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A lot of homeowners out here on acreage have the space to build something genuinely custom and most of them end up with a fiberglass shell that was molded in a factory for a quarter-acre suburban lot. That mismatch shows. Concrete pools are designed around your specific yard, your setbacks, your grade, and your vision. There are no preset shapes, no size limits, and no compromises because the mold didn’t come in the right dimensions.
The other thing worth knowing is that South Georgia’s clay-heavy subsoil the kind that runs through northern Coffee County and the land around Sapps Still is not kind to fiberglass pools over time. Clay shifts. It holds water after heavy rain. It creates pressure against pool walls that pre-molded shells were never engineered to handle long-term. A properly built concrete pool, with the right drainage and backfill, is designed specifically for this soil. That’s why the material matters here more than it might somewhere else.
And when you’re looking at a swim season that runs from late March through October or November, the return on a well-built pool is real. Eight months of use per year, on a property your family already loves, changes the math considerably.
We founded Deep Waters Pools in Douglas in 2014 but the experience behind it goes back more than three decades. Before the business existed, our founder spent 30-plus years in concrete construction, plumbing, and custom pool building right here in Coffee County. He didn’t open a pool company to start learning the trade. He already knew it from working on properties throughout the Sapps Still area and beyond.
We started the business, in part, because of what we watched happen to families in this area contractors who took deposits, made promises, and disappeared or delivered something that fell apart within a few years. That’s the problem we were built to solve. No shortcuts, no vague timelines, no surprises buried in a contract.
Douglas is less than 15 miles south of Sapps Still on US 441. When you call, you’re not reaching a regional franchise or a call center. You’re reaching a company that has been building in Coffee County’s soil, working with Coffee County’s permit office, and standing behind our work in this community for over a decade.
It starts with a conversation about your property. Where the pool will sit, how the yard drains, whether you’re on a private septic system that last one matters more than most contractors will tell you upfront. In Coffee County, properties served by a private septic system require Environmental Health approval before a building permit can be issued. That’s to confirm the excavation won’t compromise your drain field. It’s a step a lot of out-of-area contractors miss entirely, and it can create serious problems if it’s skipped.
Once the site is assessed and the design is finalized, we handle the full permit process with Coffee County’s Building and Zoning Department. You don’t have to navigate that yourself. After permit approval, most custom concrete pool builds run eight to twelve weeks from the first dig to the final walkthrough. That’s a real number given at the start not a vague estimate that stretches into the following season.
If something unexpected comes up underground a rock formation, a drainage issue, anything work stops and you hear about it before anything proceeds. When the project wraps, you get a full walkthrough of your equipment and systems, a clean site, and a pool that’s ready to use. Not a construction zone with a manual you have to figure out on your own.
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Every pool we build is custom concrete designed from scratch for your specific property. That means you’re not picking from a catalog of preset shapes and hoping one fits. The design accounts for your lot size, your yard’s natural grade, your setbacks from property lines, and how you actually plan to use the space. Concrete also means the pool gets stronger over time as it cures, not weaker which matters when you’re making a long-term investment in rural land.
A custom safety cover is included as a standard part of every build. On a rural property in northern Coffee County, where kids have more outdoor space and pools aren’t always visible from the road, that’s not an optional add-on. It’s part of the job. We also ensure every pool meets Georgia’s barrier and fencing requirements before the project closes out.
For homeowners with existing pools, we also handle renovation work tile and coping repair, replastering, and equipment upgrades. Pools built in Coffee County in the 1980s and 1990s are now 30 to 40 years old and hitting the point where they need real attention, not just a patch. If your pool is aging out, that’s a conversation worth having before a small issue becomes a structural one.
Yes and because Sapps Still is an unincorporated community, your permit comes from Coffee County’s Building and Zoning Department, not a city building office. Georgia requires a building permit for any inground pool deeper than 24 inches, and Coffee County follows the Georgia State Minimum Standard Swimming Pool and Spa Code throughout the process. That means plan submission, review, and inspections at multiple stages of construction structural steel, plumbing, and a final inspection before the pool can be used.
There’s also an additional step that catches a lot of rural homeowners off guard. If your property is served by a private septic system which is common on acreage lots in the Sapps Still area Coffee County requires Environmental Health review and approval before the building permit is issued. This confirms that the pool excavation won’t interfere with your drain field. We handle the full permit process on your behalf, including coordinating with Environmental Health when needed. You don’t have to figure out the county process yourself.
For most custom concrete pool projects in Coffee County, the build runs eight to twelve weeks from permit approval to completion. That’s the actual construction window not counting the time it takes to finalize your design, submit plans, and receive permit approval from the county, which can add several additional weeks depending on the review queue.
If you’re hoping to be swimming by Memorial Day weekend, the practical advice is to start the process in January or February. That gives enough runway for design, permitting, and construction without rushing anything. We give you that timeline at the start of the project not a vague “before summer” promise that quietly becomes July. If something unexpected comes up during excavation, like a subsurface condition that needs to be addressed, you’ll hear about it immediately and nothing moves forward without your input.
The soil in northern Coffee County is the main reason. The Lower Coastal Plain that runs through the Sapps Still area has clay-heavy subsoils that hold water and shift under pressure especially after periods of heavy rain. Fiberglass pools are pre-molded shells, and they’re particularly vulnerable to hydrostatic pressure in saturated clay soil. In the worst cases, a fiberglass pool can actually lift out of the ground when the surrounding soil becomes waterlogged. A properly engineered concrete pool, built with the right drainage and backfill for this specific soil profile, doesn’t have that problem.
Beyond soil compatibility, concrete gives you complete design freedom. Fiberglass pools come in fixed shapes and sizes determined by whatever the manufacturer produces. If your yard is an unusual shape, has a specific grade, or you want something that doesn’t look like every other pool in a subdivision, concrete is the only material that works without compromise. On a rural property with real acreage around Sapps Still, that flexibility makes a significant difference in what the finished project actually looks like.
Custom concrete inground pools in the Coffee County market generally range from around $60,000 to $100,000 or more depending on size, design complexity, and site conditions. Larger pools with custom features, water elements, or significant grading work will run toward the higher end of that range. Straightforward rectangular or freeform pools on a relatively flat lot will typically come in lower.
One thing worth understanding is total cost of ownership, not just the upfront number. Vinyl liner pools need liner replacement every eight to twelve years that’s a recurring expense that adds up significantly over the life of the pool. Fiberglass pools can develop osmotic blistering and surface issues over time. A well-built concrete pool, properly maintained, can last 30 or more years without major structural expense. For a rural property in Coffee County where you’re making a long-term investment in your land, the per-year cost of a concrete pool over its lifespan is often more favorable than it looks at first glance.
In Coffee County, you’re realistically looking at late March through October or early November roughly seven to eight months of comfortable swimming weather per year. Average summer temperatures in the Douglas area regularly push into the low-to-mid 90s, with heat index values that make a backyard pool genuinely useful, not just a luxury. Even into October, daytime highs in the upper 70s and low 80s keep the water usable well past the point where pool season ends in most of the country.
That extended season changes how you think about the investment. A pool that gets used eight months a year on a property your family already spends time on is a fundamentally different calculation than a pool in a northern state that sits under a cover from October through April. Coffee County’s mild winters also mean you don’t need the same aggressive winterization routine that northern pool owners deal with average January lows hover around 38°F, and hard freezes are infrequent enough that pool equipment can typically remain operational without major cold-weather protection measures.
Yes. A significant number of pools in Coffee County were built in the 1980s and 1990s, which means they’re now 30 to 40 years old and entering the phase where surfaces, tile, coping, and equipment start showing real wear. Replastering, tile and coping repair, and equipment upgrades are all within scope and catching these issues early usually costs considerably less than waiting until the problem becomes structural.
If you have an older pool on a property in the Broxton or northern Coffee County area that’s starting to show its age, it’s worth getting eyes on it before a cosmetic issue turns into a crack or a failing shell. We can assess what the pool actually needs versus what it doesn’t the goal is to give you an honest read on the condition and what makes sense to address, not to recommend a full renovation when a targeted repair will do the job. Reach out and describe what you’re seeing, and we can go from there.
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