t mean a pool can be built without proper engineering. Drainage design, reinforced steel frameworks, and the right concrete application methods still matter significantly for a pool that holds up for 20 to 30 years. The specific drainage patterns on your property, how water moves across your yard during Colquitt County’s heavy summer rain events, and the depth at which stable soil is found all factor into how the pool is engineered. A builder who treats every South Georgia site the same regardless of what’s actually under the yard is cutting corners that show up later. The right approach is to evaluate your specific lot before finalizing the design which is exactly how we start every project.
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