Villa Pool Construction: Cost and Process

Three things set the price of a villa pool: the type (skimmer, overflow or infinity), the ground it sits in, and the finish. Size matters too, but it is not unusual for one 5x10 m pool to cost nearly twice as much as another of the same size because of the soil and the system. Below is how a concrete villa pool gets built, how long each stage takes, and what it roughly costs as of early 2026.

Skimmer, overflow or infinity

In a skimmer pool the water sits 10-15 cm below the coping. Surface water is drawn in through skimmer mouths built into the wall, passes through the filter and comes back through wall inlets. It is the cheapest system and needs the smallest plant room. For most family villas it does the job perfectly well.

In an overflow pool the water rises right to the edge and spills into a grated channel around it. That water collects in a balance tank before going to the filter. The tank has to be big enough for the water that swimmers displace; undersize it and it either floods or the pump runs dry. Overflow systems usually cost around 20-30% more than skimmer pools and need a bigger plant room.

An infinity pool is a variation of the overflow pool where one edge spills into a lower trough. On the sloping plots around Şile and Ağva, with sea or forest views, people ask for it a lot. The spill edge has to be level to within millimetres; any fall and the water pours off one end while the other stays dry. Because it is built on a slope, part of the pool stands out of the ground and needs retaining or cantilevered support. It is the most expensive of the three.

Natural pools filtered by plants also exist. They take up a lot of space and water clarity is harder to control, so they are rarely chosen for villa gardens.

Construction stages and timing

1. Design and permits (2-4 weeks): size, depth and plant room position are fixed and the structural calculation is done. The cleanest route is to include the pool in the villa's approved drawings. If it comes later, find out first what the municipality requires for your plot. Near the sea, also check the shore strip restrictions under the Coastal Law (No. 3621).
2. Excavation (3-7 days): rock or groundwater adds time and cost.
3. Blinding, rebar and embedded fittings (about a week): two layers of reinforcement go into the floor and walls. Skimmers, main drain, inlets and light niches are fixed into the formwork at this stage. Drilling through hardened concrete later to pass pipes is the most common cause of leaks.
4. Concrete (1-2 weeks including curing): walls are typically 25-30 cm thick, in at least C30 concrete with a waterproofing admixture. Pouring floor and walls in one go is preferable. Where there is a construction joint, a waterstop goes into it.
5. Leak test and waterproofing (about a week): before any tiling, the shell is filled and the level watched for a few days. Then a flexible cementitious waterproofing coat goes on. Crews that skip the test end up hunting for leaks under finished tiles.
6. Plant room and pipework (about a week): pump, sand filter, chlorine or salt system and, if wanted, a heat pump. For a residential pool, filtration is usually sized to turn over the whole volume every 4-6 hours.
7. Finishes (1-2 weeks): glass mosaic, porcelain pool tile or natural stone. Mosaic laid in flexible adhesive lasts a long time. Pool paint is cheap but needs redoing every few years.
8. Deck and landscaping (2-3 weeks): non-slip stone or composite decking, laid to fall away from the pool.
9. Filling and commissioning: getting the water chemistry balanced the first time can take 3-5 days.

With reasonable weather the whole job usually takes two to three months.

Ground and groundwater around Şile and Ağva

An empty pool in wet ground gets pushed upwards. On plots with a high water table, such as those near the streams in Ağva, a pool drained for winter maintenance can lift or crack its floor slab. On sites like that we put a drainage layer and a hydrostatic relief valve under the pool and check the structure separately for the empty case.

Şile's clay soils bring a different problem. Clay swells when wet and shrinks as it dries, so a deck slab around the pool moves independently and pulls away from the coping. Compacted granular fill under the deck and a movement joint between deck and pool deal with most of it.

Salt air near the sea also attacks metal in the plant room and the pool ladders. We use grade 316 stainless for ladders and handrails. Grade 304 starts staining quickly on the coast.

Approximate costs (early 2026)

Pool type	Size	Approximate cost
Skimmer, mosaic finish	5x10 m	800,000-1,200,000 TL
Overflow, porcelain finish	5x10 m	1,200,000-1,800,000 TL
Infinity pool	6x12 m	2,000,000-3,500,000 TL and up
Heating (heat pump)	Add-on	150,000-400,000 TL

Excludes unusual ground conditions. Prices depend on finishes, site access and material costs at the time.

Whether the pool is built together with the villa also makes a difference. If the plant room, pipe routes and power supply are prepared during the structural works, nobody has to dig up a finished garden later. You excavate once and finish the garden once.

Yearly running costs

• Chemicals (chlorine, pH correction): roughly 15,000-30,000 TL a year
• Electricity (pump, lighting): roughly 20,000-50,000 TL a year
• Professional maintenance service: roughly 30,000-80,000 TL a year
• Winter shutdown and spring opening: roughly 10,000-20,000 TL per season

Around Şile the swimming season runs from about June to September. A heat pump stretches it by a few weeks in spring and autumn. In winter it is usually better to drop the water below the skimmer mouths, drain the pipes and cover the pool than to empty it completely.

Mistakes I see most often

• Putting the plant room far from the pool and well above water level. The pump struggles on the suction side and draws air.
• Treating electrical safety casually. In-pool lighting should be low voltage (12 V), and the pump and plant room circuit protected by a 30 mA residual current device.
• Sloping the deck towards the pool. Every rainstorm washes soil and leaves into the water.
• Leaving the pool open in a house with small children. A fence with a self-closing gate is cheap and works.

If you are planning a villa and pool together, our pool construction and villa construction pages explain how we work. A firm price needs a site visit and, if there is one, a look at the soil report. A price given from behind a desk changes the day the excavator hits rock or water.