How much does it cost to remove a swimming pool?

[Sotonwhere]

I've seen a house which I quite fancy but it has a big swimming pool in the garden.

I dont' want a swimming pool! The hassle/expense of maintaining it - no thanks. Plus it gets rather cold in every month except July winter in the UK.

How much would it cost approx to remove a swimming pool - it's dug into the ground. I guess I'd want it turned back to lawn.

I suppose it's as much as you want it to be: you could have it completely dug up and no trace remaining which would be several thousand or you could order a few truckloads of soil and fill it in and turf over the top having just hacked away the paving surrounding it. If you do that though you would effectively have a very large plant pot which wouldn't be able to access the water table and might get waterlogged during wet weather.

it is recognised that in the UK swimming pools devalue houses. We aren't in the tropics.

Knock £10k off or more your offer and tell them why.

You could just throw a bit of topsoil and a lawn on it and make it into a sunken garden a la Percy Thrower on Blue Peter

Depends on how deep it is, and what the access is like for deliveries of tonnes and tonnes of rubble and soil to get to the pool, or you will need to budget for digger to move soil from pile to pool.

Or you could turn it into a pond, water lilies, grasses, wildlife etc. They slow down the rate of evaporation.

That would be cheaper than filling it in.

would make a nice koi pond

We were given a rough quote of £30k to remove one and re landscape as if the pool had never been there. At that point we stopped looking at any houses with pools.

£30,000

Oh Issy do you remember how angry Percy was when he discovered it had been vandalised?

I'd love a pool.

30k!!! I was feeling fairly encouraged when the prices were more like 10k. Hmmmm.

I think I might ask to get a proper quote if we're interested in the house after viewing it.

Is it just me or would it be completely mad to have a swimming pool sized pond in a garden? I was pretty taken aback anyone would suggest that but maybe I'm in the minority. Apart from anything else I have a toddler and would like a garden I can exercise a certain amount of benign neglect in without worrying about her safety.

i think pools are supposed to be fenced off, and you could do this with toughened patio glass to make a nice feature, if you turned it into a pond you can either go full on fish or have a living pond/swimming pool that means on those few hot days you can swim or your small person can as they dont fell the cold and the filtration is all taken care of by plants etc

at nearly £100 a bulk bag of soil, filling it might be very costly