Questions to Ask a Pool Builder Before You Sign

Georgia does not require a license to build a swimming pool. Anyone can print business cards, buy a truck, and start selling pools in this state tomorrow. That is not a scare tactic, it is just the regulatory situation, and it means the vetting a licensing board would normally do falls to you.

These are the questions worth asking. What matters is less the answer itself than whether the person can answer it without getting uncomfortable.

Who is actually building my pool?

Many companies sell the job and then hand it to whichever subcontractor crew is available that month. That is not automatically bad, but you should know it. Ask whether the crews are employees or subs, whether the same crew stays with your project, and who is on site when something goes wrong.

What is not in this price?

This is the single most useful question you can ask, and you should ask it exactly that way. A low bid usually means something has been left out: the electrical work, the decking, the fence required for your permit, the water to fill it, the grading to make the yard usable afterward. None of it disappears. It just shows up later as a change order.

What happens when you hit rock?

In north Georgia, this is a real possibility rather than a hypothetical. Ask how rock is handled contractually before it is found. If the answer is vague, you have learned something important about how every other surprise on the job will be handled.

Ask any swimming pool contractor in Atlanta how they handle what they cannot see before they dig. The answer tells you how every other surprise will be handled.

Can I see a project you finished five years ago?

Anyone can show you a pool that was completed last month. A pool that still looks right after five Georgia summers tells you about the workmanship underneath: the plumbing, the structure, the quality of the surface. Ask to talk to that homeowner, not the one from the most recent job.

Who answers the phone after the build?

A pool is equipment as much as it is construction. Pumps fail and heaters need service. Find out whether the company services what it builds or hands you a list of phone numbers on the last day.

A note on certification

I have been pushing for a builder certification requirement in Cobb County for this reason. Until something like that exists statewide, the questions above are the closest thing homeowners have to a filter.