Disassembling My Above Ground Pool

By Mark J. Donovan

This weekend I spent a good part of it disassembling my above ground pool. This winter simply was too much for it. One day in late January, I looked out the window and my pool had collapsed. The top sides had simply caved in. The reason….it’s complicated. Basically I could not keep up with the 3.5 feet of snow that fell that month, and as a result, the pool liner broke. When it did, the water drained out of the bottom, the 18” thick ice disk sank to the bottom, and the pool cover tied to the top sides of the pool with a wrap-around-wire sagged downwards. As the heavily snow laden pool cover sank towards the bottom of the pool, the wrap-around-wire pulled in the sides of the pool. Suffice it to say the pool was a total loss.

As a result, I spent most of Saturday disassembling the pool frame and taking it to the local dump. Unfortunately, due to the large disk of ice still in the bottom of the pool I was unable to remove the steel shell of the pool and the pool liner. I’m hoping in the next couple of weeks to be able to remove these items. Once that’s done, I’ll debate putting in a new pool.

My advice to anyone that owns an above ground pool in a northern climate is to make sure not to use a wrap-around-wire for holding down the pool cover. Instead use clips or milk jugs filled with water and tied every few feet around the perimeter of the pool. This way if the pool liner goes, your pool frame will not be damaged.