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Still on the hunt for a house (yes, I'm picky..I know it ), and found one I liked, except it has an inground pool. Based on the measure distance tool on Google Maps, it appears to be 35 feet long x 15 feet wide.
I don't want a pool. I don't like swimming in pools, I don't like dealing with pool maintenance, and I certainly don't want the maintenance cost of a pool. I know this based on living in houses in the past with a pool :P This pool also happens to be in the way of an oversized garage I would want to build on the property.
Is this something where I could rent a jackhammer for the weekend (or several weekends if it came down to it ), and go to town on it, so to speak..then fill with dirt when I'm done?
Alternatively, is it something where I could cap off any piping into the pool, and just fill it in with dirt anyways, while leaving the majority of the existing pool intact? Does it ultimately end up just being more cost efficient to hire a crew to come in and remove it?
I know the easy answer is - "find a house without a pool", but as an example, when I do an MLS search for houses within the area I want to be, and within my budget, I get a total of 9 houses. Of those 9, 2 are somewhat suitable for me, one of which is this pool house. It's not so much a situation of me being overly picky, more so that the area I want to be in is low population to begin with, and very low house turnover.
Call whoever issues the building permits in that area as ask them. I know my town does not allow pools to be buried. They have to be fully removed and then filled in with proper material.
Full removal is required if you plan to build over it. Pools are not structural and cannot support the weight of a building over them when buried.
Still on the hunt for a house (yes, I'm picky..I know it ), and found one I liked, except it has an inground pool. Based on the measure distance tool on Google Maps, it appears to be 35 feet long x 15 feet wide.
I don't want a pool. I don't like swimming in pools, I don't like dealing with pool maintenance, and I certainly don't want the maintenance cost of a pool. I know this based on living in houses in the past with a pool :P This pool also happens to be in the way of an oversized garage I would want to build on the property.
Is this something where I could rent a jackhammer for the weekend (or several weekends if it came down to it ), and go to town on it, so to speak..then fill with dirt when I'm done?
Alternatively, is it something where I could cap off any piping into the pool, and just fill it in with dirt anyways, while leaving the majority of the existing pool intact? Does it ultimately end up just being more cost efficient to hire a crew to come in and remove it?
I know the easy answer is - "find a house without a pool", but as an example, when I do an MLS search for houses within the area I want to be, and within my budget, I get a total of 9 houses. Of those 9, 2 are somewhat suitable for me, one of which is this pool house. It's not so much a situation of me being overly picky, more so that the area I want to be in is low population to begin with, and very low house turnover.
If you "just cap the pipe" what will eventually happen is the lack of soil permeability will turn any "fill" you put into the "cement pond" into a mess. That is why at A MINIMUM you need to jackhammer away a SIGNIFICANT amount of the bottom, top and sides. And it is kind of nuts to leave concrete rubble, with residue from the chlorine, in your yard if you have any hope of plants / grass ever growing in the area. It would not be stable for future building of a garage either...
SO most sane people actually have the concrete hauled out and then they get clean topsoil to make the yard usable / attractive. Depending on how hard it for the excavators to access the pool with skid-steers vs hand-hauling the rubble (and compacting the soil so it can support future building...) this might be half a day and a few grand or most of week and maybe 5x more cash...
I've seen small city pools closed by terminating water and electrical connections and simply covering with dirt. A year later it was not possible to see where the pool was.
I've seen small city pools closed by terminating water and electrical connections and simply covering with dirt. A year later it was not possible to see where the pool was.
When the soil recedes you end up with this ugly mess --
And if there is a whole bunch of concrete that essentially "paves" the yard under and extends the coping to the house you end up with this lovely mess --
Contact the AHJ/Building Dept. and find out their requirements- question answered!
Over the years I've learned what CAN be done and what SHOULD be done are often two very different things, with the SHOULD be done a whole lot better than minimum requirements. This just became very evident with the after pictures of what happened when the pool is just filled in. Given that, even if the building department allowed me to just fill it in, I'd still be demo'ing the existing pool before filling...which is why I ask these questions
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wmsn4Life
BEFORE you buy, you also need to contact the local city codes office to make sure they would allow that "oversize" garage you want to build.
Long past that - I'll be in a rural area, where I can build dang near whatever I want. One of the properties I looked at had a 2,000sq foot garage already in place. I also already have copy of the zoning laws to verify I'm good for the height I want, which will be a 14+ foot ceiling.
This is really something that you should have a professional do, particularly if you plan on building over it.
First, this is going to be a really hard job if you do it by hand. Jackhammering is hard work, then lifting the spoils out of the bottom of the pool is going to be a disaster.
After that, you want to have the substrate properly engineered, and the entire thing compacted so that your new building doesn't fall into the old excavated hole. You need to have proper drainage so that the rain and groundwater doesn't turn the soil under your garage into a soupy mess, collapsing your foundation. Then you want your fill to be the proper size, consistency and compacted the proper amount so that it doesn't settle in 2-5 years, once again turning your foundation and floor into a cracked mess of unsupported concrete.
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), and found one I liked, except it has an inground pool. Based on the measure distance tool on Google Maps, it appears to be 35 feet long x 15 feet wide. 
Well...
