Pool builders in
Burleigh Heads.

01 · Ground and exposure

Sand, salt and the headland

East of the Gold Coast Highway, most of Burleigh Heads is built on deep, clean beach sand. It digs quickly but will not hold a vertical face, so we batter the excavation back or shore it, and the engineer usually specifies a thicker floor and more steel than the same pool would need on clay.

Near the beach and along Tallebudgera Creek, the water table can sit a metre or two below the lawn, and it rises after heavy rain and on king tides. We check for it at the site visit, pump the excavation during the dig and fit a hydrostatic relief valve so an empty shell cannot lift.

On the headland streets the ground reverses. Weathered rock can appear within a metre of the surface and has to be broken out with a hammer, which we price after a test dig rather than guess.

Wherever you are in the suburb, the salt air decides the materials. We use dense stone such as travertine, granite or bluestone for coping, 316 marine-grade stainless steel for every fixing, and house the equipment out of the weather.

02 · Approvals

Council and approvals

Burleigh Heads sits within the City of Gold Coast. A pool on a house block normally needs building approval rather than a development application, and we lodge it through a private certifier once the engineering is done. Council becomes involved where an overlay applies: the coastal erosion and storm tide areas near the beach, the flood overlay along Tallebudgera Creek, and the setback and height rules in the local plan.

Sewer and stormwater mains often run along the back boundary of the older blocks, and building over or close to them needs a separate approval, so we locate them before the design is fixed. Every pool also needs a compliant barrier and registration on the Queensland pool safety register. A new pool is insurable residential work, so every Queensland build we do carries QBCC Home Warranty Insurance under licence 0000000.

03 · Access

Access on tight beachside blocks

Many Burleigh Heads homes sit on narrow lots with a garage across the front and a metre of side path, and newer townhouses leave even less. When a small excavator cannot reach the back, we crane it in with the steel and often the coping, usually over the house in a single morning under a traffic management plan.

Some streets near the beach have rear laneways, which make for a cleaner build: spoil goes out the back, deliveries come in the back and the front garden stays intact. Shotcrete is pumped through a line up to 60 metres long, so the truck stays on the street. We plan the access route, the crane day and the letters to neighbours before we start, and protect paths and lawns for the length of the build.

04 · Timeline

How long a pool takes here

From the first site visit to handover, most pools here take about 20 weeks, in line with our six stages: two weeks for the consult and survey, four for design and 3D, four for approvals and engineering, then about ten on site. An overlay can add a few weeks to approvals. In sand the dig is quick, though dewatering, or rock on the headland, can each add a week.

We take on twelve pools a year across three regions, so a director is on your site every week of the build. From our Burleigh Heads studio, that is rarely more than a ten-minute drive.