Hear from Our Customers
Southwest Georgia doesn’t give you a short window. From late March through October sometimes longer the heat and humidity in the Coolidge area make a backyard pool something you actually use, not something you look at twice a summer. That kind of season length changes the math on what a quality pool is worth, and it raises the stakes on building it right the first time.
The soil in this part of Thomas County is the variable most builders don’t talk about. The Coastal Plain ground beneath Coolidge a mix of sandy loam and clay-influenced profiles moves with moisture. It swells when it’s wet and pulls back when it dries out. A pool shell that isn’t engineered for that kind of lateral pressure will show the consequences eventually, usually in the form of cracking or delamination. That’s not a gunite problem. That’s a construction quality problem. When the rebar density, bond beam depth, and wall thickness are all dialed in for local conditions, the shell holds decade after decade.
What you end up with is a pool that doesn’t just survive the South Georgia climate, it’s built for it. No annual anxiety about whether this is the year something shifts. No expensive structural repairs five years in. Just a pool that performs the way it was supposed to, for as long as you own the property.
We were founded in 2014, but the experience behind us goes back more than three decades. The people building your pool spent 30-plus years in concrete, plumbing, and pool construction across south Georgia before we ever launched. That’s not a footnote it means the person engineering your shell has worked in Coolidge’s soil conditions, dealt with Thomas County’s permitting process, and built through every season this climate throws at a construction crew.
We’re based in Douglas, GA, and serve the full south Georgia corridor including Coolidge and the surrounding Thomas County area via U.S. Route 19. Every phase of your build excavation, rebar, gunite shell, plumbing, electrical, finishing, equipment, decking is handled by our own in-house crew. No subcontractors are brought in at any stage. The same team that breaks ground is the same team that hands you the keys.
That’s not a standard approach in this industry. Most builders coordinate separate crews for every phase and call it project management. We call it a quality control problem and built our entire operation around avoiding it.
It starts with a site evaluation and a 3D design rendering of your finished pool. You see the shape, the depth, the features, and how it sits on your specific property before a single shovel moves. That step matters more than people realize it’s what eliminates the “this isn’t what I pictured” conversation after the shell is already in the ground.
Once the design is approved, we handle every permit required for construction in Coolidge. That includes the compliance form from the Coolidge City Clerk a step specific to incorporated cities within Thomas County that many builders don’t know exists until it delays their project plus the county-level building permit through the Thomas County Board of Commissioners’ Inspections and Planning office. Both are handled in-house. You don’t track paperwork or schedule inspectors.
From there, the build follows a defined sequence: excavation, rebar framework, gunite shell application, full curing, plumbing, electrical bonding and grounding per NEC Article 680, surface finishing, equipment installation, and decking. The honest timeline for a quality build in this area is three to six months from permit approval. Builders who quote eight weeks are either cutting corners on curing time or setting you up for disappointment. The best time to start is fall permit queues are shorter, crews are more available, and your pool is ready before the first warm weekend of spring.
Ready to get started?
A Deep Waters build is full-scope, start to finish. That means the 3D design, all permits, excavation, rebar, gunite shell, plumbing, electrical, surface finish, equipment installation, and decking are all part of the same project handled by the same crew, under the same roof. There’s no moment where a stranger shows up to do the part we don’t handle ourselves.
On the equipment side, we install and service Hayward, Pentair, Jandy, Sta-Rite, and Zodiac systems. For Coolidge homeowners, that matters beyond the build itself. The nearest pool supply retail is in Thomasville, and service options thin out quickly the farther you get from the county seat. Having the company that built your pool also service the equipment because we know every pipe we ran and every component we installed is a practical advantage that compounds over the life of the pool.
We also offer residential and commercial gunite pool construction, so whether you’re building on a personal property off U.S. 19 or developing something larger in the Thomas County area, the scope is covered. After the build, we provide ongoing maintenance plans, equipment repair, and pool restoration services. The relationship doesn’t end at the final inspection and in a community the size of Coolidge, that kind of long-term accountability means something.
It’s not a myth but it’s being blamed on the wrong thing. Cracking in gunite pools comes from how the shell was engineered, not from the material itself. In the Coolidge area, the Coastal Plain soil profile includes sandy loam and clay-influenced ground that expands when wet and contracts when dry. That movement creates lateral pressure on pool shells that weren’t built to handle it. The fix isn’t to avoid gunite it’s to build it correctly for the local conditions.
A properly engineered gunite shell accounts for south Georgia’s soil behavior through the right rebar density, adequate wall thickness, and a bond beam designed to absorb ground movement rather than resist it until it fails. Builders who skip those steps, or who apply a generic construction template without adjusting for local soil, are the ones whose pools crack. When the engineering is done right for this specific ground, a gunite pool in Thomas County holds its structural integrity for decades without issue.
The honest answer is three to six months from permit approval, and the permitting process itself adds time that most builders don’t account for when they’re quoting you a timeline. In Coolidge specifically, construction within the city limits requires a compliance form from the Coolidge City Clerk before the county-level building permit can be submitted through the Thomas County Board of Commissioners’ Inspections and Planning office. That’s a two-step process that a builder unfamiliar with Thomas County’s permitting structure may not know about until it’s already caused a delay.
Beyond permits, the gunite shell requires full curing time before the next phase begins. Rushing that step is one of the most common causes of long-term surface problems. Builders who promise eight to twelve weeks are either planning to cut corners on curing or planning to miss that deadline. The best time to start a Coolidge pool is fall permit queues are shorter, construction crews are more available, and a project started in September or October is typically ready for use by late spring.
In practical terms, they’re the same material both are pneumatically applied concrete. The difference is in how the mix is prepared before it reaches the nozzle. Gunite is mixed dry and water is added at the nozzle; shotcrete is mixed wet before application. Both produce the same dense, durable concrete shell when applied correctly by an experienced crew. The debate between them is largely a contractor preference issue, not a quality issue.
What actually matters is the skill of the crew applying it, the thickness of the shell, the rebar framework underneath it, and whether the curing process is given the time it needs. A poorly applied shotcrete shell will fail just as quickly as a poorly applied gunite shell. When you’re evaluating builders in the Thomas County area, ask about rebar spacing, wall thickness, and curing protocol those answers tell you far more about the quality of the finished pool than which application method they prefer.
For a custom gunite pool in the Coolidge and Thomas County area, the realistic range is $75,000 to $150,000 depending on size, shape, features, and site conditions. That range covers design, all permits, excavation, the full shell build, plumbing, electrical, surface finish, equipment, and basic decking. Features like water features, outdoor kitchens, extended decking, automation systems, or spa additions move the number up from there.
A few local factors affect where your project lands in that range. Lot conditions matter a straightforward flat lot off U.S. 19 is easier to excavate than a site with drainage complications or significant vegetation. Equipment selection also moves the number, since there’s meaningful price variation between entry-level and mid-to-high-tier Hayward, Pentair, or Jandy systems. The surface finish you choose plaster, aggregate, or tile is another variable. The best way to get an accurate number for your specific property is a site evaluation, which gives us the information needed to price the job honestly rather than quoting you low to win the bid and adjusting later.
A well-built gunite pool needs resurfacing every ten to fifteen years under normal use conditions. In the Coolidge area, southwest Georgia’s climate does put real demands on pool surfaces. The long swimming season seven-plus months of active use combined with the region’s heat and UV exposure means the chemistry and maintenance of the water matter more here than in markets with shorter seasons. Pools that are consistently balanced and properly maintained routinely reach the fifteen-year mark before resurfacing is needed. Pools that are neglected or chronically over-chlorinated tend to need it sooner, regardless of who built them. The surface material you choose at build time also plays a role standard plaster has a shorter lifespan than aggregate or tile finishes, and that tradeoff is worth discussing during the design phase.
Yes and for Coolidge homeowners, that’s worth thinking about before you choose a builder. The nearest pool supply retail is in Thomasville, roughly ten miles north on U.S. 19, and dedicated pool service companies in a town of this size are limited. When something goes wrong with your equipment or your water chemistry gets off, you want a company that knows your specific pool the equipment we installed, the plumbing we ran, the shell we built not a service crew seeing it for the first time.
We offer weekly, monthly, and seasonal maintenance plans, along with equipment repair and pool restoration services after the build is complete. We service all major equipment brands including Hayward, Pentair, Jandy, Sta-Rite, and Zodiac. For a Coolidge homeowner making a $75,000 to $150,000 investment, having one company responsible for the build and the long-term care of the pool is a practical advantage not just a convenience. It means there’s always someone accountable who knows exactly what’s in the ground under your backyard.
Local Resources
Useful Links
