How is fiberglass installation different from building a gunite pool?
A gunite pool is built in the hole. A fiberglass pool is built in a factory and delivered. Most of the other differences follow from that. The shell shows up finished, with a smooth gel-coat surface and molded steps, benches and tanning ledge, so there’s no curing period and no plaster to renew down the road. Once the hole and base are ready, the shell is set within days of the dig, and filling can start within a week.
The limit is shape. You choose from the manufacturer’s molds, and a mold can’t be stretched or given a vanishing edge. If a freeform outline matters more to you than speed, our gunite pools page covers the other route.
What does the site visit check before a shell is chosen?
Homeowners ask about clay more than anything else. Our answer is that soil changes from lot to lot, sometimes from one side of a yard to the other, so we don’t guess. Before design, the site visit looks at the soil, the grade and where water goes after a rain.
Tell us what you’ve noticed when you call: a corner that stays soggy for days after a storm, or ground that cracks open in a dry August. We’ll still dig and look, but those details point us to the right spots.
Depth to rock matters too. A U.S. Geological Survey table of Tennessee’s soil regions gives a median depth to bedrock of 2.4 meters in the Inner Central Basin and 3.7 meters in the Outer Central Basin, the same range as a pool’s deep end. Only digging tells you which figure a given yard is closer to, and the answer can steer the choice between a deep-end shell and one with a flatter floor.
Can the shell actually reach my backyard?
A fiberglass pool is delivered whole, so the route from the street matters as much as the hole. The shell has to be lifted over the house or carried along a side yard, and fences, trees and overhead lines along that path all get checked on the site visit. Where access is tight, that can rule out a larger mold before you’ve fallen for it.
How is the base prepared under a fiberglass shell?
The hole is dug a little larger than the shell, and the floor is brought to grade with a compacted bed of crushed stone, checked for level along its full length. A shell resting on an uneven bed carries stress at the high spots, and that stress tends to show up later as a bulge in a wall or a gap at the coping.
Drainage is planned at the same stage. Where the site visit finds water moving toward the pool area, we give it a path away before the shell goes in, so it can’t collect in the backfill.
Why is the pool filled while the backfill goes in?
A fiberglass shell is strong once it’s surrounded, and flexible on its own. So the water and the backfill rise together: a few inches of water in the pool, a matching layer of stone around the outside, then more of each. Keeping the two levels close balances the pressure from inside and out, which keeps the walls straight.
That’s also when the plumbing lines are connected and checked, before they’re buried for good.
What does Brentwood require before a pool holds water?
Brentwood’s code says no swimming pool or spa work may begin until the city has issued a permit (Sec. 14-183), and it adopts the International Swimming Pool and Spa Code by reference. The city’s pool document also calls for a temporary or permanent fence from excavation onward, with no test filling until that fence is up.
With fiberglass that timing matters more than with gunite, because water goes in during backfill, only days after the dig. We put the temporary fence up with the excavation so the schedule doesn’t stall. Tennessee’s 811 law adds its own lead time: notice at least 3 working days before digging (Tenn. Code § 65-31-106). The Brentwood service area page covers the city’s permit steps.
What finishes the job around a fiberglass pool?
The coping and deck tie the shell into the yard. Because we also build custom hardscaping, the pool surround goes down on a base sized for wet feet and splash, pitched to drain away from the water. One of our Google reviewers, Jennifer Jones, wrote about her new fiberglass pool and Angela: “She consistently over-communicated throughout the entire process.”
Our fiberglass pools page lists what comes molded into a shell. When you want to see how a shell would sit in your own yard, book a consultation.