Most calls about an older pool start the same way. Three quotes on the kitchen table, all describing different work, and a budget that covers maybe half of the longest one. The real question underneath all three is what to fix first on an old pool. You do not have to do all of it this year. You do have to do it in the right order, because some parts fail quietly and some take others down with them.
If your pool went in when the neighborhood did
Hamilton Mill was developed in the mid 1990s and its homes went up across roughly 1995 to 2008. Apalachee Farms, the five subdivision community wrapped around the Trophy Club of Apalachee golf course, filled in around 2000. A pool poured with the house in either one is now somewhere between twenty and thirty years old.
A pool does not age as one object. It ages as six separate things, and on this vintage they come due within a few years of each other. Georgia speeds parts of it up: our swim season runs April into October, which puts far more hours on a pump than a northern season, and January hands us freezing nights and fifty degree afternoons in the same week.
The six parts, and the clock each one runs on
- The shell. Outlives everything attached to it.
- The interior finish. Plaster is shortest lived, commonly ten to fifteen years. Pebble runs longer.
- The tile line and coping. The most weather exposed part of the pool.
- The deck. Ages with the soil under it, not with the pool.
- The equipment pad. The only group replaceable without draining.
- Plumbing, lights and fittings. Invisible until they are not.
First priority: anything letting water out
A leak jumps the line every time. Water escaping a return line or skimmer throat does more than raise the water bill. On red clay it washes the fines out of the backfill behind the pool wall, and that void shows up later as a sinking deck or a loose coping stone. A new finish will not hold over a shell still losing water, so chasing the leak afterward means opening the same access twice.
Second priority: the tile line and coping, where Georgia winters do the damage
Coping is the cap stone around the pool edge, and its real job is keeping water out of the top of the shell. When the joint behind it opens, water gets in, freezes on a January night, expands, and pushes the stone further loose, one winter at a time, until the joint is gone.
Look for a coping stone that rocks under hand pressure, a hollow sound when you tap along the edge, missing grout at the waterline, or tile popping off in the same stretch every spring. Our tile and coping work sits second because it protects everything you would rather not fix.
Third priority: the surface, and what it is telling you
Rough underfoot means the plaster has etched down toward the aggregate. Blotchy gray is usually mottling in the finish. Brown staining, which we see constantly on the older wooded lots in Apalachee Farms and along the Apalachee River, is tannin from hardwood and pine leaf litter. Staining is often treatable. Roughness and thin spots mean the finish is done. More on timing in our guide to how long pool plaster lasts.
Replastering, resurfacing and refinishing are three words for different scopes
Homeowners use these three words interchangeably. Contractors do not, which is where quotes stop matching.
- Replastering means chipping out the old plaster and applying a fresh plaster coat. Narrowest scope.
- Resurfacing is broader: prep plus a new interior surface in plaster, pebble or tile, often including new waterline tile since the pool is drained anyway.
- Refinishing is the catch all people say when they mean either of the above.
Ask which of the three a contractor is pricing, and whether waterline tile, coping, drain covers and light rings sit inside the number. Two bids can differ enormously and both be fair.
Fourth priority: the equipment pad and that original single speed pump
An original single speed pump has one setting: full. Add spring pollen forcing longer filtration hours and that is a lot of hours at full draw. A variable speed pump does the same turnover at a lower speed over a longer window, and moving water slowly costs far less.
Equipment sits fourth for sequencing, not importance. It is the only category needing no drain and no pool access, so it can happen mid season while you wait on the rest. If your finish has a year or two left, the equipment pad is often the smartest first move.
Fifth priority: the deck, and settlement cracks on clay
Georgia red clay shrinks in a dry August and swells in a wet spring, and a deck poured over backfill moves with it. The first sign is the joint where the deck meets the coping. Hairline cracks that have not moved in years are a deck resurfacing candidate. Cracks where one side sits higher say the problem is under the slab, and resurfacing over that repeats it. Check the slope too: a deck settled toward the pool drains into your water.
Last: anything that is only about looks
Color changes, lighting effects, water features, tanning ledges, new furniture. None of these fail, and none causes a second failure. One caveat: finish color is chosen inside the resurfacing scope, so decide it while the pool is drained.
Draining and refilling: two rules, pointing different directions
Gwinnett’s swimming pool permit requirements say national and state water quality law does not allow a pool to be connected to the sanitary sewer, the pipe carrying household waste to the treatment plant, because the chlorine load interferes with treatment. Gwinnett’s Illicit Discharge and Illegal Connection ordinance, in Chapter 100 of the county code, then makes it a violation to discharge anything other than stormwater into the county storm sewer system, and it specifically exempts dechlorinated and unpolluted swimming pool discharges.
Notice what those two govern: the pipe and the condition of the water. Neither says which way to point the hose on a tight lot, where water finds the low side whether that is your yard or your neighbor’s. Time it away from heavy rain too: an empty pool over a high water table is under pressure from below. Ordinances change, so confirm current rules with your own county, whether that is Gwinnett, Barrow, Jackson or Oconee.
A pool remodel order of operations you can split across two seasons
The rule under both options: never pay twice for the same access.
Everything behind the water first. Season one: leak repair, tile line, coping and interior finish. Season two: deck and equipment. Those all need the pool empty, so grouping them means one drain, one refill and one round of demolition.
Equipment now, water later. If nothing is leaking and the finish has a season or two left, replace the pump this year while you are still swimming, then do leak repair, tile, coping and finish together next off season.
The order that wastes money is the deck before the coping: a new deck is the first casualty of coping work.
What a remodel assessment looks at
A real assessment is a walk around with a checklist, not a glance at the water: water loss, hollow spots along the tile line, etching in the finish, the deck joint and slope, the age of the pad.
Aqualis Pools has been building pools in Georgia for fifteen years from a base in Gwinnett County, and we handle pool remodeling across Gwinnett, Barrow, Jackson, Oconee and the surrounding counties. Tell us what the pool is doing and what you can spend this year, and we will tell you what cannot wait. Call (770) 373-8405, Monday to Friday, 8AM to 5PM, or reach out through the site for a free design and quote.
Frequently asked questions
How do I tell a leak from normal evaporation?
Run a bucket test. Fill a bucket with pool water, set it on a step so the levels inside and outside match, mark both, and leave the pump running for a few days without topping up. Evaporation affects both equally, so if the pool drops faster than the bucket, water is escaping.
Is replastering the same as resurfacing?
Not quite. Replastering means removing the old plaster and applying a new plaster coat. Resurfacing is the wider job and can put down plaster, pebble or tile, usually with waterline tile included. Refinishing is the informal word for both, so ask which scope a number covers.
Can I split a remodel across two years without paying twice?
Yes, if you group by access rather than preference. Anything needing an empty pool, meaning leak repair, tile, coping and the interior finish, belongs in one window. The equipment pad and the deck need no drain, so those move to year two.
