New pool build, renovation, leak detection, equipment repair and scheduled pool maintenance. Civil, waterproofing, tiling, hydraulics and electrical delivered by our own trades. Written quote first.
A new pool is built in a sequence, and each stage has to be signed off before the next buries it.
Survey and design come first: where the pool can physically go given the plot, the setback from boundaries and the villa, the position of buried services, where the plant room will sit, and how deep the water table is. Then excavation and any dewatering. Then steel reinforcement and the concrete shell. Then the buried pipework and the first pressure test. Then waterproofing, screeding and tiling. Then coping, surrounds and decking. Then plant room installation, electrical connection and commissioning. Then filling, chemical balancing and handover.
The stages people try to compress are the pressure test and the waterproofing, and those are precisely the two that are catastrophic to redo. Once tiles are on and the surround is laid, finding a pipe leak means breaking out finished work.
A pool also does not exist on its own. It sits inside a garden, next to a terrace, connected to your DEWA supply and your electrical distribution board, and usually next to a plant room that has to be somewhere. Where that is all being built at once, one contractor across the whole thing removes the interface arguments. See landscaping and garden design.
Size and shape. Bigger is not automatically better in Dubai. A larger surface area means more evaporation, more chemical demand, more filtration hours, and a bigger chiller to keep it swimmable in summer. A well-proportioned pool that gets used every day beats an oversized one that becomes a running cost.
Depth. Depth drives volume and therefore everything downstream. A constant-depth pool of around 1.2 to 1.4m suits families and lap use and is far cheaper to heat, chill and treat than a deep end nobody uses. A diving depth is a specific requirement with specific safety implications and should be a deliberate choice, not a default.
Position. Sun and wind matter. A pool in full sun all day heats faster in summer and needs more cooling, but stays comfortable longer through winter. A pool under trees collects leaves and organic debris continuously. A pool tight against a boundary is harder to build and harder to service. And the plant room needs to be close enough for efficient pipe runs but positioned so the pump noise is not under a bedroom window. Where the terrace beside the pool is unusable in the middle of the day, shade over the pool terrace is what buys back those hours.
Skimmer or overflow. A skimmer pool has the water level below the coping and draws surface water through skimmer boxes. It is simpler, cheaper and easier to service. An overflow or deck-level pool has the water flush with the surround, spilling into a channel and a balance tank. It looks markedly better, cleans the surface more effectively, and costs more to build and to run because it needs the balance tank, more pipework and more pump duty.
What goes in it. Steps, benches, sun shelves, jets, water features, a spa section, a counter-current unit that lets you swim against a flow in a short pool. Each of these has to be designed into the shell and the hydraulics at the start. Adding them later means breaking concrete.
Excavation in Dubai frequently hits water. In coastal and low-lying areas the water table can be close enough to the surface that the excavation needs dewatering while the shell is built, with the discharge managed properly rather than pumped into the street.
Groundwater also creates a longer-term issue that most owners never hear about until it bites: hydrostatic pressure. An empty pool in high groundwater can be pushed by the water outside the shell, which is why a pool built where the water table is high needs a hydrostatic relief valve, and why nobody should ever drain a pool completely without understanding the ground conditions. If you have been told your pool needs emptying, ask what the plan is for the groundwater first.
The shell itself is reinforced concrete. Steel is fixed to the design layout, and the concrete is placed either as sprayed concrete (gunite or shotcrete) or as poured reinforced concrete with formwork, depending on the shape and the access. Block-and-render construction is also used, typically on simpler rectangular pools. What matters in all cases is cover to the steel, proper compaction, and no cold joints in the wrong place. A cold joint is the seam left where one pour has set before the next concrete is placed against it, and in a pool shell that seam is where water finds a way out.
After the shell cures, the buried pipework is installed and pressure tested before anything covers it. That test is the last cheap opportunity to find a fault, and it is the stage of a swimming pool installation that is most expensive to revisit once the tiling is on.
Concrete is not waterproof. Everything about whether a pool holds water for twenty years is decided in this stage.
A cementitious membrane and shell sealing system is applied to the prepared shell, with particular attention to the penetrations (skimmer boxes, inlets, main drains, lights and any water feature outlets), because that is where failures start. Corners and movement joints are detailed rather than simply painted over.
Then the finish. Glass mosaic gives the deepest colour and the best appearance and is the most labour-intensive to lay. Ceramic and porcelain pool tiles are more economical and available in larger formats. Aggregate finishes such as quartz or pebble give a textured, natural look and are laid as a single continuous surface. Painted pools are the cheapest and need recoating on a cycle. Whichever is chosen, the tile adhesive and grout have to be pool-rated and applied to a properly prepared, level render: hollow tiles and failing grout are almost always a substrate problem, not a tile problem.
Coping is the edge detail that ties the pool to the surround. It needs a drip edge or a fall away from the water so that wash-down and splash do not run back in carrying dirt, it needs to be slip-resistant when wet, and in Dubai it needs to be a light enough colour to stand on barefoot in July. The transition from coping to paving or decking is where levels and drainage get resolved.
The plant is what keeps the water clear, and undersized plant is the most common false economy in a pool build.
Filtration. Sand filters are the standard for residential pools: hard-wearing, simple, and backwashed periodically. Cartridge filters give finer filtration and use no water to backwash, but cartridges need cleaning and replacing. In Dubai the dust load is high, so filters work harder than the same pool would elsewhere and filtration hours need to reflect that.
Pumps. Variable-speed pumps are worth specifying. They allow long, slow filtration cycles (which filter better than short, fast ones) at a fraction of the electrical consumption of a single-speed pump running the same hours. Over a pool's life that is one of the few upgrades that genuinely pays for itself on the DEWA bill.
Pipework. Sized so that flow velocity stays sensible. Undersized pipe means the pump works against resistance, consumes more, filters less and is noisier. Runs are kept as short and as straight as the layout allows, with proper isolation valves so that a pump or filter can be serviced without draining the system.
Plant room. It needs ventilation, drainage, lighting, a power supply and enough space to actually work in. A plant room that a technician cannot stand up in is one that will be maintained badly for the rest of its life. Chemical storage, if it is kept there, needs to be separated from the electrical equipment.
This is the section most pool marketing skips, and it is the one that decides whether you use the pool.
For a large part of the Dubai summer the problem is not that the water is cold. It is that a shallow pool in full sun reaches a temperature that is no longer refreshing and, in the worst weeks, no longer pleasant. A pool chiller removes heat from the water and is the equipment that makes a pool usable in summer. It is a different machine from the building plant we cover under chiller servicing, but it fails for the same reasons: dirty coils, low refrigerant and no scheduled attention.
In the cooler months the opposite applies, and unheated water in December and January is too cold for most people to swim in comfortably. A heat pump handles that.
Reverse-cycle heat pumps do both (heating in winter, chilling in summer) from one unit, which is usually the sensible specification for a new pool. Sizing depends on the pool's volume, its surface area, whether it is shaded, and whether a cover is used. Covers matter more than people think: most of a pool's heat exchange and almost all of its evaporation happen at the surface, so a cover reduces both the running cost and the water top-up.
Whatever is installed needs the electrical supply designed for it, and the unit needs to sit where it can reject heat freely and where the noise is acceptable.
Dubai conditions are hard on pool chemistry. Strong UV burns off free chlorine quickly. High summer temperatures accelerate everything, including algae. High evaporation means constant top-up water, and because the water that evaporates leaves its dissolved solids behind, the total dissolved solids and salinity of the pool climb steadily over a season.
Chlorine dosing remains the base of most residential systems, either manually or through an automatic doser. Stabiliser protects the chlorine from UV, within limits: too much of it and the chlorine becomes sluggish.
Salt chlorination is popular and often misunderstood. A salt system does not replace chlorine; it generates chlorine from salt in the water electrolytically. The water feels softer and you stop handling chlorine directly, which are real advantages. The cell is a consumable and needs cleaning and eventual replacement, and salt is corrosive to some metals and stone, so material choices around the pool matter.
UV and ozone systems reduce the chlorine demand rather than eliminating it, and they are worth the money where bather load is high or where somebody in the family reacts badly to chlorine.
Whatever the system, the water needs regular testing and balancing: free chlorine, pH, alkalinity, calcium hardness and stabiliser. Water that is chemically out of balance does not just look wrong; low pH and aggressive water attack grout, plaster and metal fittings, and high calcium scales the tile line and the heat exchanger.
Pool lighting is low-voltage and the fittings are rated for continuous immersion. Position matters: lights placed to shine along the pool rather than into the eyes of somebody sitting beside it, and set at a depth that does not create a glare band across the surface.
The electrical side of a pool is not cosmetic. Circuits feeding pool equipment need the correct protective devices, the metalwork in and around the pool needs to be bonded, and the plant room needs to be wired for a wet, warm environment. This work is carried out by our electricians, and we are a contractor working under a DEWA-enrolled electrical scope. If you have inherited a pool where the plant room wiring looks improvised, it is worth having it inspected before anything else.
Practical measures, not legal advice:
Some communities and buildings set their own requirements for pool barriers, and where a property is rented out or used for short-term letting there may be further conditions. Those are set by the community or the operator and worth checking before you build.
A new villa pool normally needs approval before construction: from the developer or community management, and depending on the location and the scope, from the relevant authority. The route depends on where the villa is, and the community's own process governs the timeline. It is worth starting this early because it is the most common reason a pool build does not begin when the owner expected.
Access is the other constraint. Excavation produces a significant volume of spoil that has to leave the site, and concrete usually has to be pumped. If the only route to the back garden is through the house or a 900mm side gate, the method and the cost change. We assess that at survey and tell you plainly which approach the plot allows.
For pools inside towers and shared buildings, work is coordinated with building management, with service lift booking, working-hour restrictions and permit requirements applying as they do to any contractor on site. We hold the insurance that buildings ask to see.
Most of the pools we are called to are not new. They are ten or fifteen years old and showing it: tiles lifting along the waterline, grout washed out, the plaster stained, the coping cracked, a skimmer that has pulled away, and a plant room full of equipment that has been repaired more times than it was designed for.
A renovation typically involves draining under controlled conditions, breaking out failed tiling and render, assessing the shell for cracks and movement, replacing failed waterproofing, re-rendering, re-tiling, replacing skimmers, inlets and main drain fittings, replacing or re-sealing coping, and upgrading the plant. Common upgrades taken at the same time because the pool is already empty: converting to a variable-speed pump, adding or replacing a heat pump or chiller, converting to salt chlorination, replacing lights with modern LED units, and re-piping where the existing runs are corroded or undersized.
Two warnings. First, do not drain a pool without establishing the groundwater situation. Second, a pool that loses water is not automatically a pool that needs retiling: find the leak first, because retiling a leaking shell just buries the problem under new tiles.
If you have been quoted for a full retile and nobody has told you why the pool is losing water, send us the quote and photographs of the waterline and the plant room, and we will tell you what we would check before agreeing to any of it.
Every pool in Dubai loses water. The question is whether it is losing it to the sky or to the ground.
Evaporation from an uncovered pool in a Dubai summer is substantial, and a great many "leaks" we are called out to are normal seasonal evaporation. The first test is the simplest: a bucket test, comparing the drop in a bucket of pool water sitting on a step against the drop in the pool itself over the same period, with the pump running and then off. If the pool drops faster than the bucket, there is a leak. If it drops at the same rate, you are looking at evaporation and the answer is a cover, not excavation.
If there is a leak, the next step is to isolate where. A pool that only loses water when the pump is running points at pressure-side pipework. A pool that loses water to a specific level and then stops points at a fitting or a crack at that depth. From there we pressure-test the individual lines, dye-test suspect fittings and cracks, and use the same acoustic and moisture-tracing methods we use for building leaks: see water leak detection.
Equipment repair covers pumps that are noisy, running hot, losing prime or tripping the breaker; filters with damaged laterals (the slotted internal pipes that hold the sand back) or a failed multiport valve (the handle on top of the filter that selects filter, backwash and rinse); heat pumps and chillers not reaching temperature; salt cells that have stopped producing; lights that have flooded; and controllers and timers that no longer hold a programme. Where a part is repairable we repair it. Where a fifteen-year-old single-speed pump is being kept alive at the cost of a large monthly consumption, we will say so and let you decide.
A pool that is maintained weekly stays cheap. A pool that is maintained when somebody notices a problem becomes expensive.
A regular maintenance visit covers skimming the surface, brushing the walls and waterline, vacuuming the floor, emptying skimmer and pump baskets, testing and adjusting the water chemistry, backwashing or cleaning the filter as required, checking the pump, heater or chiller and controller for faults, checking the water level and top-up, and inspecting the tile line, coping and visible fittings. Anything developing gets reported before it becomes a repair.
Frequency depends on use and season. Through the summer, with high evaporation, high chemical demand and heavy dust, weekly attention is realistic for most residential pools. Through the cooler months the demand drops. Pools with heavy tree cover or high bather loads need more.
Pool maintenance can be combined with the rest of the property under our maintenance packages so that one contractor covers the pool, the garden, the AC and the building fabric.
We visit the site, assess the plot, the access, the ground conditions and the services, and discuss what you actually want the pool for. Then you get a written quote before any work begins, itemised by stage, with the specification stated: shell type, waterproofing system, tile or finish, coping material, plant specification, heating or chilling, lighting, and what is excluded.
What moves the number: size and depth; skimmer versus overflow construction; ground conditions and whether dewatering is needed; access and whether machinery can reach the excavation; the finish specification, which ranges enormously; the plant specification, particularly heating and chilling; and the extent of the surround and landscaping included.
For repairs and renovations, we diagnose first and quote against a defined scope, because a quote issued before anyone has established why a pool is losing water is a guess.
Warranty terms for your job are confirmed in the written quotation, and they differ between a full pool build, a renovation and a standalone repair. Pumps, heat pumps, chillers, salt cells, lights and controllers carry the manufacturer's own warranty, which we pass to you with the handover information.
Construction. Concrete shell — the standard for anything permanent in Dubai and the only option for infinity edges and complex geometries. Fibreglass shell where the site suits a lift-in unit. Vinyl liner as a third route, chosen for cost and speed where the pool geometry is straightforward.
Edge details. Infinity and overflow edges where the view justifies the additional balance-tank plumbing. Skimmer edges for everything else.
Filtration. Sand filter is the default for domestic pools — cheap consumables, forgiving of neglect. Cartridge filters where footprint is tight and the owner will change elements on schedule.
Treatment. Dosing is the traditional route. Salt chlorinator is the low-maintenance alternative — the pool generates its own chlorine from dissolved salt, and the water feels softer to swim in.
Related trades: waterproofing, landscaping, pergolas, tile installation and MEP contracting.
Transparent pricing with no hidden fees. Final price confirmed after assessment.
From AED 54,000
Turnkey new build
From AED 145,000
Turnkey new build
From AED 58,000
Supply and install
From AED 68,000
Bundled scope
From AED 350 / visit
Per visit
From AED 320 / m²
Per sqm of pool surface
From AED 850
Per investigation
Explore more services from PROTECH Dynamics
PROTECH Dynamics serves all communities across Dubai
Emergency response available to any location across Dubai.
Our emergency team responds 24/7 across all of Dubai.
Send the plot details and what you want the pool to do, and we will arrange a survey and give you a written quote before any work begins.
Available 24/7 for emergencies | info@protechfitout.com
