Pool Water Features and Waterfalls in Pearland, Texas

Pool water features behind post-2000 homes

Most of Pearland's housing is from this century. In Census Bureau survey figures for 2020–2024, about 29,375 of its 47,560 housing units (61.8%) went up in 2000 or later, about 16,315 (34.3%) in the 2000s and about 11,993 (25.2%) in the 2010s; the median year built is 2003. About 37,438 units (78.7%) are detached houses, owners live in 76.2% of occupied homes, the median owner-occupied value is $356,300, and households have a median income of $118,842.

The Handbook of Texas counts 18,697 residents in 1990 and 37,640 in 2000. The Census Bureau estimates 129,930 on July 1, 2025: 115,821 in Brazoria County, 8,219 in Harris County and 5,890 in Fort Bend County.

Vanishing edges and the code's skimming rule

The International Swimming Pool and Spa Code counts a vanishing edge, water spilling over at least one pool wall into a catch basin, as a water-feature detail. Where a perimeter-type skimming system is a pool's only skimming system, the code makes it run around at least half the perimeter, connected to a system with a surge capacity of at least 1 gallon for each square foot of water surface. On one vanishing-edge project the American Shotcrete Association wrote up, the designer set the final edge elevation with the pool full of water, because the level has to be precise and can shift with the water's weight, and the system was plumbed to draw from the catch basin constantly, whether the edge was running or not.

Running pool water features through the City's drought plan

Pearland's drought contingency plan, Chapter 9¾ of the City code (Ordinance No. 1009, 2001), lists filling, refilling or adding water to any indoor or outdoor swimming pool or hot tub as a non-essential use. Stage 1, a voluntary stage, begins every July 1 unless the city manager rescinds it and may end October 1. In Stage 2, non-essential use, pool filling included, is limited to even- or odd-numbered days of the month by street address and to the hours of 6 to 10 a.m. and 8 to 10 p.m. In Stage 3, an emergency, "All non-essential water use is prohibited." Whether a stage is in effect now couldn't be confirmed, so confirm the stage with the City before a pool comes down for a new feature.

Where Pearland's water comes from

The City says its water comes from City wells drawing on two aquifers and from water bought from the City of Houston, and that its treatment facilities provide roughly 3.5 billion gallons a year. This page gives no hardness figure for Pearland; a test of the water at the pool settles that before the pool's new surface is started up.

From Mark Belt to Pearland

Pearland began in 1882 as a siding switch on the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway, the Handbook of Texas records. Its post office opened in 1893 as Mark Belt, and that November the name changed to Pearland "because of the abundance of pear trees in the community". Promoters sold it as an "agricultural Eden"; the Galveston hurricane of 1900 destroyed its fruit trees, and oranges and figs revived local farming until the 1918 freeze. Oil was found nearby in 1934, and by the mid-1960s the town had 1,497 people and forty-one businesses. By 1990 it had expanded into Harris County.