We handle pool construction in Greenville, North Carolina, and across Pitt County. Gunite, fiberglass, vinyl liner, decks, spas, equipment and renovations. If it holds water in a back yard between the Tar River and Contentnea Creek, we build it, and we build it for the ground that is under your yard rather than the ground in a national brochure.
That distinction matters more here than most homeowners expect. Call us and you get a real conversation about your lot, not a rehearsed pitch. Free estimate. Written price before anything gets dug.
The thing that ruins pools in Pitt County is water in the ground, not clay
Search for pool problems online and you will read about expansive clay. Soil swells when it gets wet, shrinks when it dries, and cracks the shell. That is a real problem — in Texas, Oklahoma and the Front Range of Colorado. It is largely the wrong story for us.
Pitt County sits in the North Carolina Coastal Plain. The county covers more than 419,000 acres, and the elevation runs from roughly sea level on the eastern side to about 124 feet near Farmville at the western edge. The soils formed from sand, silt and clay laid down by ancient coastal and river sediment. On the good building sites — Norfolk, Alaga, Wickham series ground — the seasonal high water table sits below five feet. On a lot of the rest of it, and there is a lot of the rest of it, the water table sits at or near the surface for part of the year. That is the plain-language description the county soil survey uses for Rains, Bladen, Pantego and Lynchburg soils, and those soils are scattered right through the flats and slight depressions where subdivisions get built.
Here is what that does to a pool. A hole for an inground pool displaces a great deal of groundwater. Water weighs about 62 pounds per cubic foot. When the shell is empty and the ground around it is saturated, the water underneath pushes up on the floor with more force than the empty shell weighs. The pool tries to float. In the trade it is called popping, and it is not a rare freak event around Greenville — it is the single most common way an inground pool in eastern North Carolina gets destroyed.
A pool built for this region gets a hydrostatic relief valve set in the floor so groundwater can come in rather than lift the shell. It gets a dewatering plan during construction, not an apology afterward. Fiberglass shells get filled and backfilled in balanced stages. Vinyl liner pools get a floor and wall detail that assumes the sand will be wet. None of that is exotic. It is just standard practice for a builder who works in Pitt County instead of visiting it.
If a builder never mentions the water table, that tells you something. It is the first question on any competent site walk here, and the answer changes the design, the price and the schedule.
The second thing is rain, and we get it in volume
Hurricanes here are not primarily wind events for a back yard pool. They are rain events. Floyd in September 1999 dropped roughly 20 inches on Greenville and pushed the Tar River to a record crest that still stands, after Hurricane Dennis had already saturated the ground ten days earlier. Matthew in 2016 brought the river to its third highest crest on record, close to 24 and a half feet, and flooded Pitt-Greenville Airport. Florence followed in 2018.
You do not have to live on the river for that to matter. Twenty inches of rain raises the water table everywhere in the county at once. An empty pool during a storm week is a boat. A pool with a badly compacted sand backfill under the deck ends up with a deck that settles an inch and a half and cracks along the coping. Drainage that "works fine" in a normal August fails when the ground is already full and has nowhere to put the next four inches.
So we design for the wet season, not the average. Deck drainage that actually leaves the property. Backfill consolidated in lifts. Equipment pads set above the local low spot. Electrical tied into the bond grid and mounted where standing water will not reach it.
What we build
Every one of these has a page of its own with real detail, including what it costs to run and what goes wrong with it locally.
Gunite, fiberglass or vinyl liner
Gunite is sprayed concrete over a steel cage. Any shape, any depth, and it is the shell you want if you are doing tanning ledges, vanishing edges or anything that is not a catalog outline. Longest build. Fiberglass is a one-piece molded shell craned into the hole. Fastest install and the smoothest surface, but the shape choices are fixed and the delivery route to your back yard matters — which is a real constraint in the older streets near ECU and in the tight lots off Firetower Road. Vinyl liner is the lowest entry price with the best feel underfoot, and the liner is a wear item you will replace on a cycle.
Everything around the water
A pool is about a third of the project. The rest is deck, equipment, spa, fencing, lighting and grading. We handle renovation and remodeling too, which around Greenville usually means a 1980s vinyl pool in Lynndale or Pitt Meadows that needs walls, plumbing and a real deck rather than another liner. And it starts with design, on paper, before anybody quotes a number.
Where we work
Greenville is the base — Brook Valley, Lynndale, Bells Fork, Cherry Oaks, Ironwood, the Firetower and Portertown corridors, the newer building south toward Winterville. From there we run out along NC 11 to Ayden and Grifton, west on I-587 through Farmville toward Wilson, north to Bethel and Tarboro, east on NC 33 through Simpson toward Washington, and south on NC 11 to Kinston and on to New Bern. No travel charge inside that footprint. The full list is on the service areas page.
What North Carolina law says about who can build your pool
The $40,000 line
Under North Carolina General Statute 87-1, anyone who takes on construction of a building, improvement or structure costing $40,000 or more has to hold a general contractor license issued by the North Carolina Licensing Board for General Contractors. That threshold rose from $30,000 on October 1, 2023. Most inground pool projects in Pitt County land above it.
There is a specific classification for this trade: S (Swimming Pools). It covers construction, service and repair of pools, including the excavation and grading, the concrete, gunite and plastic-type shells, the surrounding decks and walkways, tile and coping, and pumps, filters and chemical feeders. It does not cover direct connections to sanitary sewer or potable water lines, and it does not cover the electrical connections or the grounding and bonding of metal surfaces — those belong to the plumbing and electrical trades. The Building and Public Utilities classifications also carry pool work.
You can look up any contractor's license status directly with the Licensing Board before you sign anything. It takes about a minute and it is the single most useful thing a homeowner can do. Contracts above the threshold with an unlicensed party can be unenforceable, which is a problem for you as much as for them.
Permits, barriers and the parts inspectors actually check
A residential inground pool needs a building permit from the local authority — City of Greenville or Pitt County depending on where the property line falls, and the towns of Winterville, Ayden, Farmville, Bethel and Grifton have their own zoning on top. Expect a site plan showing the pool location, dimensions and setbacks. If you are on septic, the drainfield and its repair area drive where the pool can physically go, and that is often the constraint that decides the whole layout on rural lots off Black Jack Simpson Road or out toward Grimesland.
Three things get checked every time: the barrier, the drain covers and the bonding. North Carolina requires a barrier at least 48 inches high around the pool with self-closing, self-latching gates. Suction outlets have to use covers meeting the federal Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act standard. And Article 680 of the electrical code requires an equipotential bonding grid tying the shell steel, the deck reinforcement, the ladders, rails and equipment together, so the whole pool area sits at one electrical potential. Skipping that last one is invisible and dangerous. It is the reason a real inspection matters.
Community and HOA pools are a different animal. Those fall under the state rules for public swimming pools, 15A NCAC 18A .2500, which require plan review by the local health department, an open-pipe inspection while the plumbing is still visible, and an operation permit before anybody swims. We cover that in more detail on the FAQ page.
How this goes
- You call or fill out the form. Four questions, that is it.
- We walk the site. Free. We look at grade, drainage, access for equipment, where the septic and utilities run, and what the soil looks like when we put a probe in it.
- You get a written price. Line items, not a range. What is included, what is not, and what could change it.
- You decide. No follow-up pressure. If the number is not right, it is not right.
If you are still gathering information, start with the questions page — it has the twenty-five things people actually ask, answered plainly, including the ones about cost that most sites dodge.
Every service, in detail
Towns we build in
Questions people ask before they build
How much does an inground pool cost in Greenville, NC?
A basic vinyl liner pool with a modest deck generally starts in the mid five figures. Fiberglass with a full deck typically runs higher. Gunite with custom shaping, a spa, water features and a large deck runs well above that and has no real ceiling. The honest answer is that your lot changes the number as much as your pool does. A site with a high water table, poor access or a septic drainfield in the way costs more to build than a flat open yard. We put a written price in your hands after we walk it, and we tell you which line items are the ones likely to move.
Can you even build an inground pool where the water table is high?
Yes, and most of Pitt County gets built on successfully. It changes the method, not the possibility. That means a hydrostatic relief valve in the floor, a dewatering plan during construction, careful staged backfill, and sometimes a shallower design or a raised bond beam so the shell is not sitting as deep in the groundwater. The failure cases are the ones where nobody checked first.
How long does it take to build a pool here?
Fiberglass is usually three to six weeks from dig to swim. Vinyl liner runs four to seven. Gunite runs eight to fourteen weeks because the shell has to cure and there are more inspection stops. Add time for permitting, and add time for rain. A wet stretch in an eastern North Carolina summer can push any of those out by a couple of weeks.
What is the best time of year to start?
Late fall and winter. The ground is drier than people assume, the schedule is open, and you are finished before Memorial Day instead of watching the season go by. Everyone calls in May, which is exactly why May is the slowest time to get started.
Do I need a fence around my pool in North Carolina?
Yes. A barrier at least 48 inches high is required around a residential pool, with gates that close and latch themselves. Some jurisdictions accept a house wall as part of the barrier if the doors leading to the pool have alarms or self-closing hardware. Your inspector has the final say and it is worth asking before the deck goes in, not after.
Will a pool hurt my septic system?
It will if the pool is put in the wrong place. The drainfield and its designated repair area have required setbacks, and excavation over either one can end a septic system permanently. On rural lots this is usually the first thing that constrains where the pool can go, so we locate it before we design anything.