I'm Adam, and I've built and serviced pools around Long Beach for about fifteen years. When someone asks me to price out a build, the first thing they want to know is which part costs the most, so let me answer it straight: the most expensive part of a pool is the shell, the excavated, steel-reinforced, gunite structure that forms the pool itself. Everything else in the budget is built on top of that. Below are the six real costs of a pool build, in the order they actually happen, and I'll show you exactly why the shell wins.
What is the most expensive part of a pool?
The shell is the most expensive part of a pool because it bundles three heavy jobs into one stage: digging the hole, placing the engineered steel, and spraying the gunite or shotcrete that becomes the structure. On most Long Beach and South Bay builds that single stage takes the largest share of the total budget, more than the finish, the deck, or the equipment. It's also the one part you can't cheaply redo later, so it's worth understanding before anything else.
Here's how I think about a build with owners in Long Beach, Manhattan Beach, and the rest of the South Bay. A pool is really a structure first and a swimming feature second. The six costs below follow the order a crew works in, from the raw dirt to the finished water, and the biggest one comes early.
1. Excavation and site preparation
Everything starts with the dig, and the dig is rarely simple. Excavation covers marking the layout, digging the hole to the engineered shape, and hauling the spoil off site. In the South Bay this cost swings hard depending on your lot. A flat Long Beach backyard with truck access is straightforward. A hillside lot, a tight side yard, or ground with a high water table or rock means more machine time, more hauling, and sometimes hand digging where equipment can't reach.
Site prep also includes access. If a crew has to reach the backyard through a narrow gate or over a neighbor's easement, that slows every stage that follows. I always walk the lot before I quote, because the difference between easy access and hard access can move the excavation cost more than any finish choice you'll make later. This stage isn't the biggest by itself, but it sets up the one that is.
2. The shell: steel and gunite (the biggest cost)
This is the winner, the single most expensive part of the pool. Once the hole is dug, a crew ties a cage of reinforcing steel to the engineered plan, then sprays gunite or shotcrete over it to form the walls and floor. That sprayed-concrete shell is the actual pool. It's what holds the water, resists the soil pressure around it, and lasts for decades.
The reason it dominates the budget is that it stacks skilled, heavy work: an engineer's structural design, the steel and its placement, the sprayed concrete, and the experienced nozzle and finishing crews who place it correctly. Cut a corner here and you don't get a cheaper pool, you get cracks, leaks, and a structure that fails early. That's also why resurfacing an existing pool is so much cheaper than building new. When the shell is already sound, you keep the most expensive component and only pay for a fresh interior. On a lot of older Long Beach pools, that's the smart move, and it's a big part of the resurfacing and construction work we do.
3. Interior finish and resurfacing
Once the shell cures, it needs an interior surface, because bare gunite is porous and rough. This is the plaster, quartz, or pebble finish you actually touch and see, plus any waterline tile. The finish is a real cost, but it sits well below the shell, and it's the layer that wears out first over the life of a pool.
That's the key connection to make: the finish is renewable, the shell is not. A plaster interior in our climate typically lasts somewhere in the range of a decade or so of steady use before it stains, roughens, or thins out. When that happens, you resurface, applying a new finish over the same structure. So the money you spend on the interior at build time is money you'll spend again later, on a cycle, while the shell underneath keeps serving. Owners who understand that tend to pick a durable finish up front and budget for a resurface down the road rather than a rebuild.
4. Decking, coping, and hardscape
Around the pool you need coping, the cap where the shell meets the deck, and the deck itself. This can be simple broom-finished concrete or it can climb quickly into stamped concrete, pavers, natural stone, and built-in features. Hardscape is the cost with the widest range of any item on this list, because it's driven almost entirely by taste and square footage rather than by the pool.
I mention this because it's where budgets quietly balloon. The pool structure is fixed by engineering, but the deck is open-ended. A large travertine deck with a raised bond beam and a spa surround can rival the finish cost or exceed it. If you're managing a build budget in Manhattan Beach or Long Beach, the deck is the lever you have the most control over, up or down, without touching the structure.
5. Equipment: pump, filter, heater, and automation
The equipment pad is the mechanical heart of the pool: the pump that circulates the water, the filter that cleans it, and usually a heater, plus plumbing, valves, and often automation to run it all. As a share of a new build, equipment is a mid-sized cost, well under the shell, but it's the part that most affects what the pool costs you to run every month for years.
This is where cheap and expensive diverge on operating cost, not just purchase price. A variable-speed pump and a right-sized filter cost more up front and save real money on electricity over their life. An undersized or mismatched setup does the opposite. Equipment is also the easiest part to upgrade later without disturbing the structure, so if a budget is tight, this is a reasonable place to start good and improve over time, and it's the category most of our ongoing service work touches.
6. Permits, engineering, and the first year of service
The last cost is the one owners forget: the paperwork and the early care. Every real build needs structural engineering and permits, and coastal South Bay jurisdictions don't rubber-stamp them. There's also inspection at several stages. None of this is optional on a pool built to last, and skipping it is how people end up with an unpermitted pool that haunts a future home sale.
Then there's the first season. A brand-new plaster finish needs careful startup and closer chemistry attention while it cures, and the whole system needs dialing in. Budgeting for that early service, rather than treating a pool as done the day it holds water, is what protects everything you just spent on the shell and finish. Getting the water and chemistry right in year one is genuinely part of the build cost, even though it lands after the crews leave.
The questions Long Beach and South Bay owners ask us most when they're weighing a pool build, answered plainly.
The biggest cost is the one you build everything else on
If you take one thing from this, let it be this: the shell is the most expensive part of a pool, and it's also the part you can't cheaply change later, so it's the decision worth getting right first. The finish, the deck, and the equipment can all be upgraded or renewed down the road. The structure can't. That's the whole reason resurfacing a sound older pool beats rebuilding, you keep the costly part and refresh the rest. If you're weighing a build or a resurfacing project anywhere in Long Beach, Manhattan Beach, or the South Bay, reach out through our contact page and I'll walk the site and give you honest numbers before you commit to anything.
Adam is the founder, owner, and lead technician of Adam's Pool & Spa, serving Long Beach and surrounding LA County for about fifteen years. He is Jandy Certified and a Pentair Expert Installer, and he built the business on education-first, anti-pressure service, including the "Pool School" session every new client gets.
