How do you fill in a swimming pool?

[meateatingveggie]

Looking at a property to renovate that bizarrely has a heated pool in the garden. Really out of place.. it's not a big house or a big garden.

We wouldn't want it ( or be able to afford the running costs). I'm imagining filling it in would be very costly ( although plenty of rubble would be available knocking the place about!)

Anyone have any experience?

No but am interested to know.
I imagine you'd have to break in the sides and base to allow for drainage, then fill and compact it to stop it sinking in.
Sounds dangerous to whoever will be doing it. Quite a niche thing to have done.
Sorry, no help.

We've recently sold a house with a heated outdoor pool. We've been told it's being turned into a huge fish pond. I once found an idea on Pinterest for an outdoor sunken cinema. There were loads of ideas for what you could do with them, including filling them in :)

www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/418764465333720855/

Oh and we loved our outdoor heated pool. While our grandchildren were young it was used all the time, but once they hit the teen years they were too busy to bother that much. It was so nice for midnight swims on hot nights, not so much in this weather though.

I assume there are regulations relating to what you can put in your own personal landfill.

I watched a renovation on YouTube where they wanted to fill in a pool that dominated the back small yard (in the US)
They arranged to accept a load of dirt from someone digging out foundations, then found the "council planning" or US equivalent wouldn't permit them to use ungraded soil so they had to pay to dispose of this heap of someone else's dirt!

I love the 4th pic down on the right "California Contemporary". A good landscaper could turn it into something amazing. Realise this is more £s. At todays energy prices I can see why swimming pools, in average houses, are not a selling feature.

My uncle turned his pool into a fire pit - benches around the edge and fire pit in the middle - makes it more protected from the wind and can be used for quite a lot of the year.

I watched a garden renovation programme where new owners wanted to get rid of an unused pool. The cost to fill it in was eye watering. The ended up turning it into a sunken garden with planting, seating and a fire pit. It still cost something like £30k but looked lovely. Until the camera panned out and you could really tell that it was an ex swimming pool!

Have done some Googling and the cost is indeed eyewatering... someone suggested it's up to 30k 😳. Breaking the bottom and pulling down the sides seems to be needed and then filled with lorry loads of gravel before top soil.

The pool in questions is way too big to be a pond.. the whole back garden needs an overhaul imo. Shame cos the property itself would have been perfect for us.

Is it priced to allow for filing in the pool?

It doesn't sound that hard does it. Feels like something I could do myself with a spade and a wheelbarrow😀

30 grand to fill a swimming pool in 😀. I love the ridiculous things that come up on this site .

Ooooh, that hurts my soul, OP. It's the dream of my life to have my own swimming pool. Don't fill it in - get really into swimming instead!

That's google for you

@donttellmehesalive I think it's overpriced given the amount of work needed, without the swimming pool problem.

I can't imagine my OH standing in an empty pool with a lump hammer and me on standby with a spade somehow 😃. The theory is pretty simple, the doing I think may be a different thing 😉

We bought a house with an outdoor swimming pool but it has an covered enclosure. We thought about getting rid of it because we were worried about running costs. Turns out that it isn’t expensive. For example we did not heat it at all this summer because the weather was so hot and the enclosure helped.

We pay a pool maintenance man £30 per month to ensure the chlorine level is right.

The cheapest way would be to fill it with builders rubble, finer stone, then cover it with a membrane before topsoiling over the top.

I wouldn't attempt to break it out. That's giving yourself a headache for nothing

OP - maybe cheaper to just leave it empty and fit cover with decking? I know someone in the process of installing a heated pool in their garden right now... Have to admit it would be fab with small kids!

@meateatingveggie The answer is surprisingly easy.

I used to work for a swimming pool company which dug and installed new pools. Their joy was unconfined when another customer approached them to say they needed an existing pool filled in, because it gave them somewhere to dispose of all the diggings and rubble from the new one they were building. They'd just ask the grab lorry driver to collect from one and deliver to the other. Because the pool firm is saving money on commercial waste disposal costs, the price to fill the pool in could work out fairly reasonable.

All the existing pumps, filters and pipework would need to be dismantled and capped off, but other than that, it really is just a matter of finding someone nearby who is digging a pool and wants somewhere to dump it all.

@Yamadori that would make perfect sense.

Tbh I'm coming round to the idea of it, but it would have to be left unheated.

Look at a house ages ago with a swimming pool that was accessed via the lounge - really weird but other than that a lovely house. We asked a couple of builders and their advice was drill some holes through the base for drainage and then infill with rubble and sand. Was still expensive

Dig another hole and fill it with that

Can you repurpose it as a sunken patio/BBQ area, perhaps doing a bit of landscaping to add steps, maybe soften the edges, add seating and a pergola type structure?

I recall from TV programme that in Australia there was quite a business in filling-in swimming pools as people became grand parents and didn't use it / didn't want the risk.

I think they created a hole in the bottom for drainage and filled the pool with sand, which meant it could be recommissioned in the future if someone wanted to (if global warming really takes off.)

Personally I wouldn't break it up.

Keep it. No need to heat in winter except to stop pipes from freezing. In the summer, with the weather getting hotter and hotter, you won’t need to spend much heating it.

Do invest in a good pool cover and if you can afford a nice enclosure for privacy and to keep the heat in then do that too.

I saw one on TV the other day on escape to the country. It was emptied and decking built in it on two levels, looked quite nice with sofas etc on it.