Pool Replastering in Nassau Bay, Texas

Pool replastering for Nassau Bay's 1960s and 1970s homes

Of the towns within 5 miles of League City, Nassau Bay has the oldest housing. Among 2,939 homes counted in Census Bureau estimates for 2020–2024, about 1,418 (48.2%) were built in the 1960s alone, about 675 (23.0%) in the 1970s, and about 2,129 (72.4%) before 1980 in all; the median year built is 1970. The City's 2020 comprehensive plan, citing a 2019 market study, gives a different cut of the same story: 82.8% of units built before 1990, and half of all units, 1,073, from the first building era of the 1960s. The plan calls 30 years the point when many homes and multifamily buildings begin to need more substantial reinvestment or repairs.

The Census doesn't count pools, and no record says what finish Nassau Bay's are in. NPT, a finish maker, recalls white plaster as the standard choice when backyard pools caught on in the 1950s, with pebble finishes coming decades later.

An older shell under new plaster

The National Plasterers Council gives a pool's interior finish no structural rating; it isn't part of the structure. Its Technical Bulletin 7 still credits watertightness to the concrete shell and the finish together, so the shell gets attention before the plaster goes on. SGM requires any water seeping through the shell from groundwater pressure, what it calls weepers, to be stopped first with hydraulic cement around leaks and fittings, and the Council recommends plugging the dig-outs around pipes and fittings flush with non-shrinking material, cured first, because a thicker finish at those spots can discolor.

Draining a Nassau Bay pool for replastering on wet ground

The USDA maps the soil at Nassau Bay's Census center point as Texla-Urban land complex, somewhat poorly drained, and rates its main soil "very limited" for shallow digging because of the depth to the saturated zone. The database gives that map unit's shallowest yearly water table as 31 centimeters, about 12 inches down. One point doesn't describe every lot, but the City sits 16 feet above sea level with water on three sides. Where groundwater sits that high, a drained pool can float: the Pool & Hot Tub Alliance's water-quality committee says groundwater can lift an empty inground pool and badly damage it, wants a working hydrostatic relief valve in place, and advises against draining at all if the groundwater level is unknown. Pentair's drain guide explains the valve's job, letting the pressure under the floor bleed into the pool instead of pushing the shell up.

Floods and the water table

The City says its floods usually come from heavy rain overwhelming Clear Creek or from storm surge out of Galveston Bay, and names Hurricane Ike (September 2008) and Tropical Storm Allison (June 2001) as its biggest events. Its plan records 67 homes elevated with FEMA mitigation grants, more than 95 percent of the homes on FEMA's repetitive-loss list, and seven homes on Leeward Lane bought and cleared for open space.

Discharging the old pool water

Nassau Bay's storm drains run straight to Clear Creek, Clear Lake and Galveston Bay, and its state stormwater permit requires the City to keep contaminants out of them. No Nassau Bay rule naming pool water was found. The state's stormwater permit for small cities, issued by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, allows dechlorinated pool water unless the local system's operator bans it, so ask the City before any water leaves the yard. Its drought plan isn't posted online either; ask about the current stage too.

Plaster repair, tile and coping with a replaster

A replaster is the natural time for the rest of the pool's edge and surface work: plaster repair on spots that don't need a full coat, waterline tile replacement, coping repair, an acid wash, a step up to quartz or pebble, and deck resurfacing. In 2026 one Houston builder starts standard white plaster at roughly $4,500 to $6,000 for the 12,000 to 18,000 gallons it calls a typical local pool, with size and the shell's condition moving the figure. That number is the builder's, not a quote from League City Pool Resurfacing, whose estimates cost nothing.

For the neighbors, see apartment and commercial pool resurfacing in Webster and pool remodeling and upgrades in Taylor Lake Village.

From the Spirit of 1776 Ranch to a city on the water

The Ernest W. Roe Company developed Nassau Bay from Col. Raymond Pearson's former Spirit of 1776 Ranch. Building on the 570-acre site began in 1962, NASA began operating in the area in 1963, families first moved in in 1964, the Nassau Bay Homeowners Association formed in 1965, and the community incorporated in 1970. Its developers built stores, some 15 office buildings, 400 apartments and 1,000 homes, then marinas, parks, a private club, a hotel, a hospital, a bank and a shopping center; the population reached 6,702 in 1980.

The 2020 Census counted 5,347 residents, and the Census Bureau estimates 5,210 on July 1, 2025. The City calls Nassau Bay essentially built out, with Houston to the north and Webster directly west; the NASA 1 Bypass links it to I-45, and Houston Methodist Clear Lake Hospital broke ground on an expansion in 2019. The Nassau Peninsula, deeded to the City in 1988, is now a natural wetland with a nature trail.