Home Buyer With Pool

by Rich Martin
(Georgia)

I am thinking of buying a home with an old swimming pool in the backyard. I would assume I need to talk to the local building department about filling it in or digging it out. It is oval and about 30 feet across, what kind of expense am I facing?




Hi Rich. I am going to guess you are talking about an above ground pool installed in the ground. The most common way of dealing with them is to take the pool apart just enough to be able to cave it in. Once the pool is all below ground level you can backfill with dirt. You are probably looking at several dump truck loads of fill dirt and probably several hundred trips with the wheelbarrows, unless you are luck enough to be able to back a truck up to the pool.

You could also dismantle the pool and haul it off to the salvage yard, then fill the hole in.

If the pool is like an in ground pool, flush, or nearly flush, with ground level, you could deck over it. There are many companies that specialize in decking over existing pools and creating beautiful patios in the process.