What can I do with an UNWANTED Inground POOL"

[Robert Majika]

Hi All,

I have an Inground Pool, that is the biggest Pain in the BUM. It is Concrete & finished in fine Pebbles & Kidney Shaped. Approx 55,000 ltrs.

It was here when I bought the house. Problems are:
Nobody uses it except the Wild Ducks & the Dog. (PS Its a 1 person, 1 Dog home) The wild ducks do nothing but Poo in it all the time & the cleaner it is, the more they come to it.

It is on a large acreage property in the Australian Rural Residential Bush area. When it summer, its like a Hot Bath, When its winter, well you know, its freezing. When the wind blows it just simply fills with leaves & dust. Additionally, I depend on Rain for Water which rain is a rare occasion (Tank Water) so again, Evaporation is also another problem.

I cannot keep up the maintenance for it & for something that is not used.

The cost of running the pool it a complete waste of money. I dont know what to do with it, "Fill it in with Sand" or just "Leave it Empty", but I'm concerned about structual damage. Does anybody know if leaving it empty will it cause "Structual Damage?" I notice Public Pools drain theirs during winter with no damage.

I have thought about turning it into a Gold Fish Bowl with Lilies etc, but then it is just something more to maintain & further more the wild birds would have a FEAST on the fish.

Im sure there must be other people out there with similar problems. If anybody could help me with any GOOD SOUND advise, it would be greatly appreicated.

Many Thanks & Kind Regards to you all.

Robert E

[simpson]

there are more risks associated with leaving it empty than leaving it full. if you leave it empty you run the risk of the walls collapsing (depending on your soil composition). if it fills with rain water and stagnates then you could have disease and bug problems mosquitoes bread in stagnant water. the best thing to do is hire a contractor (licensed and bonded) and have them remove the pool. at the very least consult with a civil/structural/soils engineer before doing anything.

[Guest]

Hi All,

I have an Inground Pool, that is the biggest Pain in the BUM. It is Concrete & finished in fine Pebbles & Kidney Shaped. Approx 55,000 ltrs.

It was here when I bought the house. Problems are:
Nobody uses it except the Wild Ducks & the Dog. (PS Its a 1 person, 1 Dog home) The wild ducks do nothing but Poo in it all the time & the cleaner it is, the more they come to it.

It is on a large acreage property in the Australian Rural Residential Bush area. When it summer, its like a Hot Bath, When its winter, well you know, its freezing. When the wind blows it just simply fills with leaves & dust. Additionally, I depend on Rain for Water which rain is a rare occasion (Tank Water) so again, Evaporation is also another problem.

I cannot keep up the maintenance for it & for something that is not used.

The cost of running the pool it a complete waste of money. I dont know what to do with it, "Fill it in with Sand" or just "Leave it Empty", but I'm concerned about structual damage. Does anybody know if leaving it empty will it cause "Structual Damage?" I notice Public Pools drain theirs during winter with no damage.

I have thought about turning it into a Gold Fish Bowl with Lilies etc, but then it is just something more to maintain & further more the wild birds would have a FEAST on the fish.

Im sure there must be other people out there with similar problems. If anybody could help me with any GOOD SOUND advise, it would be greatly appreicated.

Many Thanks & Kind Regards to you all.

Robert E

[Guest]

Hi!
We bought a house with very large kidney-shaped inground pool and our handyman begged to drain it, so we did. Come April, the pool popped out of the ground at one end. The building inspector wants it fixed ($25,000) or filled in, but there's barely any room on the side of our house to move in the huge equipment. I understand it can cost between $7,000 and $10,000 to fill it in. I'm hoping for something cheaper and then planting a lovely garden. Any ideas? This is a huge pain. Thanks for any advice.
Barbara

[Pool Help]

I would hire a jackhammer and put some holes in the bottom for drainage. Break the concrete that is above ground level.

Fill the base with coarse gravel or crushed rock for drainage. Next layer can be finer sand or gravel. Finally fill with regular topsoil and you're ready to plant.

[phildetwei]

At the house we used to live in, there was a pool in the backyard when we moved there. It was very old, and did not work properly and had a lot of problems - plus we really did not want a pool very badly anyway, so we had it removed. It was hard to find information on the topic of removing an inground pool, so I put up some pictures of the guy demolishing it, and it became kind of a pool demolishing website of sorts. Anyway, check it out if you want, I tried to answer the questions on my site that I had when we first thought about removing our pool.

home dot comcast dotnet/%7Ephil.detweiler/PoolDemolition dot html

[jantar wolk]

Would it be possible to leave the old concrete pool in the ground, improve drainage and build a deck over it?
Thanks for any advice,
Jantarjavascript:emoticon(':?:')

[Ickle]

i have seen a pool filled in many different ways, but the easiest and most likely cheapest option is as said above to drill/break through the base of the pool, in as many places as possible. Then taking the copping stones off and top section of the wall and placing this into the bottom, then fill up to ground level. Once at ground level leave to settle and maybe then add some more, dont forget that it will overtime wont to settle. And dont forget a good top layer of soil if you are intending to use the area for planting.

[Leslie]

TO Robert E.(the Australian pool owner and their dog) - Theres a company in Pheonix Arizona USA has a really super idea they drained the pool put in some strong uprights and support beams and buit a deck over the opening of the pool they also created an access panel for a storage area down below the deck in the empty pool area. Now that sounds like the best use of a retired pool. At least the money spent to obtain this is a posistive useful outcome.