How a Custom Pool Gets Built, Phase by Phase
Most homeowners researching a pool build want to know two things: how long it takes, and what the steps are.
Both are reasonable questions and we'll answer both. But after thirty years of building pools in North Texas, there's a more useful way to think about a construction schedule, and it's this:
A pool build is a sequence of closing doors.
Every phase covers the one before it. Steel gets buried in gunite. Plumbing gets buried in gunite and then again under decking. Gunite gets covered in tile, coping, and plaster. By the time your pool is full of water, almost everything that determines whether it lasts twenty years or leaks in five is permanently out of sight.
That's why the order matters more than the calendar. A builder who is rushing isn't just being fast — they're closing doors before the work behind them has been verified. And once a door closes, opening it again costs real money.
So here is what actually happens, phase by phase, with an honest note at each stage about what's being decided and what stops being changeable.
Phase 1: Consultation and site walk
The first meeting should happen in your backyard, not in a showroom.
Someone from our design team walks your property with you. We're measuring dimensions and elevation, and we're looking hard at one thing homeowners rarely think about: access. How do we get equipment into your backyard? Through a gate, between houses, around a corner? Is there a fence to remove, a tree in the way, a neighbor's easement to respect?
Access drives cost more than almost any other site condition, and it's invisible on a satellite photo.
We're also talking about what you actually want — how you'll use the pool, who's swimming, whether you entertain, whether small children are in the picture, and what your budget genuinely is. That last one goes better when it's honest in both directions. For context, a fairly basic inground pool in the DFW area generally starts in the $80,000 to $90,000 range and moves up from there with size, depth, features, decking, elevation change, and access difficulty.
What's being decided: scope and feasibility. What's still open: essentially everything.
Phase 2: Design and material selection
This is the phase where you have the most control and the least risk, so take your time in it.
Our designers build a custom 3D rendering of your pool — landscaping, decking, hardscape, the whole backyard, viewable interactively before anything is dug. You review and revise until it matches what you had in your head. Changes here cost nothing but time.
You're also selecting materials: tile, coping, stone, water features, and any optional systems like automation, heating, or grill cabinets. We hand homeowners the NPT tile catalogue at this stage so you can see real options rather than guessing from a screen.
Two things worth understanding now rather than later:
Your plaster choice determines your water colour. Not your tile, not your lighting — the plaster. We use pebble finishes, and you can personalise further with glass beads or abalone shell.
Your coping is a material decision with a maintenance consequence. Travertine, marble, basalt, flagstone, and precast concrete all behave differently over twenty North Texas summers.
What's being decided: the entire design and every material. What's closing: nothing yet — this is your last phase of free changes.
Phase 3: Permits, engineering, and HOA approval
This is the phase that most often surprises people, because nothing visible happens and it still takes weeks.
Pool construction is subject to city and county code, and we handle the submittals: site plans to your municipality and to utility providers, engineered plans, and HOA or neighbourhood applications where they apply.
Requirements and turnaround vary considerably from one city to the next — permitting in Collin County is not one process but several, and your HOA's architectural committee runs on its own schedule regardless of what the city does.
Budget two to four weeks for design and permitting together, and understand that this is the least predictable stretch of the whole project. A municipality's queue is not something any builder controls, and a builder who promises you a permit date is telling you something about how they handle information.
What's being decided: the legal and engineering basis of the build. What's closing: the approved plan. Changes after this can mean re-submittal.
Phase 4: Dig day
Excavation is the day the project becomes real, and it's genuinely exciting to watch.
Heavy machinery arrives, the shape is staked from the approved design, and your backyard gets cut to depth. Expect noise, expect a spoil pile, and expect your yard to look alarming for a while. In Larry's words, the thing he wishes more homeowners understood before starting is the scope and intensity of the construction that's about to happen in their backyard. It is major construction. It also gets put back together.
Soil is the variable here. Much of Collin County sits on expansive clay — soil that swells with moisture and shrinks when it dries — and conditions underfoot can shift timelines slightly.
What's being decided: position, shape, and depth in the ground. What's closing: the footprint. Moving a pool after excavation means excavating twice.
Phase 5: Steel, plumbing, and equipment rough-in
This is the most important phase you will never see again, and the one worth asking the most questions about.
Three systems go in:
Steel rebar forms the skeleton of the shell and reinforces it against the soil movement described above. Placement and coverage matter — rebar sitting too close to the eventual surface is a corrosion problem waiting a decade to appear.
Plumbing — returns, drains, and lines for any water features. Every line should be pressure-tested before anything covers it. This is not an optional courtesy; it's the only opportunity to find a fitting problem while fixing it is still cheap.
Equipment for circulation, filtration, heating, and any features you selected.
Electrical follows shortly after gunite, running lighting, control systems, pump, and motor.
What's being decided: the structural and mechanical integrity of your pool. What's closing: all of it. Once gunite goes on, none of this can be inspected visually again without breaking concrete.
If you take one thing from this page, take this: ask to see the pressure test. A builder who tests plumbing as a matter of routine will be glad you asked.
Phase 6: Gunite
Gunite is the shell — and how it's shot, and what happens in the days afterward, is the single biggest determinant of whether your pool lasts.
Gunite is a dry mix. The dry material travels through a hose and combines with water at the point of application under high pressure, then gets troweled into shape. That's what allows a fully custom form rather than a mould.
Our specifications, for reference:
We target having your pool gunited by day 7 of the build
We build to at least nine inches of gunite through both walls and floor
Once the concrete sets, a Concrete Pool Shell Protector (CPSP) seal is applied to shield the shell and prevent the bond from breaking down
We plaster after day 28
That last number needs explaining, because it's where a lot of homeowners get misled. The industry's twenty-eight-day standard exists because it's the most conservative estimate for when a range of different-quality gunite mixes reach roughly 4,000 PSI. With a good mix, a good shoot, and proper hydration, a shell typically reaches 70 to 85 percent of that target by the end of the seventh day. We still wait the full twenty-eight before plastering — because there's no reason not to, and because gunite, like any concrete, keeps curing for years.
You have a job during this phase. We'll ask you to water your new shell to keep it hydrated while it cures. Gunite gains strength through hydration, not by drying out, and a shell left to bake through a Texas summer week is a shell that may never reach the strength it was designed for. The full detail on curing and PSI is worth reading if you want to understand what you're paying for.
What's being decided: the structure. What's closing: the steel and plumbing, permanently.
Phase 7: Tile, coping, electrical, and masonry
This is where the project stops looking like a construction site and starts looking like your backyard.
Tile goes in at the waterline and in the spa. Coping — the edge material you'll sit on and walk around — gets set in your selected stone. Electrical is run for lighting, automation, pump, and motor. Any additional masonry happens here too: outdoor kitchens, fire pits, planters, retaining walls.
Decking follows. This is also the phase where the scale of the finished space becomes obvious to homeowners for the first time, and occasionally where someone wishes they'd made the patio bigger. Which is an argument for spending longer in Phase 2.
What's being decided: the finished aesthetic and the usable space around the water. What's closing: the shell surface and most of the hardscape.
Phase 8: Plaster, fill, and startup
Plaster is the surface you'll actually touch, and it's the last major material decision made visible.
We use pebble plaster — a finish that is both a protective layer over the gunite and the thing that sets your water colour. Once it goes on, the pool is filled, and startup begins: balancing chemistry, bringing equipment online, and getting the water right.
Startup is more consequential than it sounds. Fresh plaster is meant to go under water and into a balanced chemical environment on a schedule. Handled carelessly, new plaster can stain or craze in its first weeks — a cosmetic problem that's permanent and entirely avoidable.
What's being decided: the finish and the water. What's closing: the last of the structure.
Phase 9: Pool school and handover
You should not be handed a full pool and a warranty folder and left to work it out.
Before you swim, our Equipment Services Manager Ryan Curtis runs Pool School — walking you through water chemistry, cleaning technique, and how your specific equipment actually operates. Ryan has spent close to twenty years in this industry across sales, construction, and maintenance, and this is the part he cares most about.
You also receive warranty documentation and an open line for questions afterward. Worth being clear about one thing: we build and remodel pools, we don't service them. We don't offer cleaning or maintenance, so Pool School isn't a lead-in to a service contract — it exists because a homeowner who understands their equipment has fewer problems.
What's being decided: whether you're confident owning this thing. What's closing: the build.
So how long does the whole thing take?
Roughly 100 days from start to swimming, on average, across the whole project — and about 8 to 12 weeks of that is construction once we're underway.
Those two numbers describe different things, and conflating them is how homeowners end up frustrated. Here's the rough shape:
StageTypical durationDesign and permitting2–4 weeksExcavation through guniteAbout 1 weekFinishes and equipment3–5 weeksPunch-list items1–2 weeksFinal inspection and handover1 week
Size, features, weather, soil, and permitting queues all move these. The timeline question deserves its own honest answer, including what actually causes delays.
Many homeowners in North Texas have heard horror stories about builds dragging on for six months or longer. Some of those stories are true. They are also not inevitable, and the difference usually comes down to scheduling discipline and whether the builder's crews show up when they said they would.
Frequently asked questions
What's the longest phase of a pool build? Usually permitting and engineering, which is also the phase with the least to show for it. Two to four weeks is typical for design and permits together, but municipal queues vary and no builder controls them.
Can I change the design after construction starts? Small selections sometimes, structural changes rarely and expensively. Once the plan is permitted and the pool is excavated, the footprint is fixed. Anything that alters the engineered plan may require re-submittal. Spend your revision energy in the design phase, where changes are free.
Why does gunite have to sit for 28 days before plaster? Because twenty-eight days is the conservative point at which a wide range of gunite mixes can be expected to approach 4,000 PSI. A high-quality mix that's been kept hydrated is typically 70 to 85 percent of the way there by day seven, but waiting the full period costs nothing and protects the shell.
Do I really have to water my own pool shell? Yes, and it matters. Gunite cures through hydration. A shell that dries out during its first days can shrink and crack, and the strength it loses can't be added back later.
What happens if it rains during my build? Short delays, mostly. Rain affects excavation and any concrete or masonry work, and saturated clay soil needs time before machinery can work it. Weather is the most common cause of small schedule movement and the least worth worrying about.
Who's actually on my property during the build? Ask this of any builder, and get specifics. At Canyon Oak Pools our owner Larry Parnell personally manages every project, which is unusual and is the reason we say it. You can meet the rest of the team here.
The part that matters most
Nine phases, roughly a hundred days, and one structural truth: the parts of your pool that determine its lifespan are the parts you'll never see again after week two.
You cannot inspect steel placement through gunite. You cannot check a plumbing joint through decking. Which means the only real quality control available to you as a homeowner is choosing someone whose standards hold when nobody is looking — and then asking, at each phase, to see the thing before it gets covered.
We were awarded the Better Business Bureau Torch Award for Ethics in 2024. That mattered to us more than a design award would have, because as Larry puts it, this industry doesn't always have the reputation it should.
Who You Build With Matters® isn't a tagline about craftsmanship. It's a tagline about what happens under the concrete.
Ready to walk your backyard? Our design and build process covers what we do in more detail, our project gallery shows finished work, and every quote we write is built to your exact specifications with no obligation attached — start a conversation here whenever you're ready. Build calendars across DFW do fill through the busy season, so earlier gives you more choice of dates.
