Why your pool should be designed with your custom home and not after.

A must-read for anyone planning a pool with their new custom home.

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One of the most common mistakes in new custom home builds in Sydney is treating the pool as a future add-on, something to “come back to later” once the house is designed or built. It’s an understandable assumption, but one that often leads to avoidable compromises. Pools aren’t standalone features; they influence site levels, structure, drainage, services, solar orientation, and how a home connects to the outdoors.

The difference between planning a pool later and integrating it with the home is less about preference and more about sequencing.

Most frustrations homeowners experience during pool construction sit on the left-hand side of this table, not because of poor workmanship, but because key decisions were made too late.

How does a pool fit into each stage of your custom home build in Sydney?

When a pool is designed as part of the overall project, its construction can be sequenced into the early stages of the home build, rather than bolted on later. This isn’t about speed; it’s about resolving the site once and avoiding duplicated work.

Stage 1 — Integrated excavation

• Pool and house excavation are treated as a single operation.
• Excavated material can often be reused on site to form the house pad or manage levels, while machinery access is unrestricted and efficient.

Stage 2 — Structural coordination

• Pool formwork and steel reinforcement are installed while the home’s structural strategy is finalised.
• Pool walls often act as retaining elements, and slab edges, footings, and soil pressures need to work together as one system.

Stage 3 — Services before slabs are locked in

• Pool plumbing and services are installed before slabs, paths, and hard landscaping are poured. This avoids cutting through finished surfaces later and retrofitting drainage or electrical infrastructure after the fact.

Stage 4 — Structural completion

• With formwork, steel, and plumbing complete, the pool shell is formed using spraycrete (shotcrete).
• Engineers and independent certifiers inspect the works to confirm structural and safety compliance while access is still clear and issues can be resolved without impacting the house build.

Stage 5 — Pool completion

• As the home approaches Practical Completion, final pool works are carried out — paving to coping and surrounds, fencing, waterline tiling or full tiling, filling, and initial treatment — so the pool is ready to use at handover.

Stage 6 — Handover, warranty, and maintenance

• When the pool is delivered as part of the home build, responsibility is clear.
• Warranties and maintenance sit with a single point of contact, rather than being split across multiple contractors after move-in.

What problems can you avoid by planning your pool with your home?

Homes where the pool is planned and built alongside the house avoid:

• a second construction phase after move-in
• restricted access to finished spaces
• reworked levels or services,
• and the familiar realisation that key decisions were locked in too early.

Instead, the home, pool, and outdoor spaces are delivered as a complete environment — ready to be used from day one.

What are the key lessons for planning your pool from the start?

If a pool is part of how you plan to live in your home, it should be addressed at the very start of the design process — not once decisions are already set.

Early planning doesn’t just improve the pool.

It improves the house and the overall construction journey.

Discover how Hall & Hart can deliver a complete lifestyle solution with pools and landscaping

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