Turf beside a Conway pool cage, whichever office reviews it

Whether a Conway pool project needs Orlando's permit process or the county's quieter one depends on the parcel, since part of the community was annexed into the city decades ago. Pool and lanai turf here runs $8–$18 per square foot as of September 2026, glued at hardscape edges and drainage-backed under a screen enclosure.

Reviewed by Luis Austin, owner · Last reviewed September 21, 2026

The annexation line that decides which permit a pool project follows

Conway became part of Orlando in stages between 1964 and 1973, and the community today sits only partly inside the city's limits (Orlando’s own annexed-neighborhoods list). That line matters more for a pool-area turf project than for most other jobs, since Orlando's landscape code names artificial turf specifically and calls for an engineering permit, while the county's Chapter 24 stays silent on the subject entirely. A parcel search on the Orange County Property Appraiser site is worth doing before pricing a pool-cage job on an address near that boundary.

What actually holds up a turf ribbon between pavers?

A narrow strip of turf set into a paver joint near the pool does not sit on a rock base at all; the pavers themselves carry the load, and the turf gets a thin leveling layer of sand in the joint rather than the two to four inches used everywhere else on a Conway lot. That thin joint still has to drain rather than trap water against the paver edges, so the sand underneath needs to stay loose enough to percolate, the same principle behind leaving native soil uncompacted under a full-size base. A joint packed too tight holds water at the surface just as a bad rock base would.

Drainage inside a screen enclosure built decades ago

A lanai turf strip inside an older Conway pool cage needs a drainage underlay where the turf meets the existing deck, since the concrete slab underneath doesn't pass water the way soil does, and the state's permeability standard for anything on natural ground doesn't apply the same way over a hard surface. Many of Conway's enclosures date to the same 1950s–70s building wave as the ranch homes they're attached to, so a deck's control joints and slight settling over that span are worth checking before turf goes down tight to the concrete.

Choosing infill that won't wash toward the deck drain

The state's rule against infill washing off the property has a specific practical version on a Conway pool deck: infill brushed in too lightly along a border that slopes toward the deck's drain can wash into that drain during a hard rinse or a storm, which turns a turf maintenance issue into a plumbing one. A slightly heavier grain of whichever infill the border uses, silica or coated sand, resists that migration better than a lighter, finer product does in exactly this drain-facing situation. This is a narrower concern than general odor or bacteria control, and it only applies to the specific stretch of border actually sloping toward a drain.

Say you have a 260 sq ft border inside a screened pool cage

A 260 square foot strip of turf bordering a screened pool deck on a Conway lot, replacing a bare or gravel edge that never grew grass in the shade of the cage, prices between $2,600 and $4,160 at the published $10–$16 typical range. If that specific address falls inside Orlando's annexed portion of Conway rather than the unincorporated county, the same job needs an engineering permit application before work starts, which adds paperwork and lead time without changing the per-square-foot price. Either way, the drainage underlay where turf meets the existing deck is the same regardless of which office signs off on the permit.

Why does coping get a different anchor than a fence line?

The state's turf standard requires edges anchored against wind and flooding, but how that anchoring happens changes at a Conway pool: along a fence line, the perimeter still takes nails or a bender-board edge into soil the way any residential border would, while along the coping itself, the edge bonds with adhesive into the hard trim rather than being pinned into anything soft. Mixing the two methods up, nailing into coping or trying to glue a soft fence-line edge, leaves a section that either cannot hold or cracks the material it is anchored into within a season.

A clogged deck drain from infill that migrated the wrong way

Infill that washes off a Conway pool border and into the deck's own drain can back the drain up enough that water starts sheeting across the border after storms that used to clear fine, turning what started as a turf maintenance issue into standing water against the coping. Because the drain itself is shared with the pool deck's runoff generally, tracing the cause back to turf infill rather than a pool-deck plumbing problem can take longer than it should. A border sloped toward a drain is worth checking for infill buildup at the drain grate specifically, not just for thinning infill across the turf itself.

Capped irrigation around a pool deck, whichever utility bills the address

Whether a Conway address is billed by Orange County Utilities or the Orlando Utilities Commission (Orange County’s water service page; OUC’s water services page), any spray head that used to reach the pool deck's border gets capped at installation, because neither utility's schedule can override a standard that keeps in-ground irrigation off synthetic turf entirely. That step happens early in a pool-area build, before the drainage underlay and turf go down.

Our guide to installing turf over concrete, pavers or grass covers the same slab-adhesion question from the product side, and the pool and lanai turf guide goes through backing choices for a glued edge. See the Conway turf guide for the annexation map, or Belle Isle, Pine Castle and Orlando for more Orlando-adjacent pool-cage neighborhoods.

Keeping the deck drain clear inside a screen enclosure

A screen mesh keeps most large debris out of a Conway lanai, but pollen, dust, and small leaves still settle on the turf and can work toward the deck drain over time, especially during the June-to-September rainy season when storms are frequent enough that the drain rarely gets a rest. A quick sweep or rinse toward the drain on a regular schedule keeps the whole underlay system doing what it was built for, since even a permeable backing cannot help much once the drain it feeds is the part that is actually clogged.

Questions people ask

Does a Conway pool project need Orlando's engineering permit or the county's process?

It depends on whether the parcel sits inside Orlando's annexed portion of Conway or the unincorporated county around it. A property appraiser search settles that before applying, since the two offices review pool-area turf differently.

Does an older Conway pool cage need extra prep before turf goes in?

Often, yes. Enclosures built alongside 1950s–70s ranch homes have had decades to settle, so checking the deck's control joints and slab condition before installing a drainage underlay catches problems a newer cage usually doesn't have.

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