Pool Remodeling in Cedar Park, Texas

Remodeling pools behind 1990s and 2000s homes

Most of Cedar Park went up in two decades. Of the 29,364 housing units in the Census Bureau's 2020–2024 survey, 16,266 (55.4%) were built between 1990 and 2009, and only 4,123 (14.0%) date from before 1990. The median home was built in 2005, so in 2026 the 1990–2009 stock is 17 to 36 years old. The Census doesn't count pools, but about 72.5% of the city's housing units are single-family detached houses, and about 66.7% of occupied homes are lived in by their owners.

The City has planned remodels of its own pools, too. In a request for qualifications due January 17, 2025, it sought design firms for an expansion of the Veterans Memorial Pool, funded in the 2022 bonds, with a lazy river, slides and new spray features, and for an Elizabeth Milburn Pool renovation covering the pool house, a pump room redesign and a new water playscape and slide. Milburn is the City's heated pool, open year-round for lap swimming; Buttercup and Veterans Memorial open from May to August.

Tanning ledges and beach entries

The CDC's Model Aquatic Health Code describes an underwater shelf, the feature most owners call a tanning ledge or sun shelf, as an expanded top step or a separate area many feet wide and long, used mainly for lounging in very shallow water. The International Swimming Pool and Spa Code requires a way in and out of any shallow area deeper than 24 inches, placed on the shallow side of the first slope change, and it limits a residential beach or sloping entry to 1 unit of drop in 7 horizontal. National figures for 2025 say adding a beach or zero-entry area usually runs $30,000 to $60,000.

Raised walls, sheer descents and deck jets

Pentair recommends mounting a sheet-style waterfall no higher than 3 feet, because the sheet narrows as it falls and starts to break apart and buffet above that height; rain effects can go up to 6 feet. Its Deck Jet is cast into the deck or the pool's gunite wall and wired to the rebar, so it stays put while the concrete is placed.

Heaters and spas

Under the code, an outdoor heated pool or outdoor permanent spa needs a vapor-retardant cover or another approved means, unless a heat pump or solar supplies more than 70 percent of a season's heating energy. An electric heater also needs a readily accessible on-off switch within 3 feet of it, in addition to its breaker, and gas heaters may not run a continuously burning pilot light.

Lake Travis water, draining and drought stages

Cedar Park supplies its own water from Lake Travis, treated at the City's Don Webster Water Treatment Plant and at the Brushy Creek Regional Utility Authority plant, which Cedar Park owns with two regional partners. The City's 2025 water quality report lists hardness as CaCO3 at 183 ppm, total alkalinity at 144 ppm, calcium at 37.4 ppm, magnesium at 21.5 ppm and pH at 7.6, within a range of 7.4 to 7.8. The National Plasterers Council calls testing the fill water before a new finish starts up "no longer an option", since low pH, calcium hardness or alkalinity can etch a finish, high levels can scale it, and dissolved metals can stain it.

Where the old water goes

It is illegal in Cedar Park to drain pool water carrying a harmful amount of chlorine, muriatic acid or other pool chemicals into the storm drain. The City lets owners put chlorinated, salt or filter-backwash water onto a vegetated part of their own property, or into the storm drain once it is dechlorinated and free of pollutants, but never through a hose connected straight to the drain. Every stage of the City's drought plan adds that pools may not be drained into the sanitary sewer.

Refilling under the drought plan

Pools may be filled in drought Stages 1 to 3. Stage 4 allows filling only on the designated watering day, between 5 and 8 a.m. or 8 and 11 p.m., and Stage 5 bans it unless the water is needed to keep the purification system running or to protect the pool's structure. The City's FAQ says Stage 1 measures are in effect; confirm the stage before a drain date is set.

From Running Brushy to a city of 79,000

Cedar Park began as the Running Brushy settlement around George and Harriet Cluck's ranch. The railroad renamed it Brueggerhoff in 1882, and in 1887 their son Emmett Cluck renamed the town Cedar Park, after the parklike surroundings of his home. The Handbook of Texas says limestone for building became a major local product in the 1890s and stayed important until about 1970.

Ranch land turned to housing from the 1960s. Residents voted to incorporate on February 24, 1973, and the population grew from 125 in 1970 to over 3,000 in 1980, then to 5,161 in 1990 and 26,049 by 2000. The Census Bureau estimates 79,032 residents on July 1, 2025, most of them in Williamson County and 6,705 in the Travis County part. The H-E-B Center, a City-owned arena seating 8,700, opened as Cedar Park Center in 2009 and is home to the Texas Stars and the Austin Spurs. The city is in the Leander Independent School District, hosts Austin Community College's Cypress Creek campus, and counts National Oilwell Varco, Firefly Aerospace, ETS-Lindgren and James Avery Artisan Jewelry among the companies with national or regional headquarters there. Swimming isn't allowed at Brushy Creek Lake Park.

Cedar Park pool remodel questions