A fenced-off hole in the back yard, a pump you stopped running, and a cover nobody trusts.
Nobody puts a pool in planning to call somebody about pool removal, yet most Chicago yards we clear haven't had a swimmer in them since the kids moved out. We take out inground and above ground pools across the city and the nearby suburbs, concrete, fiberglass and vinyl alike.
What moves inground pool demolition cost is size, depth, and whether an excavator can reach the back yard without going through a gangway built for a bicycle. One thing we will not do is drop the shell in whole and cap it. The bottom gets broken open so water drains through, or you get a soft, sinking dip in the lawn two summers from now.
Keep reading for how inground swimming pool removal actually goes, partial versus full, and what people ask us on site. Or call and we will come take a look.
Above Ground Pool Removal
Above ground pools come down fast, and this is the one kind of pool removal we can usually knock out in a day. We pump the water off to where it's allowed to go, cut the liner out, unbolt the top rails and wall panels, and the steel rides out on the truck. Two things stretch the day: a wood deck framed into the pool, and the sand or gravel base underneath it.
That base ring is what a cheap outfit leaves behind, and by the following summer you've got a dead circle of lawn and a shallow dish aiming rain at your foundation. We either haul it out or spread and grade it so water runs away from the house.
If the only way out is a four-foot gangway, every panel walks by hand. Nothing here comes near inground pool demolition cost, since there's no shell to break up.
Swimming Pool Demolition
Swimming pool demolition is most of what we run once the ground thaws, and we take every version of it: gunite, vinyl liner, fiberglass, and above ground pool removal where the thing holding all that water is really a steel ring and a liner.
Every pool demo starts the same way. Permit pulled, water sent to a legal discharge point instead of your neighbor's yard, gas and electric to the heater and pump cut dead before a bucket touches the shell. Then we break the shell, haul the debris out, and backfill in lifts with clean material so the yard doesn't settle into a soft dish two summers later. The machine work is done in half a day.
Access changes an above ground pool demolition cost or a full pool removal more than the water ever did. A tight gangway means wheelbarrows, and wheelbarrows mean hours.
Inground Swimming Pool Removal
Inground swimming pool removal means the whole thing goes: water pumped down, gas and power to the equipment disconnected, coping and decking stripped, then the shell broken up and hauled off with the rebar still in it. Full pool removal leaves you dirt instead of a shell buried under your grass, which is the part a buyer's inspector asks about later. A partial pool removal is a different conversation, and it has its own section below.
Backfill is where cheap work shows. Fill dumped in one shot settles, and a season later you have a soup bowl in the yard where the deep end used to be. We bring it in lifts and work each one down before the next.
Size, depth, shell material and whether a machine can reach the back yard or has to come through the alley all push the number.
Partial Pool Removal
Partial pool removal is the route most back yards here end up taking. We break the top couple of feet of wall off all the way around, punch holes through the floor so ground water drains through instead of sitting under your lawn, then collapse the walls inward and fill over them. The fill goes in layers and gets rolled as we go.
Dump it in one shot and you've got a saucer-shaped dip in the grass by the second summer, and that's the thing that goes wrong most often with this kind of swimming pool demolition.
Price swings on the depth at the deep end, how much clean fill we have to bring in, whether the concrete deck and coping come out with it, and whether the machine fits down your gangway or has to work over the fence.
One catch worth knowing: filled ground isn't buildable. If a garage or an addition is in your future, you want full concrete pool removal.
Fiberglass Pool Removal
Fiberglass pool removal is the tidiest of these jobs, because the shell is one molded piece instead of several tons of concrete. We drain it, cap and pull the plumbing lines, take off the coping and any decking sitting on the lip, then cut the shell into sections with a saw and load it out. Fiberglass never rots.
Bury a chunk of it and you've buried a bathtub that fills every time it rains, which is why none of that shell stays in your yard.
Then the hole takes clean fill dirt in lifts, tamped as we go, not dumped in one shot and raked flat. That's where a bargain pool removal shows up two summers later: a saucer-shaped dip in the lawn right over the deep end.
Price here comes down to access, depth, and how much concrete decking rings the shell. A wide gangway beats a wheelbarrow line every time.
Concrete Pool Removal
Concrete pool removal is the heavy end of this work. A gunite shell is steel and concrete built to hold tens of thousands of gallons of water, and it doesn't come apart politely. We break the walls down with a hydraulic hammer, open the floor in several spots so groundwater always has a way out, cut and cap the plumbing, and take out the coping and whatever decking is coming with it. A fiberglass pool removal comes up in panels.
This one comes up in chunks.
What I won't do is leave a sealed shell in the ground with no holes punched in the deep end. That's a buried bathtub, and the first wet spring you get a spongy yard and one corner sitting low.
Size, depth, machine access down the side or off the alley, and whether the broken concrete stays as clean fill or rides out on trucks all move what this pool removal runs.
What the job involves
Most pool removal jobs start with the water, not the shell. We drain it down where the city allows, pull the liner, cut the deck loose, then bring in a machine to take out the walls, the skimmer and the old return lines. After that it's clean fill, laid in layers and rolled tight instead of dumped in one heap, then graded so water runs away from your foundation rather than toward it.
Fill done lazily shows up two summers later as a soft dish in the lawn and a patio slab cracked toward the middle. Access moves the number as much as anything: a machine that can come up the alley and down the gangway beats one reaching over a fence all day. Size, the sand under the liner and how many loads leave the yard set the above ground pool removal cost.
What it costs
What it costs comes down to four things: how big the pool is, what the shell is made of, how close we can get a machine to it, and where the broken material goes once it's out. An above ground pool removal cost sits at the low end, since there's no shell to break and nothing to fill but the sand base and a ring of dead grass.
A gunite shell with a wraparound deck is the other end of that. Access swings it more than people expect. If the alley lets us bring a full-size excavator into the yard, the work moves. If we're threading a mini machine through a narrow gangway, the hours climb. Give us a call with the pool's size and shape and we'll walk through it. Clean fill, hauling, and whether the deck and coping go too all land on the same estimate.
When pool removal is the wrong fix
Sometimes pool removal is the wrong call, and it costs me nothing to say so. If the water still holds and the shell is sound but the patio around it has heaved into a trip hazard, what you want is concrete removal and a fresh pour, not a hole in the yard. If the rotted wood ring around an above-ground is the real problem, that is deck removal.
A dead spa on the back steps is hot tub removal, a trailer and an afternoon, and you should not have swimming pool removal contractors pricing it like a twenty thousand gallon shell. Got a gate that flunked inspection? Fence removal and a proper new barrier keeps you legal and the pool swimmable.
And fill in a pool the next buyer would have paid extra for, and no in ground pool removal contractors can run that job backward for you.
Why choose us for this
Most people calling us about pool removal want one thing: the hole gone, the yard back, and no reason to think about it again for twenty years. Nobody is hoping to supervise a crew.
A low number from in ground pool removal contractors usually gets there by leaving items off the sheet. Rubble buried where you later want grass. Backfill dumped in one go instead of placed in lifts. The permit nobody mentioned until an inspector did. Two summers later you have a soft dip in the lawn and a second contractor standing in it, and that second visit costs you far more than the cheaper bid saved.
Plenty of swimming pool removal contractors price a job off a photo. After the best part of 34 years working city lots here, we come look at the gate width, the gangway and the overhead line first.
The estimate costs you nothing, and booking stays your decision.
Frequently asked questions
How much does inground pool removal cost?
Size, depth and access drive it harder than anything else. A vinyl liner shell sitting in an open yard is one job; a deep-end gunite pool behind a narrow gangway means a small machine and spoil hauled out by hand. Clean fill trucked in and placed in lifts adds to it as well.
Do I need a permit to take out a swimming pool?
Yes. The city wants the work permitted, and the gas and water have to be cut and capped by the utility first. We handle that paperwork and the disconnects, and that scheduling usually sets your start date, not the digging.
Will the equipment tear up my lawn and driveway?
There will be ruts. We mat or board the route in, keep the tracks off your concrete apron, and top the fill with six inches of soil. Seed laid in late spring takes; seed thrown down in midsummer heat mostly doesn't.
Contact Chicago Demolition now
Contact us now, and the first thing I ask is how a machine gets into your back yard. Pool removal on a city lot lives or dies on access: most gangways are too tight for a mini excavator, so either a fence panel comes off or we run steel plate over the parkway to save your grass.
Access, depth, shell material and how hard the ground is the week we start all push the inground pool removal cost around, and I would rather stand in the yard than guess off a phone photo.
I will not bury the busted shell where it sits and call that backfill. Broken concrete traps water, the yard dishes out within a couple of seasons, and it shows up on a survey when you go to sell.
Weekdays, nine to five. Leave a message and you get me calling back, not a call center.