Villa pool renovation
Pool work splits cleanly in two: the shell and the plant. A new finish over a leaking shell or an undersized filtration set is money spent twice.
Shell, waterproofing and finish
A renovation starts by establishing whether the structure holds water. Cracks, movement joints and previous repairs are assessed before any decision about finishes, because tile or plaster over a compromised shell will fail at the same place again.
Finish choice — glass mosaic, porcelain or plaster — changes the substrate preparation and the timeline, not just the appearance.
The code is unusually precise about private pools
The Dubai Building Code has a part written specifically for villas, and pools are where it gets exact. Water depth at the shallowest point must be between 850 mm and 1,200 mm. The floor slope may not exceed 12% in the shallow area or 33% at the deep end. The pool must be ringed by a continuous, unobstructed deck at least 1.2 m wide, laid to a 2% fall.
Safety barriers are equally specific: an outdoor pool needs a barrier at least 1,200 mm high with no more than a 50 mm gap at the bottom, openings too small to pass a 100 mm sphere, and self-closing, self-latching gates that swing away from the water — unless the adjacent building walls act as the barrier, or the pool has an ASTM F1346 power safety cover.
These numbers decide the design before anything is drawn. A pool laid out without them is a pool that fails at approval or, worse, at inspection after the tiling is done.
Plant, water treatment and the deck
Filtration, circulation and treatment are sized to the water volume and the way the pool is used. In UAE villas, heating and chilling are both routine: an unshaded pool in summer needs cooling to stay usable.
The deck is part of the same job. Stone selection has to survive surface temperature and pool chemistry, and falls have to carry water away from the villa, not towards it.
Where this sits in a villa project
On villas from 700 m² this scope is rarely stand-alone — it shares services, programme and approvals with the rest of the work. See what a full renovation costs and which approvals apply.