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Decking around a pool: curves, cut lines and what holds them up
A pool deck is judged at the edge. The field of boards is the easy part; the line where timber meets the pool is what people look at, and what's underneath decides whether that line stays true. Here are three decks we've cut to three pools, each built a different way.
Three decks, three sequences
One Tree Hill: half-moon Kwila around a round stainless pool. Frame first, boards after the pool went in.
Mission Bay: half-moon Kwila, fully finished before the pool arrived.
Meadowbank: curved Vitex around an existing concrete pool, meeting porcelain coping.
One Tree Hill: frame first, boards after
The pool is a round Outback shell, 3.4 m across, set partly into the ground. The deck around it is 140 × 19 smooth Kwila on 140 × 45 joists and laminated 190 bearers made from two 45s, all H3.2, on 125 × 125 H5 house piles, with stainless plates, brackets and screws throughout. PlaceMakers supplied all the timber.
The curve started before the pool arrived. We framed a temporary structure for one purpose: to anchor a rigid tape at the exact centre of the pool. The curve was set off the shell's own dimensions, plus an allowance for fit, thermal expansion and drainage. We built the frame first, leaving enough room to drop the pool in. Once the pool was placed, the boards went down, each one scribed to the shell and cut individually with a jigsaw. There's about a metre of deck all the way round.
5 to 6 weeks on site
Mission Bay: deck first, pool after
Mission Bay reversed the order. The deck is 6 m by 4 m, with a 5 m by 1 m return along the house connecting to the existing entry deck, so every door now leads to the pool. It's 140 mm smooth Kwila on 140 × 45 H3.2 SG8 joists and 190 × 45 H3.2 SG8 bearers, on 125 × 125 H5 concrete piles, with stainless brackets, pile kits and CPC connections, the J Vice system from Glass Vice, and 65 mm stainless Torx-head decking screws.
The whole deck was finished before the pool arrived, so the circle had to be exact first time. We bolted a board to the round concrete slab to find the pool's centre, secured a tape to it and drew a perfect circle. The framing was cut first, then the decking. When the pool came, in Kevin's words, it "fit like a glove".
The equipment box sits at the deck edge: custom-built with a top-access lid, on 90 × 45 H3.2 framing, clad in H3.2 plywood and painted black.
3 weeks on site
Meadowbank: a curve with three angles
Meadowbank was the most technical of the three. The deck wraps an existing concrete pool with curved coping, in 140 × 19 smooth Vitex on 190 joists over double 190 bearers. The edge is cantilevered with a double boundary joist throughout, and every structural timber connection uses J Vice stainless fixing systems from Glass Vice.
The frame was built with extra bearers so a joist lands on each side of the curve and every cut board stays fully supported. The curved cuts were made one at a time, and some boards carry up to three different angles. Kevin's description: a "very technical finish".
The skimmer is built into the deck, with special framing around it and a seamless Vitex cover that sits flush with both the deck and the pool coping, lifted by a recessed 316 stainless boat-lifting ring. Two flights of stairs, each about 1.2 m, are built in Vitex with wrapped details.
Pool barrier. New Aurora panels from Profit NZ, installed under the barrier consent that already existed from before the rebuild. Which applies to your site is settled before we quote.
About 10 weeks on site
What actually decides it
Where the centre is. A round or curved edge is only as good as the point it's set from. At One Tree Hill that was a rigid tape on a temporary frame; at Mission Bay, a board bolted to the slab.
Support at the cut. The edge of a curve is where boards end short and unsupported. Extra bearers at Meadowbank put a joist on each side of the curve so no board end is left hanging.
The timber. Kwila and Vitex are hardwoods and cost more than treated pine, and we build decks in all three. The choice is about look, lifespan and how the deck ties into what's already there.
The fixings. Stainless throughout on all three, and the J Vice system on the connections that matter at Mission Bay and Meadowbank.
Getting to the plant. A deck that hides the pump still has to let someone service it: a top-access equipment box at Mission Bay, a lift-out skimmer lid at Meadowbank, the plant open behind the pool at One Tree Hill.
Where we fit
We build the deck, the frame and everything under it, and we're on site on delivery day when a new pool arrives, because the pool has to fit what we've built. The pool itself comes from the pool supplier. If you're weighing up a deck around a new or existing pool, the site visit is where we work out the edge before anything is cut.