Pool Excavation in Los Angeles

How the dig reaches the backyard

A pool is usually the largest single hole a residential backyard ever gets, and nearly all of it has to leave through the same side yard the family uses to take out the bins. We start with the route: the gap between house and property line, any steps or grade change along it, and where a loader can meet a truck at the street. The excavator works in the yard while a smaller machine shuttles soil out, or the excavator loads directly over a fence line when the truck can back up close enough. Driveways, walkways and sprinkler lines in that path get protected or noted in the written scope before the first bucket.

Where the soil goes

Excavated soil takes up more room than it did in the ground, so the pile always looks bigger than the hole. Most of it is hauled away, a truckload at a time, to a site that accepts clean soil. Some owners want part of it kept to raise a planter or reshape the yard around the deck. That can work, but spreading it on the lot turns it into fill, and in the City of Los Angeles fill loses its permit exemption once it passes 50 cubic yards or changes how water drains. We work out the split before digging, so spoil is not stockpiled against a wall or a neighbor’s fence.

Digging to the pool builder’s layout

The shape, depths, step and bench locations come from the pool builder’s plans and layout marks. We dig to those lines, leave room for the shell and its steel, and cut the transition from shallow to deep end as drawn. LADBS lets the pool’s building permit cover its excavation on an ordinary City of LA lot; inside a designated hillside area, that exemption does not apply. For a hillside lot in Studio City, we check the City’s hillside designation before digging, and if it applies, the pool falls under the rules on our hillside grading page. Lines to the equipment pad are a separate trench; see utility trenching.

Taking out an old pool

There are two general approaches. A partial removal breaks out the upper part of the shell, opens the floor so water can drain through it, and fills the rest in place. A full removal takes all the concrete out and replaces it with compacted fill. Which is right depends on what the owner plans to build there later and what the local building department will approve. The concrete side of either job is covered under demolition and haul-off.

What sets the schedule? The size and depth of the pool, the route from the backyard to the trucks, and whether the lot is on a hillside.

Frequently asked questions