Direct answers to the questions Metro Atlanta homeowners ask most — about timelines, pricing, materials, maintenance, and what happens after the pool is built.
We get the same questions every week from homeowners thinking about a new pool, a remodel, or a full backyard build. Below are direct answers — no marketing language, no bait-and-switch pricing, no “it depends” when a real answer exists.
From the day you sign to the day you swim — and everything that happens in between.
A typical Primetime custom pool build runs 12 to 16 weeks from the signed contract to the day water goes in — assuming standard permitting and no major weather delays. Simple rectangular builds can finish in 10 weeks; large multi-level projects with spas, water features, and surrounding hardscape can stretch to 18–20 weeks.
The phases that consume the most time are permitting (2–4 weeks in most Metro Atlanta counties), gunite curing (28 days for full strength), and the tile-coping-plaster finish sequence. We share a written schedule on the day you sign and update it weekly — you’ll never have to call to ask where we are.
Georgia weather is the one variable nobody controls. We factor in rain days realistically rather than promising dates we can’t hit.
Yes — excavation is messy, and any builder who tells you otherwise is lying. We will run a track excavator, skid steers, concrete pumps, and gunite rigs across the portion of your yard between the street and the pool site. That path will be torn up.
What we do control: we walk the access route with you before we start, protect sprinkler zones and drainage lines we identify, lay plywood over soft ground where practical, and put the yard back together at the end. If a fence section needs to come out to get equipment in, we take it out cleanly and reset it at project close.
If there is no side-yard access — which is common in Alpharetta, Johns Creek, and Dunwoody builds — we’ll walk you through the options at the design stage, including crane placement and temporary fence removal, before you sign anything.
Yes. Every in-ground pool in Metro Atlanta requires a building permit, and most counties also require separate electrical and plumbing permits. Primetime pulls every permit — building, electrical, plumbing, land disturbance where applicable — and handles all inspections through the final certificate of completion.
You will not be calling the county. You will not be meeting the inspector. That’s our job, and it’s included in the contract price.
Permit turnaround varies by county — Gwinnett and Fulton typically run 2–3 weeks, DeKalb can run 3–4 weeks, Forsyth is usually the fastest. We factor that into the written schedule.
The order never changes: design & 3D rendering → contract & deposit → permits → layout & excavation → plumbing rough-in & rebar → gunite shot → tile & coping → decking & hardscape → equipment set → plaster → fill & chemical start-up → final walkthrough. Each phase has a sign-off before we move to the next.
The finish phases (tile, coping, plaster) are where projects feel like they’re suddenly moving fast — because they are. The shell and plumbing phases take roughly two-thirds of the total timeline; the visible “pool part” comes together in the final four to five weeks.
Yes. We work during normal business hours — typically 7:30 AM to 4:30 PM — and we clean and secure the site at the end of every workday. No tools left out, no open trenches without barriers, no equipment blocking your driveway overnight unless we’ve coordinated it with you in advance.
There will be noise on excavation and gunite days — those are the loudest. Plumbing, tile, and plaster days are much quieter. If you work from home, plan to take a call or a meeting off-site on the two or three loudest days; we’ll tell you which ones a week ahead.
Yes — and it usually favors winter. November through February is actually our ideal build window. Ground conditions in Georgia are generally firmer, the heat isn’t killing crews, inspectors have more availability, and permits move faster. A pool that starts in December typically finishes by late March or early April — right in time for the first swim.
Summer starts are fine; they just run into Georgia afternoon thunderstorms that push schedules. If you want to be swimming by Memorial Day, sign in January. If you want to be swimming by July 4th, sign by mid-March.
We communicate immediately. If a rain stretch pushes excavation, or a cold snap prevents a gunite shot, you’ll hear from the project manager the same day with the new calendar. We don’t disappear and hope you don’t notice.
We also never rush a weather-sensitive phase to hit a date. Gunite shot during heavy rain cures poorly. Plaster applied in sub-40° temperatures can fail. The extra week costs far less than a repair in year three, and we will always take the extra week.
Line-item, transparent, and written the same way we’d want our own quote written.
A Primetime custom gunite pool in Metro Atlanta typically runs $95,000 to $165,000 for the pool itself — shell, plumbing, tile, coping, plaster, equipment, and start-up. That’s the real range for the kind of builds we do, not a teaser number that jumps 30% on the final invoice.
Add $25,000–$80,000 for decking and surrounding hardscape depending on size and material — travertine, natural stone, and stamped concrete all sit in different places on that scale. Spas, water features, tanning ledges, fire bowls, and automation packages each add defined line items.
We give you the full number before you sign. If a feature moves, the number moves — up or down — and we show you exactly where.
Yes. We work with two national pool-financing partners (Lyon Financial and LightStream) who specialize in outdoor living projects and understand pool builds — they’re not going to ask why a pool shell takes 16 weeks. Approvals typically come back in 48–72 hours with competitive rates for qualified buyers.
Many of our clients also use home-equity lines of credit through their local bank, which frequently beat the financing-partner rates. We’ll happily run both numbers with you.
Primetime draws payment against completed milestones, not up-front. Typical schedule: signing deposit (small, locks your spot in the schedule), excavation draw, gunite draw, tile & coping draw, deck draw, plaster & start-up final. Each draw is tied to a specific completion, not a calendar date.
We never ask for a majority of the project up-front. A builder asking for 40–50% before excavation is a red flag, and we’ve watched other Metro Atlanta homeowners get burned by it.
Every Primetime quote is fully line-itemed. You will see individual costs for excavation, shell, plumbing, tile, coping, decking, equipment, lighting, automation, start-up, and permits. No “pool package $145,000” on a single line.
This matters because it means you can upgrade or step back individual components without renegotiating the whole job. Want to swap standard plaster for Pebble Tec? We show you the line-item delta. Want to defer the outdoor kitchen to next year? We pull that line and re-total. No guessing.
In our experience reviewing competing quotes with clients, the cheapest bid almost always excludes: proper bonding and electrical, adequate rebar density, oversized plumbing, a variable-speed pump, LED lighting, hauling of excavated spoil, deck drainage, and final landscape restoration. Add those in and the “cheap” quote is within a few thousand of the real number — often higher.
Ask any competing builder for their line-item for: pump type and HP, plumbing diameter, rebar spacing (inches on-center), and whether bonding is tested and logged. If they won’t put those specs in writing, you’re not comparing the same product.
Real materials, real options, real on-site samples — not stock catalog renders.
For pool shells: gunite (our standard). For interior finishes: Pebble Tec aggregate, quartz plaster, classic white plaster, and glass-bead finishes. For waterline tile: glass mosaic, porcelain, and natural-stone options. For coping: travertine, limestone, bluestone, cut concrete, and brick. For decking: travertine, natural flagstone, concrete pavers, stamped concrete, and broom-finished concrete.
You’ll see physical samples on-site during the design walk — not photos on a phone. Tile and stone colors look different in Georgia afternoon sun than they do in a showroom, and we make sure you see them in the exact spot they’ll be installed.
Primarily Pentair and Jandy — both industry leaders with strong parts availability and warranty support across Metro Atlanta. We’ll spec Pentair IntelliFlo variable-speed pumps with ScreenLogic automation, or Jandy VS pumps with iAquaLink automation, depending on your preference and the rest of the equipment package.
For heaters: Pentair MasterTemp and Jandy JXi gas heaters. For salt systems: Pentair IntelliChlor. For LED lighting: Pentair IntelliBrite or Jandy Pro Series. All of these have 10+ years of parts on the shelf in the Atlanta market.
That’s the whole point of custom design. We pull cues from your home’s exterior materials, rooflines, and color palette. A traditional brick home in Dunwoody gets different coping, tile, and decking than a modern flat-roof build in Johns Creek. A Tudor in Alpharetta gets different waterline tile than a transitional new-build in Cumming.
During the design walk we photograph the home from the pool site and vice versa, and we build the 3D rendering against your exact home — not a generic lot. You see exactly how the pool will look from the kitchen window before you sign.
Yes — and most of our new builds are saltwater. A salt-chlorine generator produces chlorine on-site from dissolved salt, which means softer water, easier chemistry, and lower long-term chlorine costs. Salt pools are not “chlorine-free” — they’re chlorine pools that produce their own.
The trade-off: salt is mildly corrosive to certain coping stones and pool equipment. We spec salt-compatible coping (travertine is fine; some limestones are not) and rinse decking regularly during start-up. We’ll walk you through whether salt is right for your specific material selection.
All of it. Tanning ledges (Baja shelves) with bubbler fountains, spillover spas raised and integrated with the pool, sun shelves, grottos, scuppers and sheer-descent water walls, laminar jets, fire bowls on raised bond beams, and full infinity edges where the grade supports it.
Each feature is a defined line item on the quote — so you can see exactly what it costs, what it does, and decide whether it earns its keep. We’ll tell you which features get used and which look good on a catalog but gather cobwebs in year two.
The operating cost and maintenance realities most builders skip during the sales process.
Gunite is our standard for a reason: it’s fully custom in shape and depth, can integrate spas and tanning ledges seamlessly, and a properly built gunite shell lasts 40+ years with only periodic plaster refreshes every 10–15 years. Higher up-front cost, dramatically lower lifetime cost.
Vinyl-liner pools are cheaper up-front but the liner needs replacement every 8–12 years at $5,000–$9,000 per replacement. Shape is limited to what the panel system allows. We don’t build them because the 20-year cost-of-ownership is rarely a win.
Fiberglass is a factory-molded shell dropped into an excavation. Fast install, limited shape catalog, and the shell cannot be modified. Surface life is solid; the limitation is that you’re picking from a fixed catalog and fitting the shape to your yard rather than the other way around. We don’t install these either — if someone tells you fiberglass is “basically the same as gunite,” they’re selling fiberglass.
Yes — dramatically so. A variable-speed pump reduces operating cost 60–75% compared to a single-speed pump on the same pool. On a typical Metro Atlanta pool running 8 hours a day in peak season, that’s $500–$900 per year back in your pocket.
The pump pays for itself in 2–3 years on energy savings alone. It also runs at a fraction of the noise — most clients can’t hear it running from 15 feet away. Federal pool code now requires variable-speed pumps on all new residential builds over a certain capacity, which is one of the few federal efficiency rules that pays for itself fast.
Real-world numbers for a typical 14,000–20,000 gallon Metro Atlanta pool: $40–$75/month in chemicals for a saltwater pool in peak season, roughly half that in spring/fall. $45–$90/month in additional electricity for pump, LED lighting, and salt cell — assuming a variable-speed pump.
Heater costs are separate and dependent on use. Natural gas heaters are cheap to buy but expensive to run — we usually recommend heat pumps for pools used April through October, and gas heaters for homeowners who want to extend into December or heat a spillover spa year-round.
Typically 14–28 days after the fill. Plaster cures underwater, and the first two weeks are the sensitive window — brushing twice a day, careful chemistry, no aggressive chlorination. Swim too early and you’ll scar the surface or create dust that lingers for years.
We handle all chemical start-up ourselves for the first 28 days and hand off to you with balanced water and a printed care sheet. Most clients swim for the first time around day 21.
Our own warranties, in writing: a structural warranty on the gunite shell and rebar cage, a 1-year workmanship warranty on tile, coping, and decking, and manufacturer warranties pass-through on all equipment (typically 2–3 years on pumps, filters, and heaters; 5+ years on LED lighting; 1–3 years on salt cells depending on use).
Plaster has a limited warranty from the applicator and typically shows normal wear at the 10-year mark regardless of brand. We’re transparent about what each warranty covers and what it doesn’t, in writing, before you sign.
The logistical questions that tend to come up late in the process.
We’re based in Winder, GA and build across a 30-mile radius of Metro Atlanta. Core counties: Gwinnett, DeKalb, Fulton, Rockdale, Newton, Walton, and Barrow — cities include Snellville, Grayson, Lawrenceville, Lilburn, Duluth, Suwanee, Buford, Dacula, Norcross, Peachtree Corners, Stone Mountain, Tucker, Decatur, Dunwoody, Sandy Springs, Johns Creek, Alpharetta, Milton, Conyers, Covington, Monroe, Loganville, and Winder.
For projects outside that radius — including Cumming, Canton, Forsyth County, and some north Fulton builds — we’ll quote on a case-by-case basis and may add a travel line-item to the contract.
Yes. Many Metro Atlanta subdivisions — especially in Johns Creek, Alpharetta, Sandy Springs, and newer Cumming developments — require HOA architectural review before any permit is issued. We prepare the submission package: site plan, 3D rendering, material samples, equipment location, and drainage details. You sign it, we submit it, and we handle any back-and-forth with the architectural review board.
HOA review usually runs 2–4 weeks on top of county permit timelines. We plan for it in the written schedule so it doesn’t surprise anyone.
We handle both. Our core business is custom new builds, but we also do pool remodels, plaster re-coats, coping replacement, equipment swaps, leak detection, and emergency repairs — primarily for homeowners who have worked with us before or who are referred by an existing client.
For emergencies — a pump failure in July, a heater not firing, a leak — we prioritize existing Primetime clients and move as quickly as the part supply chain allows.
Possibly. For projects within 30 miles of Winder, there is no travel line-item. Beyond 30 miles we quote travel as a transparent line on the contract — typically a modest per-day crew time charge plus any additional overnight costs for long runs.
We won’t take a project we can’t build right. If you’re outside our radius, we’ll tell you honestly whether the logistics make sense. If they don’t, we’ll refer you to a builder we trust in that area rather than stretch ourselves thin.
One conversation, no pressure. Tell us what you’re thinking about, and we’ll tell you what’s actually possible and what it actually costs.
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