The 12 Biggest Mistakes Homeowners Make Before Building a Pool
It's much easier to move something on a drawing than it is after the concrete truck arrives.
That sounds obvious, but it's at the heart of many of the pool regrets homeowners have later. The pool itself may be beautiful. It's the decisions around it they wish they'd handled differently.
Not enough patio. Nowhere for the floats. A beautiful tree that drops approximately 14 million leaves into the water every fall. An equipment pad sitting beside the exact spot that became everyone's favorite place to eat dinner.
Most of these aren't catastrophic mistakes.
They're just annoyances that could have been avoided with a little more planning before construction started.
If you're considering a pool, here are 12 things worth thinking through while they're still easy to change.
1. Choosing the Pool Before Understanding the Yard
It's tempting to find a pool you love online and decide, "That's the one." Your property gets a vote. Slope, drainage, setbacks, septic systems, easements, utilities, existing trees, sun exposure and construction access can all affect what makes sense. Start with the property. Then find the pool design that works beautifully within it.
2. Underestimating How Much Patio You'll Use
This one is incredibly common. A pool can look like it has plenty of decking on a plan until you put actual furniture on it. A dining table requires room for chairs to slide out. Loungers are surprisingly long. People need room to walk around furniture without squeezing along the pool edge. Before settling on patio dimensions, map out the furniture you expect to use at roughly its real size. You may discover that another few feet in the right place matters much more than additional patio everywhere.
3. Waiting Until the Pool Is Finished to Think About Landscaping
Landscaping affects privacy, drainage, shade, maintenance and how finished the entire project feels. Waiting until construction is over can also mean working around completed patios, irrigation, utilities and other features that could have been coordinated earlier. Even if you plan to install landscaping in phases, create the landscape plan before the pool goes in. Future-you will be grateful.
4. Putting the Equipment Wherever It's Easiest
Pool equipment has to go somewhere. That doesn't mean it should go somewhere you'll see—or hear—it every time you sit outside. Think about sightlines from the house, primary seating areas and bedrooms. Screening can help, but equipment also needs ventilation and service access, so don't box it into an impossibly tight corner. A good location considers both function and everyday life around the pool.
5. Ignoring the 5 P.M. Sun
Visit the backyard at different times of day before finalizing your plan. That gorgeous sunny patio at 10 a.m. may be absolutely cooking at 5 p.m. in July. Knowing where morning and afternoon sun fall can influence the placement of the pool, loungers, outdoor dining area, pavilion, pergola and landscaping. You probably want sunshine on the water.You may not want it directly in your face while you're eating dinner.
6. Forgetting Where All the Pool Stuff Will Go
Pools acquire belongings remarkably quickly. Floats. Towels. Goggles. Pool noodles. Cleaning equipment. Toys. Chemicals. Life jackets. Before long, the collection needs a home. Planning a storage bench, cabinet, pool house, shed or other dedicated storage before construction can prevent the patio from becoming permanent float parking. And pool chemicals need appropriate storage away from children and incompatible products, so this isn't purely an aesthetic consideration.
7. Treating Lighting Like Decoration
Lighting isn't just something pretty to add after everything else is finished. It's part of how you'll use the backyard. Think about steps, walkways, outdoor cooking areas, changes in elevation, landscaping, seating areas and the route from the pool back to the house. Planning wiring and fixture locations during construction is generally much easier than trying to retrofit everything later.
8. Planting the Wrong Things Near the Water
That gorgeous tree at the nursery may be less charming when it's dropping leaves, flowers, berries or seed pods into your skimmer. Before planting near a pool, consider mature size, root behavior, seasonal debris, thorns, insect attraction and how the plant handles reflected heat from surrounding hardscapes. The goal is landscaping you enjoy looking at—not landscaping you spend every Saturday fishing out of the water.
9. Spending the Entire Budget on Construction
Your pool doesn't come with lounge chairs. Or a dining table. Or umbrellas. Or towels. Or landscaping. Or the outdoor kitchen you suddenly realize would be fantastic once you're spending every evening outside. Decide what your complete backyard budget looks like rather than allocating every dollar to the pool itself. You don't need to build everything immediately, but knowing what comes next helps you make smarter choices now.
10. Forgetting About Future You
Your backyard should work for the family you have today, but it's worth thinking about who will use it five or ten years from now. Toddlers become teenagers. Teenagers bring friends. Eventually there may be grandchildren. Parents and grandparents may need easier entry into the water. Features like wide steps, handrails, generous walkways, shaded seating and easy transitions between areas can make the space comfortable for more people and more stages of life.
11. Not Planning for Things You Might Add Later
Maybe the outdoor kitchen isn't in this year's budget. That doesn't mean you can't prepare for it. The same applies to a future pavilion, fire feature, spa, landscape lighting, speakers or additional electrical needs. Discuss future plans before construction. Running conduit, sleeves, gas lines or utilities while areas are already open can be far simpler than cutting through finished hardscape later. You don't have to build everything now. You just don't want to accidentally make tomorrow's project harder.
12. Assuming Every Pool Quote Includes the Same Things
This may be the most expensive assumption on the list. Two proposals with very different prices may not be quoting the same project. Ask what's included in excavation, grading, decking, equipment, electrical work, cleanup, startup and other parts of construction. Ask what isn't included. Ask how changes are handled once work begins. Don't compare the number at the bottom until you understand what's above it. A detailed proposal isn't just helpful for choosing a contractor. It helps prevent unpleasant surprises after construction begins.
The Best Time to Solve a Pool Problem Is Before You Have One
Nobody needs to have every detail of a backyard figured out before calling a pool builder. That's part of what we're here for. What matters is looking beyond the water early enough to make good decisions about the property as a whole. At Cool Breeze Pools, we build pools, hardscapes, landscaping and complete outdoor living spaces throughout Augusta and the CSRA. That gives us the opportunity to think about how everything will work together before construction begins. Because we'd much rather hear, "I'm so glad we thought of that," than "I wish we'd thought of that."