Turf beside a Pine Hills pool

A number of Pine Hills' original 1960s and 1970s pools were built with no screen cage at all, which changes how much direct sun the surrounding turf takes on compared with a newer, covered deck. Open or caged, the turf around it still prices at the residential span, $8–$18 a square foot, current as of September 2026.

Reviewed by Luis Austin, owner · Last reviewed September 21, 2026

Older pools without the screen cage a newer subdivision assumes

A pool installed in Pine Hills during the 1960s or 1970s often went in without a screen enclosure at all, since cage construction became standard practice on new Central Florida pools later than that. Turf around an open, unscreened pool deck takes full sun rather than the filtered light a cage provides, which means checking for nearby low-emissivity replacement windows matters here, since reflected heat off that kind of glass can soften turf from several feet away.

Infill choice for turf that sits right at the waterline

Turf bordering a Pine Hills pool still falls under the same single-family infill rule as the rest of the lot: clean silica sand, zeolite, or a coated sand with a non-toxic coating, never a rubber or synthetic fill outside the footprint of playground equipment. Coated sand is a reasonable pick for a strip that takes regular splash, since the coating resists bacteria growth on the grains themselves rather than relying on the sand alone. Plain silica works fine further back from the coping where splash rarely reaches. Either choice still goes in at roughly one to two pounds per square foot, brushed evenly through the pile.

Say you have 380 sq ft of turf around an unscreened pool

Say you have 380 sq ft of ground around an older, unscreened Pine Hills pool, split between a strip along one side and a run behind the shallow end, both in full sun most of the day. At the residential range of $8–$18 per square foot, that job prices between $3,040 and $6,840, with most jobs like it landing in the $10–$16 typical band, or $3,800 to $6,080.

Because the deck sits in direct sun without a cage overhead, the crew checks nearby windows for low-emissivity glass before finalizing turf placement, since a reflected hot spot from the wrong angle can do more damage to an open, sun-exposed lawn than to one shaded by a screen enclosure.

A pool lot backing onto Lawne Lake or a connecting canal

A smaller number of Pine Hills pool homes sit close enough to Lawne Lake or a connecting waterway to bring the state's 10-foot setback into the layout alongside the pool deck itself. That buffer runs from the water's ordinary high-water line, and only a seawall or bulkhead already in place closes the gap it otherwise requires, which on a narrow lot can leave the water-side turf shorter than the deck next to it.

What happens when a septic lid gets buried during a pool project

If a Pine Hills pool-area turf project doesn't keep a septic lid's location protected through a multi-day build, staged material or compacted base can end up covering it, and the state's rule requiring that access stay reachable doesn't help much once turf and infill are already finished on top of it. A pump-out crew arriving later without a clear record of the lid's exact spot sometimes has to probe through finished turf to find it, which damages a section that was otherwise built correctly. A marked stake through construction, not just a note on the layout plan, is what actually prevents this.

Why the ground near the pump pad stays wetter than the rest of the yard

The equipment pad next to a pool, where the pump and filter sit, sheds backwash and drips more consistently than any other spot on a Pine Hills lot, and turf bordering that pad needs the same washed rock depth and undisturbed native sand as anywhere else to keep that extra moisture moving down instead of sitting at the surface. Compacting the soil under that section too hard, which is easy to do when equipment traffic has already packed it down over the years, works against the percolation the state's turf standard requires. A border here often needs a fresh pass of loosening before rock goes down.

What a capped irrigation zone means next to an older pool deck

Orange County Utilities' seasonal watering schedule, two days a week in daylight saving months and one day the rest of the year, stops applying to a turfed pool-area section once its heads are capped, the same requirement that reaches any synthetic turf under the state's rule. What stays on the county's schedule is whatever natural grass remains around the edges of the pool deck once the turf section is finished.

Testing the border and the lanai floor together on handoff day

Once a Pine Hills pool project's border and glued lanai floor are both finished, running a hose across each section in turn, and watching where the border's rock-based drainage and the lanai floor's underlay each send water, confirms both foundations are doing their separate jobs before anyone relies on either one. Testing them together on the same day, rather than assuming a job that looked fine going in will drain fine coming out, catches a slow spot on either side while the crew can still address it. This takes only a few minutes longer than checking just one area alone.

Keeping the deck drain clear inside a screen enclosure

A screen mesh keeps most large debris out of a Pine Hills lanai, but pollen, dust, and small leaves still settle on the turf and can work toward the deck drain over time, especially during the June-to-September rainy season when storms are frequent enough that the drain rarely gets a rest. A quick sweep or rinse toward the drain on a regular schedule keeps the whole underlay system doing what it was built for, since even a permeable backing cannot help much once the drain it feeds is the part that is actually clogged.

Questions people ask

Do most Pine Hills pools have a screen cage?

Not universally. A meaningful share of the community's pools date to the 1960s and 1970s, before cage enclosures became the Central Florida default, so an open, unscreened pool deck is more common here than in a newer subdivision built in the last two decades.

Does an unscreened pool change the turf product recommended around it?

Not the product itself, but the sun exposure it takes on. Full, uninterrupted sun pushes surface temperature toward the higher end of what turf reaches in Florida, which is a reason to plan for regular hose rinsing rather than a reason to choose a different turf.

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