Our Story
The family that shoots the shell.
South Coast Gunite is Otoniel Botello's business. Twenty years of gunite and shotcrete across Houston and the Texas Gulf Coast, and he is still the person who answers the phone.
Gunite is a subcontract trade. Most of what we do happens after a builder has sold the job and before the tile, the coping and the plaster go on. We shoot the shell. It is the part of a pool nobody ever sees again once it is finished, and it is the part that decides whether the pool is still holding water in thirty years.
Twenty years of doing that here means twenty years in ground that moves. Houston clay swells through a wet spring and shrinks through a drought. Closer to the bay the water table sits high enough to lift an empty pool out of the ground. Further east the rain is heavy enough that a hole can fill faster than a crew can dig it. A shell built for somewhere else does not last here, and the difference is in the steel, the water at the nozzle and the cure, none of which anyone can inspect once the plaster is on.
The shell is the part nobody sees again. That is exactly why it has to be right the first time.
The work runs both ways. Pool builders and general contractors bring us in for the structural shell, and homeowners come to us directly for pools, spas, rock and water features, retaining walls and renovations. Residential and commercial, across 16 cities from Katy in the west out to Beaumont in the east.
It is a family business, which mostly means there is nobody to hide behind. Call about a schedule or a change on site and you are talking to the person responsible for the crew. Every review on our Google profile is a five-star review. 19 is not a big number. It is every job where somebody took the time.
Why South Coast Gunite
Two decades of doing it right.
20+ Years on This Coast
Two decades of shells in Houston clay, coastal sand and the flat wet ground out east. Long enough to have seen how they behave after a decade of soil movement and storms.
The Shell Is All We Do
Not a pool builder who also shoots gunite. A gunite crew, which means the structural part of your pool is somebody's whole trade rather than one line on their schedule.
Residential and Commercial
Backyard pools and spas, and commercial aquatic structures, engineered retaining walls and structural shotcrete shot to spec.
You Reach the Owner
Family-owned and owner-run. When you call about scheduling or a change on site, you are talking to the person responsible for the crew, not to a dispatcher.
Built for the Cure, Not the Photo
Steel to the engineer's plan, a continuous pour at the right water, and a real cure. None of it is visible once the plaster goes on, which is exactly why it is where corners get cut.
Five Stars, Every Review
Every review on our Google profile is a five-star review. In a trade where the work gets buried and nobody sees it again, that record is the whole reputation.
More about the work
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Let's build something that lasts.
Free consultation and project estimate.