The kids grew up and moved out, and now you're opening and closing a pool nobody swims in. Or you bought a place in Nampa with an inground pool you never wanted, and the liner is already shot.

Either way, the question is the same: what does it actually take to get rid of it and put grass back?

Short answer, it depends a lot on whether the pool sits on top of the ground or in it.

Above-ground pools

These are the straightforward ones. Most are a rolled steel or aluminum wall held in a track, with a vinyl liner inside and uprights around the outside.

We drain it, pull the liner, take the top rails and uprights off, then cut the wall into sections we can roll up and load. The steel goes to metal recycling. The liner and foam cove don't, so those get hauled to the landfill.

What surprises people is what's underneath. There's usually two to four inches of leveling sand sitting on dead, flattened ground, plus a perfect brown circle where nothing has grown in years.

We can rake the sand out and spread it, or haul it off and bring in topsoil so you can seed or sod. Tell us which one you want before we start, since hauling sand off is a truckload of weight and it changes the price.

Decking around an above-ground pool comes out the same day if you want it gone. So do the pump, filter, and the buried electrical run to the equipment pad.

Inground pools: partial or full removal

An inground pool comes out one of two ways, and this is the single biggest decision you'll make.

Partial removal is the common choice. We break out the top few feet of the pool walls, punch drainage holes through the floor so water can't collect, drop the broken concrete into the hole, then backfill with dirt in layers and compact as we go.

It's faster and it means far fewer dump trips, which is where a lot of the cost lives.

Full removal means every piece of concrete, rebar, and plumbing leaves the property, and the hole gets filled entirely with clean engineered fill. It costs more because you're trucking out the whole pool and trucking in the whole replacement.

Why would you pay for that? Two reasons. If you ever want to build a structure, an addition, or a garage over that footprint, engineers generally won't sign off on partial fill. And when you sell, a fully removed pool is a cleaner conversation than a partial one.

Idaho sellers are expected to disclose known material facts about the property, and a filled pool is one of them. Keep whatever paperwork we give you.

Settling, and why compaction matters

Here's the part cheap pool fills get wrong. If someone dumps dirt in a hole and drives away, that ground will keep sinking for years. You end up with a shallow bowl in the lawn that collects every sprinkler cycle and every spring rain.

Filling in lifts and compacting each lift is the whole job. We also crown the finished surface slightly high, because even a well-compacted fill settles a little in the first season.

Treasure Valley soil doesn't make this easier. A lot of yards around Boise and Caldwell sit on clay that holds water, so drainage through the old pool floor has to be real, not decorative.

Getting equipment into the backyard

Inground work needs a machine. A compact excavator needs roughly a 36 to 60 inch opening depending on the machine, so gate width and side-yard clearance drive the plan.

Things we look at on a walkthrough:

Gate width and whether the fence panel can come out temporarily
Overhead power lines and low tree limbs on the approach
Sprinkler mainlines and gas service crossing the path
Whether we can run mats over the lawn to limit rutting
Where a dump truck can legally sit on the street

If there's truly no access, there are still options, they just cost more. We'll tell you honestly which one you're in.

Permits and utility locates

Pool removal is demolition, and depending on your address it may need a permit from the City of Boise, another Treasure Valley city, or Ada or Canyon County. We check before we schedule rather than after.

Utility locates get called in on every inground job. That one's not optional.

Next step

Send us a photo of the pool and one of the gate or side yard, and tell us roughly how deep it goes. From there we can walk you through partial versus full and what each one means for your yard.

Pool Removal Services