How to Safely Remove an Above Ground Pool

Preparation and Safe Water Drainage

Taking down a swimming pool starts long before you pick up a screwdriver or a utility knife. The single biggest danger during the first stage is water damage. An average round pool holds between 5,000 and 15,000 gallons of water. If you dump that volume too quickly, you risk eroding your yard, flooding your basement, or sending a wave of water into your neighbor's property. In many towns, letting thousands of gallons of chlorinated water flow into storm drains can also trigger municipal fines.

Start by letting the pool water sit without adding any sanitizing chemicals for several days. Direct sunlight naturally breaks down chlorine, turning the pool into neutral fresh water that is safe to discharge onto grass. Before running any hoses, call your local public works department or town hall to confirm where you are allowed to drain the water. Some towns require you to route it into a clean-out valve connected to the sanitary sewer, while others allow you to let it soak into your lawn as long as it stays on your property.

Before touching the water, review this short safety and equipment checklist:

• Cut all electrical power: Turn off the circuit breaker that powers the pool equipment. Unplug the pool pump from the outdoor GFCI outlet (a protected ground-fault outlet with a weatherproof cover). If your equipment is hardwired, disconnect the wiring safely at the breaker panel. Reviewing how to ground a pool pump safely can help you understand how these outdoor power circuits are wired before you start unhooking cables.
• Gather your safety gear: Get heavy leather work gloves, safety glasses, and sturdy work boots. Never wear open-toed shoes or thin cloth gloves during teardown because rusty metal edges and sheet metal burrs can cause deep cuts.
• Prepare your hand tools: Keep a cordless drill or impact driver, a socket wrench set, penetrating spray for rusted hardware, a utility knife with extra blades, and heavy-duty ratchet straps on hand.
• Select a dry, calm day: Never dismantle a pool on a windy day. Once the water is gone, an empty metal pool wall acts like a giant sail. A sudden gust of wind can fold the wall over, bend the posts, or knock you down.

Once your power is disconnected and your route is clear, follow these steps to drain the pool:

1. Set up your drainage pump: Drop a submersible pump (a small water pump dropped directly into the pool) onto the floor in the center of the pool. Connect a durable garden hose or lay-flat discharge hose to the pump outlet.
2. Direct the hose downhill: Run the discharge hose downhill and away from your house foundation. Make sure the water empties at least 20 feet away from any structures. If you are draining onto your lawn, move the end of the hose every couple of hours so one spot does not become an impassable mud pit.
3. Monitor the water level: Turn on the pump and check the hose connections regularly. As the water level drops to the final inch, tilt the pump or sweep the remaining puddles toward the intake screen with a push broom to pull out as much moisture as possible.
4. Disconnect exterior plumbing: While the last few puddles drain, unclamp the flexible hoses connecting the pool skimmer and return jet to your filter system. Drain the filter tank and pool pump completely so they are light enough to move into storage or haul away.

Cutting Out and Discarding the Vinyl Liner

Once the water is empty, you are left with the pool liner. While homeowners often look up how to stretch a pool liner when installing one, removal is the exact opposite. You do not need to save the liner or worry about keeping it intact. Old liners shrink, dry out, and turn brittle over time, making them impossible to reuse.

A wet vinyl liner is heavy. If you try to pull an entire pool liner out in one single piece, the trapped water, sand, and slick vinyl can easily weigh several hundred pounds. Slicing the material into manageable sections while you are standing inside the empty pool frame is the fastest and safest approach.

1. Inspect the floor for muck: If a layer of silt or leaves remains on the pool floor, shovel it into five-gallon buckets and carry it out first. Removing this sludge keeps the liner light and prevents you from slipping while you work.
2. Cut the liner into strips: Stand on the pool floor with a utility knife loaded with a fresh blade. Starting at one wall, cut the vinyl into long strips roughly two to three feet wide. Slice down the wall, straight across the floor, and up the opposite wall. Change your knife blade as soon as it begins to snag or drag.
3. Detach the coping strips: Reach up to the top rim and pull off the coping strips (the plastic clips gripping the liner). These clips snap over the pool wall to hold the liner in place. Once the plastic clips are off, the top edge of each sliced strip will pull free from the metal wall without resistance.
4. Roll the strips like sleeping bags: Roll each vinyl strip tightly from one end to the other. Squeeze out any trapped water as you roll. Secure each roll with duct tape or twine. This makes the heavy material easy to carry by yourself and allows it to fit directly into standard heavy-duty contractor trash bags.
5. Remove the wall foam and floor pad: If the pool had thin protective foam padding taped to the wall or a geotextile fabric pad under the liner, pull these materials up now. Toss them directly into your contractor bags along with the liner strips.

Dismantling the Frame and Rolling the Steel Wall

Taking apart the rigid frame requires patience and a partner. Hard-walled pools get their structural strength from a continuous coil of corrugated steel held upright by metal posts. Once you start removing the hardware, the structure loses its rigidity quickly. Work methodically around the perimeter to keep the wall steady until you are ready to roll it up.

1. Take off the top ledge covers and rails: Start by removing the resin or metal caps that sit over the joints. Next, use your cordless drill or socket wrench to unbolt the top rails (the metal ledges running along the top rim). Set the hardware into a bucket so screws do not scatter across the grass where lawnmower tires or bare feet could find them. Work your way all the way around the pool until all top rails are removed.
2. Loosen the uprights: The uprights (the vertical metal posts supporting the wall) are bolted to bottom plates anchored in the ground. Unscrew the top fasteners on each post. If the pool wall is still standing firmly, remove most of the uprights, but leave three or four evenly spaced posts loosely attached to keep the steel wall from tipping over while you work.
3. Locate the wall seam: Walk around the perimeter to find the vertical joint where the ends of the steel wall meet. This seam is held together by a vertical metal bar secured with a dozen or more nuts and bolts. Spray these fasteners heavily with penetrating oil to loosen rust.
4. Unbolt or cut the joint bar: Back out the bolts using your socket set and impact driver. If the hardware is rusted solid and strips out, do not waste time wrestling with it. Put on safety glasses and use a reciprocating saw with a metal-cutting blade to cut through the bolt heads or slice vertically down the seam just beside the hardware bar.
5. Roll the steel wall: With the seam open, you and a helper should put on heavy leather gloves. One person stands at the cut edge while the other supports the wall a few feet down. Begin rolling the sheet metal inward, just like rolling up a giant sheet of paper or a heavy carpet. Keep the roll tight, roughly two feet in diameter. As you roll, the wall will slide naturally out of the bottom metal track.
6. Secure the metal roll immediately: As soon as the entire wall is rolled up, wrap two heavy ratchet straps around the cylinder and tighten them down firmly. Sheet metal holds spring tension. If you release the roll without strapping it, the sharp metal can snap outward violently and cause severe injuries.
7. Pull up the bottom track and base plates: Walk the dirt circle and pull the curved metal bottom tracks and base plates out of the ground. Use a flat pry bar or shovel if they are packed into the dirt or anchored with small ground stakes.

Disposing of Materials and Restoring Your Yard

Once the structure is disassembled, you face two final tasks: clearing away the bulky materials and repairing the ring left in your lawn. Handling disposal correctly can save you substantial money, and in some cases, put a little cash back in your pocket.

Separate your materials into scrap metal and general trash. The steel wall, top rails, uprights, and metal bottom tracks are made of recyclable steel or aluminum. Call a local scrap metal yard to ask about current drop-off policies. Most scrap yards will gladly accept rolled pool walls and frame parts, and some will pay you by the hundredweight for the metal. If you do not have a truck to haul the heavy rolls, list the metal for free pickup on local classified boards. Scrap collectors often pick up clean pool metal from your driveway within hours.

Materials that cannot be scrapped include the vinyl liner, resin top caps, plastic skimmer boxes, and any rotted deck wood. For a standard pool, the liner and plastic fittings will easily fill eight to twelve contractor bags. You can place these in your weekly trash pickup a few bags at a time, or take them directly to a local transfer station. If you also tore down an attached wooden deck, renting a small roll-off dumpster is usually the most efficient option for disposing of treated lumber and liner scrap together.

After the materials leave your driveway, you will find a large circular patch of sand, packed dirt, and crushed patio blocks where the pool once stood. Pool installers level the ground with several tons of masonry sand to create a soft floor beneath the vinyl. Leaving that thick sand layer in place guarantees poor results for your lawn because grass cannot establish strong root systems in deep, dry sand.

Use a flat transfer shovel and a wheelbarrow to dig out the bulk of the sand. You can reuse clean masonry sand for paver projects, garden beds, or sandbox fill. Once you reduce the sand layer to an inch or less, use a garden tiller or a sturdy metal rake to blend that remaining sand into the native soil beneath it. Remove all concrete patio blocks that were buried under the upright posts.

Finally, order several yards of screened topsoil from a local landscape supplier to fill the shallow depression. Spread the topsoil evenly across the circle, raking it until it sits level with the surrounding turf. Lightly roll or tamp the soil so it does not settle into a sinkhole after the first heavy rain. Broadcast a quality lawn seed mix suited to your region, lightly rake it into the top quarter-inch of soil, and water the area daily until new grass establishes itself across the former pool site.

FAQs

How long does it take to tear down an above ground pool?

For two adults working together, dismantling the frame, rolling the metal wall, and bagging the liner usually takes four to six hours. Draining the water beforehand takes the longest, often requiring twelve to twenty-four hours depending on pool size and pump capacity. Grading the sand ring and repairing the yard typically requires an additional weekend afternoon.

Can I remove an above ground pool completely by myself?

You can drain the pool, cut the liner, and remove the top rails alone, but you should never attempt to roll the steel wall without a helper. The sheet metal wall is heavy, awkward, and sharp, making it prone to buckling or catching the wind. Having a second person steady the metal while you roll and secure the straps prevents serious hand or leg cuts.

What should I do if the pool frame bolts are rusted solid?

Coat the stubborn bolts with penetrating spray and let them sit for fifteen minutes before trying an impact driver again. If the bolt heads strip or snap off, switch to an angle grinder with a cut-off wheel or a reciprocating saw fitted with a metal-cutting blade. Slicing directly through the fasteners or through the thin wall seam right next to the joint bar takes only minutes and avoids stripped hardware struggles.