Pinellas Park Pool Suffers Death by Hurricane

Completed Project Stats

Days on Site:

Crew Size:

Machines Used

2
1
Excavator, Skid Steer

Location:

Pinellas Park

By the time they call us, most pool owners make an active choice to leave their pool days behind them and move forward into the future with a bigger yard, or a new patio, or a fresh fire pit. They’ve thought about it for a while, and they’re ready to let go. This pool was not so lucky. It was a victim of terrible circumstance. When Hurricane Irma blasted through Florida in September 2017, it damaged many houses and structures; among the casualties, unfortunately, was this fiberglass pool. However, it wasn’t the only damage this owner suffered. He and his wife also lost air conditioning, fencing, and sustained fairly severe roof damage. Hard choices had to be made, and the pool was put on the back burner.

Things Fell Apart

As it sat, the problems piled up. When filled, the pool slowly drained – an indication of some sort of undiagnosed underground leak. When he reached out for repair quotes, he was shocked by the estimates he received. Insurance was growing concerned about how long the pool had remained un-repaired, and signaled their unwillingness to assist any further. The owner, a former utilities worker with a strong knowledge of tools and basic construction, briefly attempted to renovate the pool on his own. When he cut through the fiberglass shell and found a sturdy concrete frame underneath, he knew he had hit his limit. He called AAA Service Company to demolish the pool.

Pool Demolition Begins

If the pool is small, then the pool removal can be small as well. For this job, we sent only one operator with two machines to handle the project. He started by preparing a path from the pool to the street by hand. He carefully removed fence panels and set them aside, then swept the landscaping rocks into a safe pile out of the way of the machines.

Then, with our CAT 308, a small but versatile excavator, he set to work on the pool removal. He first removed the mud and debris that had accumulated at the bottom of the pool during its declining days. Then, with that accomplished, he cut a line down the middle of the fiberglass pool with the sharp end of the excavator bucket. Piece by piece, he broke up and pulled out the fiberglass shell of the pool and loaded it into one of our dump trucks. Occasionally, as he exposed pipes and wires that once supported the pool, he would exit the machine and cut them free by hand. He built himself a dirt ramp down into the pool as he worked, allowing himself smooth access to every corner of the hole.

Once the dump truck departed with the last of the fiberglass pool, he backed out of the pool demolition site and switched over to using a skid steer, our CAT 249, to load dirt into the depression left behind by the ex-pool. As truckload after truckload of fill dirt from our recycling yard piled up, he used the skid steer to shape, direct, and push the dirt where it needed to be. In between loads, he took time to compact the dirt. This is an important step, because without it the dirt would naturally settle on its own and create a low, sunken area in the yard. And so a rhythm developed: dump the dirt, push the dirt into place, and compact the dirt just in time to repeat.

Pool Demolition Completion

As the pool removal project neared completion, one of the last steps was to bring the CAT 308 Excavator back in to pry up the concrete deck that had once surrounded the fiberglass pool. The operator broke this concrete pad up into small chunks and loaded them into the last of the dirt-dump trucks, who took them to our concrete recycling yard. He then spread the last of the dirt around the pool area, compacted it down, and pulled the machines out for the very last time. All that was left was to repair the fence and replace the landscaping rocks.

If you, like the homeowner in this story, are unlucky enough to possess a pool that you can no longer use, you deserve quality local pool removal and demolition services. We want to help. Reach out to us at any time, and we will send a professional estimator out to you. We want to make sure that we can offer you a fair and accurate quote as soon as possible, Your satisfaction is our #1 goal.

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