Depending on how much time you have you maybe able to do it yourself. Check for local machine rentals and rent a front loader and jack hammer for the weekend. Jack hammer and break up the bottom of pool and deck then throw it all in the hole. Have fill dirt delivered and back fill. Might be fun to play trucks in real life.

quote:

Originally posted by gpbst3:
Depending on how much time you have you maybe able to do it yourself. Check for local machine rentals and rent a front loader and jack hammer for the weekend. Jack hammer and break up the bottom of pool and deck then throw it all in the hole. Have fill dirt delivered and back fill. Might be fun to play trucks in real life.

That may not be allowed under the local building code(s). The next house I buy will not have a pool, but I doubt I'd consider purchasing a house with a pool and dealing with demoing it (unless I could get it for the deal of all deals).

seal off the jets, drains, etc Fill it with dirt and compact, put pavers on top, maybe a Koi pond with some plants, rocks, a fake river, falls.

or just buy a house without the pool

Why couldn't you break up the top foot of concreate and just fill the rest in? Landscape over that. The bottom will be 3 to 8 feet below grade depending on the depth of the pool. Leave that there it won't hurt anything.

Everything I've read suggested removing the bottom or making holes for ground water to permeat, otherwise, as mentioned earlier, you will end up with a marsh in your yard where the pool once resided.

Correcting that after filling would be a major chore.

quote:

Originally posted by shiftyvtec:
Everything I've read suggested removing the bottom or making holes for ground water to permeat, otherwise, as mentioned earlier, you will end up with a marsh in your yard where the pool once resided.

Correcting that after filling would be a major chore.

I agree, the bottom needs to be broken up to allow drainage.

Sorry I can’t offer much assistance on the price of removal but I can share my experience personally removing our pool this winter. I’ve got a decent size farm with a large tractor, a midi excavator and a 1 ton dump truck. Our pool was 20x40, traditional in ground with 4 foot concrete sidewalk surrounding with additional pad on two sides.
This was a solid 2 day job. The pool was in an open area of yard with no obstacles. I used the excavator to break out the concrete in pieces I could move with the 72 hp tractor and grapple. I disrupted the bottom in multiple locations so it could drain. Naturally this has to be done in the deep end. I was able to do it with the 16000 pound excavator. An excavator much smaller than 12000 pounds would probably be pretty challenging. I brought my fill dirt in and compacted with the excavator every 4-6”. I used the broken concrete for different projects around the farm. Otherwise removal would’ve taken more time and money. Of course the pool will have to be completely drained prior to removal. I used a mixed clay fill from around the farm. I will also add that the pool was built up on three sides so I used that dirt to minimize the amount of fill I had to haul. So far so good.
I can see where a company would charge $3000 or more to complete the job given the equipment needed and the potential to have to dump concrete plus haul quite a bit of fill dirt plus possibly doing all of this in very tight quarters. Good luck with your project.

quote:

Originally posted by maxdog:

Most cost effective method was to punch holes in the bottom and fill it with dirt. Without holes, low water table would push it out of ground according to “experts”.

This happened years ago when I was in the business to another company. Pool in a low area where the water table could get high. Lots of rain. The pool was left empty for a new whitecoat. No auto hydrostat valve just old plugs which no one had removed. Pool only moved up about six inches but that's enough to break the underground piping for the skimmers, returns and drain.

Think of a sink full of water. Try a push a bowl down into the water. It wants to pop back up. Fill it full of water and it sits level in the water.

Moved on from that one, so won't be removing a pool. But does anyone know the best way to level a garage floor to turn it into a den?