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Home / Case Studies / Swimming Pool and Decking Build

A pool, decking and a finished surround.

A bespoke residential swimming pool with raised decking and a seating area. Groundworks, water services and finish delivered under one design and build contract.

Bespoke swimming pool with raised decking and seating area designed and built by Nationserv
Sector
Residential
Scope
Pool, decking, surround
Disciplines
Groundworks, water, finish
Approach
Design and build
Outcome
Finished and operational
The brief

One project, not two.

Nationserv was appointed to design and build a bespoke swimming pool at a residential property, together with the raised decking and seating area around it. The brief covered everything below the water and everything around it, under a single contract.

Nationserv is a UK specialist insurance repair contractor delivering end to end building solutions, including swimming pool design and build. The same site management and trade capability that delivers a complex reinstatement is what a pool project needs, because a pool is a structure, a water system and a finish all at once.

Most residential pools are contracted in pieces. A pool specialist puts in the water, a landscaper comes back later for the surround, and the two were never designed against the same drawing. The brief here was to plan the pool and the surround together, so the finished result reads as one piece rather than two jobs that met in the middle.

The challenge

Built from the ground up.

A pool is built in strict sequence and every stage carries the one above it. Groundworks, structural slab, pool shell, water services and plumbing, plant, then finish. Nothing can be revisited cheaply once the stage above has gone on.

Water is unforgiving. A pool tells you about a poorly formed slab or an untested joint for the rest of its life, and by the time it does, the decking is down and the surround is finished. Everything below the waterline had to be right before anything decorative was allowed to start.

The decking and seating area then had to land on top of that structure at the correct levels, with the geometry lining up against a pool edge that was set months earlier. That only works if the surround was designed at the same time as the pool, not specified afterwards against whatever happened to get built.

Swimming pool with raised decking surround built by Nationserv
The approach

Plan the surround with the pool.

Everything was planned as one programme. Groundworks were taken deep enough to support both the pool structure and the decking that would sit around it. Water services were installed and tested before the surround was closed up. Finishes were specified across the whole project rather than pool first, landscaping later.

Step 01

Pool design and build

Bespoke swimming pool designed and built to the property footprint and the client brief, with the surround geometry set at design stage rather than resolved on site later.

Step 02

Full groundworks

Excavation and groundworks taken deep enough to support the structure of the pool and the raised decking around it, so neither settles independently of the other.

Step 03

Water services and plumbing

Pool water services, plumbing and pipework installed and tested while everything was still accessible, before any part of the surround was finished over it.

Step 04

Surface preparation

Existing and damaged ground surface removed and prepared properly to take the new build, rather than the new work being laid over a substrate that was never assessed.

Step 05

Raised decking and seating

Decking and a seating area built around the pool, raised where the levels called for it, set out against the pool edge so the two lines read as one.

Step 06

Finished and protected

Surfaces prepared, colour matched, painted and protected across both the pool surround and the decking, coordinated so the finish is continuous across the whole area.

On site, in progress
Nationserv swimming pool build showing the pool structure and surrounding works

A pool and its surround are one structure, not two trades. When the same team holds the groundworks, the water and the finish, nothing falls through the joint.

Rhys Morosco
Chief Executive Officer, Nationserv
The outcome

Pool and surround, as one.

A bespoke swimming pool finished alongside its raised decking and seating area, sitting in the garden as one continuous piece of design and build rather than a pool with landscaping added around it.

The water services were installed, tested and signed off before the surround was closed up, so nothing decorative had to be lifted to correct something below it. The levels between pool edge and decking line through, because both were set from the same information.

Six disciplines were delivered under one contract: groundworks, pool structure, water services and plumbing, surface preparation, decking, and the coordinated finish across all of it. One programme, one point of responsibility, one standard applied from the excavation through to the last protected surface.

6
Disciplines under one contract
1
Programme, groundworks to finish
D&B
Design and build delivery
Finished decking and seating area detail beside the Nationserv built swimming pool

Building a pool? Plan the surround too.

If you are considering a pool with proper decking, our surveyors can scope the whole thing together: ground, structure, water, surround and finish, under one design and build contract.

Or speak to us direct 0800 652 3331