Concrete & Pool Decks in Paradise Valley, AZ

The pool deck is the single most-requested project we do in Paradise Valley, because nearly every estate here already has a pool and most of them are resort-scale. What these decks usually lack is a surround that matches the house. We set travertine and light-toned paver decks, clean coping along the pool edge, and cool-deck coatings that refresh a tired slab. To be clear up front, Solterra does not build, install or remodel pools. We build the hardscape around the pool you already have, from the coping line out to the rest of the yard.

In full Paradise Valley sun a dark, smooth deck can climb past a comfortable temperature by mid-morning, which is the complaint we hear most. We fight that two ways. Material and color come first: light-toned travertine, buff and gray pavers, and troweled cool-deck coatings reflect more sun and hold less heat than dark broom-finish concrete. Texture comes second: a matte, lightly textured finish reads cooler and grips better when it is splashed. On estates where the finish is expected to match a custom home, travertine is the surface we are asked for most, and it happens to be one of the coolest underfoot.

Terrain drives the engineering on these lots. Many Paradise Valley pools sit on terraced, sloped ground around Mummy Mountain and Clearwater Hills, so the deck has to be graded to shed both splash-out and monsoon runoff away from the pool and the house, not toward them. Caliche soil sheds water rather than absorbing it, so a hard storm has to clear fast, and we add channel or deck drains where the site calls for them. On slopes of 15 percent or steeper, the grading falls under the town's Hillside Building Committee, which reviews drainage before work begins, and we design the deck to clear that review.

Most of our Paradise Valley deck work is a resurface rather than a tear-out. If the existing slab is structurally sound, we can lay travertine or pavers over it, or trowel on a cool-deck overlay, without demolishing the whole deck. Where the concrete is cracked, heaved or sitting on poor base, we rebuild on compacted aggregate so the new surface stays flat for decades. We walk the deck first and tell you honestly which path the slab calls for. Coping gets the same care: travertine, precast or paver caps set to a clean line and a slight pitch so splash water sheds away from the edge.