Four things make a brick paver suit a pool surround. It is laid as an individual unit, so one damaged paver comes out and a new one goes back without disturbing the rest. It can be specified against a published slip-resistance classification. Clay units carry a measured durability grade for salt. And the colour is the fired clay body, not a coating over the top of it. None of that is automatic — the paver has to be specified, not chosen off a display board. What Well Laid Paving Perth does around a pool is on our pool paving and coping in Perth page.
What a pool surround has to survive
Wet bare feet, salt or chlorine carried out of the water, five months of direct sun, and — in Western Australia — barrier rules measured from the finished ground level you are about to change. Well Laid Paving Perth lays pool areas in Ardross, Manning, Karrinyup and Floreat, and pool-area steps in Gwelup. All four get settled before the pavers are ordered.
How much grip does a pool surround need?
A pool surround in Perth is a wet barefoot area, and there is a published number for it. Standards Australia’s handbook SA HB 198:2014, Guide to the specification and testing of slip resistance of pedestrian surfaces (published 16 June 2014), recommends in Table 3B a P4 wet pendulum classification and a class B wet-barefoot inclining platform classification for swimming pool surrounds, and one step higher — P5 and class C — for ramps and stairs leading into the water.
Note 1 to that table calls the values guidance, to be read with wear, maintenance, contamination, water and “the footwear (or lack thereof)”. Around a pool there is no footwear, the surface is wet by design, and the traffic is often children.
So do not take “bricks are rough, they won’t skid” on trust — the old version of this article said close to it, and it is not a specification. HB 198:2014 notes that comparatively rough surfaces such as segmental clay or concrete pavers have traditionally been tested with the softer slider rubber. Ask the yard for the paver’s classification under AS 4586-2013.
Paving around a saltwater pool: what Exposure Grade means
Exposure Grade is the durability grade a fired clay unit earns against salt, and around a Perth saltwater pool it is the grade to ask for by name. Think Brick Australia’s Manual 19 — Industry Reference Guide (revised and republished June 2019) puts it directly: “Exposure Grade pavers should be specified in severe marine environments or around saltwater swimming pools.”
The grade is measured, not asserted. Manual 19 sets the acceptance level for Exposure Grade at less than 0.4 g mass loss over 40 cycles of the salt immersion test in AS/NZS 4456.10; General Purpose units survive 15 to 40 cycles and should not be used in saline environments without adequate protection. Where salt beats a unit not up to it, the result is fretting, which Manual 19 attributes to salt crystals forming just below the surface as saline moisture evaporates. Among the sources of saline ground water it lists salt water swimming pool filter overflows — so decide where the backwash discharges before the paving goes down.
Geography decides part of this. Manual 19 defines a severe marine environment, where only Exposure Grade units may be used, as up to 1 km from a surf coast or 100 m from an inlet or bay — which puts a pool a few streets back from the beach at Scarborough, City Beach or Cottesloe inside the band. The ground underneath is a separate question: what’s under your paving in this part of Perth.
What is efflorescence, and is it a defect?
It is a white powdery bloom of soluble salts on the surface of new paving, and no, it is not a defect. Think Brick Australia’s Manual 19 (June 2019) explains that most building materials contain soluble salts that migrate to the surface, and that when the water evaporates those salts crystallise as a fine white powder. The manual states that efflorescence “is generally not harmful and will weather away with time”.
How to get it off
Brush it off dry. Manual 19 is specific about why: brush when the brickwork is dry, because “wetting usually dissolves the efflorescence allowing the salt to be sucked back into the brickwork only to reappear when the brickwork dries”. Outdoors, weathering removes most of it anyway and dry brushing speeds that up. The stiff brush in the old version of this article was right; the damp cloth beside it was the wrong half of the advice. Acid is a last resort, and Manual 19 warns that vanadium salts — harmless, but highly visible on light-coloured units — may turn black if hydrochloric acid is applied.
The white mark that is not efflorescence
Manual 19 separates efflorescence, which is water-soluble, from insoluble white deposits: hard, milky, invisible when wet, and formed by the setting reactions of Portland cement with sands containing clay. Those need a proprietary cleaner, not a broom. AS/NZS 4455 also caps the tested efflorescence liability of units laid in exposed brickwork at “slight” — but Manual 19 notes that this is a laboratory test on a sample and does not apply to laid brickwork. A clean test result is not a promise about the paving in your yard.
Paving levels and pool barrier compliance in WA
Paving changes the ground level, and in Western Australia the ground level is what a pool barrier is measured from. Rules for Pools and Spas, published by the Department of Local Government, Industry Regulation and Safety in December 2025, states that a safety barrier must have a minimum height of 1.2 m on the non-poolside, and that “safety barrier height is measured perpendicularly to the finished ground level”. Raise the ground, lower the fence.
Two further rules in the same document shape the paving. Objects, steps, retaining walls or ground level changes that reduce the required barrier height must not sit within 500 mm of the barrier, so a raised paved landing hard against a pool fence is a compliance problem, not a design flourish. And the maximum gap between the barrier and the stabilised ground surface beneath it is 100 mm, with that surface required to be stable and not easily eroded — the document names pavers, concrete and decking as suitable materials for it.
That is why Well Laid Paving Perth sets levels against the fence line before the first paver goes down. Barrier compliance rests with the pool owner, so read the current document rather than taking any contractor’s word for it, ours included.
Colour and heat underfoot
Around a Perth pool the tone gets decided barefoot, and pale wins. Colour is the biggest single lever on how hot a paved surface gets, and the evidence is set out in which pavers stay coolest underfoot in Perth. On the colour itself: a clay paver is fired, and the colour is the fired clay body rather than pigment in a cast unit. How a particular range holds that colour is a question for the manufacturer’s data sheet.
Lifting and relaying around a pool
The old article got this argument right, and it is worth more at a pool than anywhere else on a block: a cracked or stained paver is dug out and a matching one goes back in the gap, without replacing the surround. When a plumber, a fence contractor or a pool builder needs to get under the surface, a paved surround comes up by hand and goes back down on re-screeded, re-compacted sand. Recent jobs are captioned by suburb in the pool paving and coping photos from recent Perth jobs, including a pool area upgrade in Floreat and three pool areas in Karrinyup.
Get a quote for your pool area
Tell Marc whether the pool is salt or chlorine, how close the barrier runs to the paving, and who crosses the surround barefoot — those three answers change the paver, not just the price. Well Laid Paving Perth is family-run and works across the Perth metro area, Monday to Friday, 7:00am to 5:00pm. Call 0448 440 229 or get a free pool area quote, and see how we approach pool paving and coping in Perth.
Sources checked: August 2026.