Stepping out of your back door and straight into a swimming pool is a luxury that many people desire to have. But for many, swimming pools are as costly as they are luxurious—and not just in monetary terms. Even an average-sized swimming pool can take up a sizeable portion of a backyard, and that's without the isolation barrier, required for all pools since 2010. This leaves little room for gardening or for toddlers to run around freely—and safely. Pools also require constant maintenance, which can be time consuming, especially in areas with trees. Add to that an average annual cost of between $800 and $1,200 to run a pool, and you have plenty of reasons to want to remove your backyard swimming pool.
However, while there is no shortage of swimming pool removal companies, you could end up paying thousands of dollars to get the job done. A cheaper, albeit more physically taxing way, would be to do it yourself.
On the face of it, this would seem a mammoth task, but with the right planning, you could pull it off in a weekend and save yourself lots of money in the process.
First, Prepare for Debris Disposal
Most of your time spent on this project will be on demolition and disposal. However, if you can cut out the time you might spend transporting the liner and concrete debris to the local waste disposal facility, you can get the job done faster. To do this, hire a skip bin for a day. You can use a clean fill or hard fill skip bin to dispose of concrete liner material.
Ensure that you accurately calculate the size of the skip bin you will need for the job.
Hire a Jack Hammer to Break up the Concrete Liner
This might cost you a few hundred dollars for an entire day's hire, but it will get the job done for far less than it would cost to hire an excavation company. Preferably have someone to help you load the resulting rubble into the waiting skip bin.
Find Some Free Soil to Fill in the Hole
Once you have removed the concrete debris, you will need to fill in the hole with enough soil that you don't suffer from future subsidence issues. Call local pool installation companies or stop by building sites and ask them if they have any available soil they need to dispose of. Disposing of soil takes time and money, so they may jump at the chance to hand it over to you. Ensure that the soil is clean fill, i.e., not full of building debris like concrete and glass; otherwise, you will face problems with subsidence in future.
Ensure that you arrange for your skip bin provider to haul away the concrete-filled skip bin before your soil arrives; otherwise, you may have some pretty serious space issues to contend with.
Finally, you'll need to call in the troops to give you a helping hand. Make a weekend of it. Fire up the barbecue and stick a few cold beers in the fridge, and you might attract quite the willing crowd of family and friends. Ensure that you wear the proper safety equipment while working, e.g., hard hat, goggles, steel-toe capped boots and gloves. Most of all, only use the jack hammer if you are trained to do so.