No checklists copied off a supply catalog. These are the cost numbers, grading calls, and drainage fixes Darren Earl has run on San Diego County properties since 1984.
What a custom pool actually costs in this county, where the numbers move, and why a fixed-price concept from one builder beats a low bid that grows once the subcontractors line up. Forty years of pricing, written down plainly.
Darren Earl · March 12, 2026 · 9 min read
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Grading order, which retaining wall belongs where, and how to plan drainage on a hillside lot the next builder turned down. The work we’ve done since 1984.
Cost, durability, and how each material holds up over a ten-year structural window in SoCal sun and soil. We pick by the sub-grade, not the showroom photo.
The symptoms that point to a real grading fault, the cheap checks you can run yourself, and the point where a patch stops working and the structure needs to move.
Tell us what’s going on in the yard. We’ll come look — structure first, then the build you actually want — and give you a fixed-price concept. No charge for the visit.