Pool Removal in Mobile County
Two different jobs with two different futures for your yard.
- THE JOB
- Breaking out and removing an inground pool, or filling it in place
- TWO OPTIONS
- Full removal, or partial removal and fill
- MEASURED BY
- The size of the shell, what it's built from, and how a machine reaches it
- SHELL TYPES
- Gunite, concrete, fiberglass and vinyl-lined
- GROUNDWATER
- Dewatered before the shell is opened. On this coast, that's most jobs
- BACKFILL
- Clean fill placed in lifts and compacted, not dumped in loose
- THE DEBRIS
- Broken concrete hauled out. Concrete is recycled rather than landfilled
- AFTERWARD
- Graded to meet the yard, topped with soil, ready to seed
- AT RESALE
- A pool filled in place is disclosed when the property sells
- TIME ON SITE
- Usually one to three days once the water is gone
Every one of these jobs is priced from the property itself, so there is no figure on this page to mislead you.
251-415-4545Call and we will come and look at it. The estimate is free and you get it in writing.
Full removal and partial fill-in are two different jobs
Almost every quote you get for a pool will be for one of two jobs, and each one leaves you with different ground.
The pool is drained, the deck and coping come off, and the walls and floor are broken out and loaded. Every piece of concrete, gunite, fiberglass or liner leaves the property. The hole is backfilled with clean fill placed in layers and compacted as it goes, then graded to meet the rest of the yard.
The pool is drained, holes are punched through the floor so water can never sit in it again, the top two or three feet of wall are broken off, and that broken concrete goes into the bottom of the hole. Fill goes in over the top and is compacted.
You're weighing time and money now against what the ground can carry later.
The part people don't see coming is the resale
A pool filled in place doesn't disappear. It becomes a known feature of the property, and in Alabama it belongs on the disclosure when you sell. Buyers ask what's under the lawn, and their lender or their inspector may ask too.
It also limits what can be built there. Fill over a buried shell settles differently than undisturbed soil, so an addition, a garage, a slab or a foundation over that footprint is a question for an engineer rather than a given. Some people fill a pool in and find out years later that the cheaper job is why the addition has to go somewhere else.
None of that makes partial removal wrong. If you want the pool gone, you're keeping the house, and nothing is ever going to be built on that spot, it's a sensible way to spend less. It's only wrong when nobody told you.
It's only wrong when nobody told you.
Why groundwater matters more here than it does inland
Much of Mobile County is sand with the water table close to the surface, and it rises with the rain we get. That changes a pool removal in two ways, and it's the main reason a coastal quote looks different from one in a drier county.
An empty shell in saturated ground acts like a boat. Water pressing up underneath a pool that has just been drained can lift it, crack it, or push it out of the hole altogether, and it doesn't take a wet week for it to happen. So the water is managed before the shell is opened, not after, with dewatering or well points where the ground calls for it.
Compaction is what keeps a filled hole from becoming a dip in the lawn two summers later, and wet sand doesn't compact the way dry material does. Fill is placed in layers and each one is compacted before the next. That takes longer than dumping a truckload into a hole, and it's the difference between ground that stays where you left it and ground that doesn't.
If your yard drains slowly, if you've ever had standing water near the pool, or if the pool sits low relative to the road, tell us when you call. It changes what we bring.
What happens, in order
-
01
We look at it
The shell, what it's made of, how a machine gets to it, what the ground is doing, and where the debris can be loaded. Access usually decides how long the job takes. A pool behind a house with a six-foot gate is a different job than one with a driveway to it.
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02
Utilities and permits
The pool's power and any gas to a heater are disconnected properly, and the permit is pulled before anything starts.
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03
Water out, and kept out
The pool is drained wherever local rules allow the water to go, and the ground is dewatered if it needs to be.
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04
The shell comes apart
Deck and coping first, then the structure, broken out with an excavator.
-
05
It leaves, or it stays
On a full removal the concrete is loaded, hauled off and recycled. On a partial removal it's broken down into the hole.
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06
Fill and compact, in lifts
Clean fill, layer by layer, each one compacted.
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07
Grade and finish
Topped with soil, graded to meet the yard, and left ready for seed or sod.
The dumpster question
People often call us about a pool because they already know us for roll-off dumpsters, and they want to know whether they can do some of the work themselves and save on the rest. Sometimes they can. The decking, the fencing, the pump house and the surround are all things a capable person can tear out and load into a 20 or 30 yard container over a couple of weekends.
The shell is the part to leave to us. Broken concrete is heavy enough to matter on weight allowances, an excavator isn't optional on a gunite pool, and the buoyancy problem above isn't something to discover for the first time with a rented mini excavator. If you want to split the job that way, tell us and we'll price the half you want.
Questions we get asked
How long does removing a pool take?
Usually one to three days on site once the water is gone. Draining is the part that varies, because where the water can be discharged depends on the property, and wet ground can add a day for dewatering before anything is broken out.
Can you get to a pool in a fenced backyard?
Usually. Access is the first thing we look at and it's the thing that most often changes the plan. Taking out a section of fence for a day is normal, and it's better to plan for that than to find out the morning of the job.
What happens to the concrete?
On a full removal it's hauled out and recycled rather than landfilled. On a partial fill-in it's broken down and stays in the bottom of the hole, under the fill.
Will the ground sink afterward?
Not if the fill is placed in layers and compacted as it goes, which is how we do it. A hole filled loosely in one go will settle, and on sand with a high water table it'll settle sooner.
Can I build over it later?
Over a full removal, treat it like any other ground. Over a partial fill-in, no, not without an engineer looking at it first. That's the main reason to choose full removal even though it costs more.
Do I have to tell a buyer the pool was filled in?
Yes. A pool filled in place is a known feature of the property and belongs on the disclosure. A fully removed pool leaves nothing to disclose.
Do you take the deck and the fence too?
Yes, if you want them gone. Concrete decking, pavers, the surround, screen enclosures and pool fencing all come out as part of the same job.
What does it cost?
It depends on the size of the shell, what it's built from, how a machine reaches it, which of the two jobs you want and what the ground is doing. We don't publish a figure because no honest one would fit your pool. Call us and we'll tell you.
Where we do this
We take this work anywhere in Mobile County, AL and Jackson County, MS, and the yard is in Theodore, so most of the territory is inside an hour.
Pools sit closer to the water table in the low-lying parts of the county than they do out toward Semmes and Wilmer, so tell us where you are when you call.
Service area
Mobile Theodore Tillman's Corner Grand Bay Saraland Satsuma Creola Chickasaw Prichard Semmes Wilmer Eight Mile Moss Point Pascagoula Gautier