Te Puna sites often come with a harbour view and the slope that goes with it. Getting the levels right is what turns that into a pool you actually want to sit beside.
What makes a Te Puna property desirable, the outlook over the harbour, is also what makes the pool design work harder. A section that falls away needs the levels resolved properly: where the pool platform sits, what retaining holds it, and how you get from the house down to the water without a set of stairs nobody wants to use in bare feet.
None of this rules out a pool. Sloping sites produce some of the best-looking results in the district, because a pool set into a terrace with a view past it beats a rectangle in the middle of a flat lawn. It just needs designing rather than dropping in.
On a contoured site there are usually two or three places a pool could sit, and they are not equal. The highest point gives the view but often the worst access and the most retaining. Closer to the house is cheaper to service and gets used more often. The bottom of a slope collects cold air and water runoff.
We work through those options at the site visit with the levels in front of us, rather than picking a shape first and finding a spot for it afterwards.
Te Puna sits within Western Bay of Plenty District Council. Where a project involves significant earthworks or retaining on a steep site, that can bring district plan rules into play as well as building consent, and we flag it before a design is settled.
Many Te Puna properties have established shelter belts from their orcharding history. For a pool that is a genuine advantage: less wind across the surface means less evaporative heat loss and a noticeably longer usable season. Worth siting the pool to take advantage of what is already there rather than clearing it and starting again.
Lifestyle blocks here often mean the pool sits some distance from the house, so power and water runs are longer and belong in the plan from the outset. If the property is on tank or bore supply, the fill needs working out in advance, because bore water with high iron or mineral content can mark a pool surface if it goes in untreated.
On a terraced platform with a view, The Reflection and The Reflection with Auto Cover sit well, with clean lines that do not compete with the outlook, and a cover that keeps overnight heat in on an exposed site. Where there is room on a flatter part of the property, the family models work as they do anywhere. On a tighter terrace, The Harmony or The Olympus gets you swimming water without a retaining bill to match.
One crew, one programme: site visit and design, building consent, excavation, the shell and its plumbing, the concrete surround, fencing to code, paving and planting, then water balance and handover. You can see finished Bay of Plenty installs on our projects page, the full range on our pools page, and the consent and fencing detail in our guides.
We will come out, tell you what will fit, what the ground and access mean for the job, and give you a written quote for the whole build.
No hoses, no cables, worth over $3,000, free with every pool install booked by 31 August. T&Cs apply.
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