.png)
Above-ground plunge pool & Kwila deck — Mission Bay
A flat back yard in Mission Bay with a broken slab along the house and a fence line lost under creeping fig. The brief was a pool the kids could use and a yard to play in. We designed the deck and the pool's position, built the deck complete, then carried the pool in by hand. Three weeks.
What was there before
An old broken concrete slab ran along the back of the house, across the ground the deck and pool now stand on. Along the boundary, 25 m of fence had been pushed apart by creeping fig and buried under it, and the growth had taken the space either side. The yard itself was flat and open, with a long driveway down one side. It was that access that later spared us a crane.
What the client wanted
A yard the children could use, built around a pool that sits above the ground rather than in it. The clients could not picture how it would fit, so we set out the deck and the pool's position and gave them drawings to look at, and the drawings are what made the idea real. They are doing their own planting after us, on a lawn we topped up with fresh soil.
What made it hard
Two things, and neither of them was the pool. A fence line of 25 m shows every millimetre it runs out, so getting it straight was a set-out job rather than a fencing one. And the pool position had to be resolved entirely on paper first: slab height, deck height and the finished cut around a circle are all decided before the concrete goes in, and none of them can be adjusted afterwards.
What we built, and how the curve was set out
The pool is an Outback, 3.2 m across and 1.3 m high, stainless steel with a blue liner, supplied by The Pool Distributor. It stands on a round slab 3.4 m across and 400 mm high, built to deck and house height: 25 MPa, 665 mesh and D12 rebar over compacted GAP20, boxed in plywood and braced, poured by us. Decking is 140 mm smooth Kwila over 140 × 45 H3.2 SG8 joists and 190 × 45 bearers on 125 × 125 H5 concreted piles, with stainless brackets, pile kits and CPC connections, J Vice fixings from Glass Vice and 65 mm stainless Torx screws. The deck runs 6 × 4 m with a 5 × 1 m return along the house, so every door now opens onto one surface that leads to the pool. To set the curve we bolted a board to the slab, found the exact centre of the pool, swung a tape fixed to it, and cut the framing to that line before the decking. The deck was finished before the pool arrived, and it went straight in. The plant sits in a custom box with a top-access lid, 90 × 45 H3.2 framing and ply, painted black. Our electrician ran the pool supply, and a car charger line while he was there.
Consents and the barrier
On this job the pool wall is the barrier. The slab sits 90 mm below the deck, which leaves the shell standing 1,210 mm above it, and nothing gives permanent access to the rim, so no separate barrier was built and none was consented. The boundary is another matter: 25 m of capped paling rebuilt, and an 8 m return to a gate.
BOOK SITE ASSESSMENT
What a plunge pool costs in Auckland
Why it cost what it cost
Heights, mostly. The slab, the deck, the existing entry deck and the house thresholds all had to meet, and the 90 mm between slab and deck is what puts the pool where it needs to be. Those numbers were fixed before the first pile went in. The rest is what does not show: H5 piles, stainless throughout, Kwila over a frame cut to a circle, and a fence line set out straight rather than followed along the old one.
What the client said
“Kevin and his team did an amazing job! We can't thank them enough for helping us with our backyard. They sorted everything for us on time, within the agreed budget and the end result was amazing. The attention to detail both in their work and leaving everything clean and tidy was next level. Thanks again team!”