Swimming Pool Construction

What’s included

• Excavation and shell construction
• Tiling and coping
• Filtration and plant installation
• Infinity edges, spas, and water features
• Pool renovation and re-plumbing

Who this is for

Homeowners adding a pool to a new or existing property, and owners of older pools needing renovation rather than a full rebuild.

Building a pool that lasts in this ground

Pool failures here are almost always structural or hydraulic rather than cosmetic. Reactive soils move, water tables rise through the wet season, and a shell engineered without accounting for either will crack regardless of how good the tiling is. We design the shell for the ground it is going into, which means the soil conditions get established before the price is fixed.

Plant and filtration is the other half of the job and the half that gets neglected. An undersized pump, a plant room with no ventilation, or pipework run without thought to head loss produces a pool that is expensive to run and never quite clear. We size plant against the actual volume and turnover, and bury plant rooms out of sight — at Belgravia the entire plant room sits sub-grade beneath the lawn so nothing interrupts the garden.

Load-shedding matters here too. A filtration cycle that assumes uninterrupted power will not deliver the turnover it was designed for, so we programme run times around realistic supply and, where it is worth it, run the plant off the property’s backup or solar system.

How we run it

1. 01

   Siting, levels and ground conditions

   Where the pool goes relative to sun, wind and the house, and what the ground is actually like. Soil conditions and water table set the shell design and therefore the price.

2. 02

   Design and engineering

   Shell design, coping and surround levels, and the hydraulic design for plant and filtration — sized against real volume and turnover rather than a standard package.

3. 03

   Excavation and shell

   Excavation, steel, and the reinforced shell, built for the ground conditions established at survey.

4. 04

   Plant room and pipework

   Plant room — buried or concealed where the garden allows — with pipework sized for the run and ventilation that lets the equipment survive.

5. 05

   Tiling, coping and surrounds

   Internal finish, coping and the paving or decking around it, detailed so levels run flush where they should.

6. 06

   Commissioning and handover

   Filling, balancing, commissioning the plant and showing you how to run it, with the snag list closed before handover.

Common questions

How long does it take to build a swimming pool?

Typically three to five months from excavation to commissioning, depending on size, shell complexity and the surrounds. Infinity edges and flush-set spas add time over a conventional rectangular pool.

Do you build pools without doing the rest of the garden?

Yes, pools run as a standalone service. We do find levels work out better when the pool and its surrounds are delivered together, because coping, paving and lawn all have to meet correctly.

Can you renovate an existing pool?

Yes — retiling, re-plumbing, new filtration and coping replacement, including pools where the original plant was undersized or badly sited.

Where does the plant room go?

Out of sight wherever the site allows, including fully sub-grade beneath lawn. It still needs ventilation and access, so the position is designed rather than left to the end.