Landscaping - Swimming pool removal?

Quartz said:
Rather than digging it out, have you considered explosives to shatter the walls and floor of the pool? Obviously you’ll need a professional. If the pool is made out of concrete then perhaps liberal use of sulphates will ease your task as they eat concrete.
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+1 for explosives
 
Infilling with the concrete structure would seem to make the most sense - presumably there's no laws/restrictions to say that all concrete has to be removed before infilling with soil.

I guess the only caveat would be if there's ever a possibility of building on that area in the future, as all the loose rubble would need to be dug out again.

Is this even in the UK? Weather almost looks too good for it to be.
 
Semple said:
Is this even in the UK? Weather almost looks too good for it to be.
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I'm located in Guernsey, Channel Islands - would make it tricky for @zuludawn to do the removal I'm sure, but also means the weather is "too good" for the UK ;)

I'll liaise locally to see whether infilling is allowed with drainage holes being added, or whether complete removal is our only option.
 
Have you considered landscaping the rest of the area to include the pool as a feature? rather than getting rid of it? you could get a decent grass covered pool cover that you can use as a raised deck area but you still have the option in the summer of using the pool. The house came with the pool so I would imagine there is some value attached to that as well, will your house be worth less without the pool? Like people have said it isn't going to be cheap to fill it in and so if you are potentially going to lose some value on the property at the same times its twice you are losing.
 
You say the pools in a state of disrepair, but what is actually wrong with it? It looks to be in the typical state of the domestic outdoor pools I open up every year for the summer season. Providing the plant equipment works then it would take is less than 10l of sodium hypochlorite and a few bottles of long life algaecide to get the water clear. Once it's clear you could then see what state the pool liner is in. If it's not been used for a while then the filter media will probably need changed, but again this is an easy job you can do yourself with a wet vac.

If you're decide to take it out then the walls and base with be reinforced with rebar. Having a guess at the size you're probably looking at a volume of 60-90m3 to fill in.
 
dale1uk said:
You say the pools in a state of disrepair, but what is actually wrong with it? It looks to be in the typical state of the domestic outdoor pools I open up every year for the summer season. Providing the plant equipment works then it would take is less than 10l of sodium hypochlorite and a few bottles of long life algaecide to get the water clear. Once it's clear you could then see what state the pool liner is in. If it's not been used for a while then the filter media will probably need changed, but again this is an easy job you can do yourself with a wet vac.

If you're decide to take it out then the walls and base with be reinforced with rebar. Having a guess at the size you're probably looking at a volume of 60-90m3 to fill in.
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They might not be reinforced. Sides could be block for example. Can make breaking out and disposal significantly quicker.
 
If there's nothing being built over it then its normal to take the walls down 1m below ground level and puncture the base slab. Fill the bottom with free draining material and top off with hardcore.
 
Dis86 said:
They might not be reinforced. Sides could be block for example. Can make breaking out and disposal significantly quicker.
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I'm more involved with the servicing or pipework and plant installation as apposed to the actual construction of our pool builds, but the walls on the vast majority of domestic pools builds I've been involved in are double skin block with rebar and concrete in-between. That's not to say that that's the case here, but it's definitely a possibility.
 
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Just puncture the lining and drop all your concrete, brick, blocks and slabs in then you can look at what you will actually need to fill the rest of the space. I'm in the process of removing my concrete drive and creating a soak away, so I have dug out the clay soil by hand and removed it but the broken up concrete has been laid in the bottom and covered in gravel. This has saved me buying in hardcore ( most people were saying get the grab lorry in to remove the rubble)

I think the programme was "your garden made perfect" were they turned a swimming pool into a sunken garden.
 
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tonys said:
Just puncture the lining and drop all your concrete, brick, blocks and slabs in then you can look at what you will actually need to fill the rest of the space. I'm in the process of removing my concrete drive and creating a soak away, so I have dug out the clay soil by hand and removed it but the broken up concrete has been laid in the bottom and covered in gravel. This has saved me buying in hardcore ( most people were saying get the grab lorry in to remove the rubble)
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Have to agree with this, I think that this whole thing is being over thought.

Personally, I would knock that wall down (between house and pool area) as suggested and turn most of that back to lawn and generally renovate, but definitely keep the pool even if I stopped heating it. It looks like a really nice pool and to me it seems a shame to remove it.

alternatively though, as per Tony’s post, do all of the demolition, pull the slabs, and after puncturing the pool to have it drain I would bulldoze (mini digger) all of it into the hole and then just reevaluate. Worst case you get a giant hardcore and then topsoil delivery and do the same. This needn’t be a hugely expensive task and if you do fill it in I would leave the structure well alone below ground personally.
 
We had a large 12m x 6m outdoor pool in out previous house and the family loved it. We had a low level pool cover put on it and that really helped with reducing the running costs. We rented the house out for a few years and the pool was no used so became very like yours in condition.

When we were looking to sell the house we did think that we might be better filling the pool and landscaping but the cost were prohibitive. In the end we spent £5k having the pool completely refurbished and the house sold very quickly with the pool being a feature.

I think that you could easily convert half of your ground into a nice garden and pay for the pool to be renovated and it would be a great feature. The fact that you have a wall around the pool area is a real bonus for privacy, etc and you could easily get pool cover that means it can be used more of the year.

It could be worth asking local estate agents what would be a better value added feature - a refurbished pool and small garden, or a larger landscaped area. I think yuo wil be shocked at how expensive decommissioning and filling the pool will be.
 
Looks a really nice pool area to me that could look fantastic if restored, so there's no way I'd be going to all the trouble of removing it, when this would affect the value of the house.
 
No way would I fill that in! Restore it, I'm told pool heating has become more efficient these days, and if you build it into an outbuilding to retain the heat it could be quite economical to run all year round.
 
The OP could always get rid of the slabs (the suggestion to pressure wash them and see if someone takes on buys them off you is good), turn all that into lawn, and...
... Build a garden building over the pool with the added twist that it has a cellar. Call it a garden office Tardis
 
It looks like you have a large area of tarmac between the House and pool, can you not incorporate that along with some of the pool terrace and then refurb the pool?

I'd probably take the wall down and put a solid gate further down your long drive
 
wow you don't see that every day!

I'm with the majority get it restored probably cost less than getting rid of it.
wonder how much price difference a pool makes to a property? u Could ask estate agents that I guess
 
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