Large Backyard Pool Removal in Bethesda Maryland

We recently had the honor of demolishing a one-of-a-kind backyard residential swimming pool on Nevis Road in Bethesda MD. While this certainly isn’t our first pool demolition, this is our first resort style backyard swimming pool we have worked with.

The pool was built in the mid to late 1960’s, back when swimming pools were concrete, not gunite.

Apparently, the original owners were very much into hosting and entertaining guests. The pool featured a swim up bar, a kiddie pool that opened into the main pool, along with a bathhouse. The only thing that was missing were Palm trees.

The site was challenging in terms of equipment access into the backyard. The client said that of all the contractors they met with about the job, we were the only ones who knew how to get into the backyard with incurring as little disruption to the property as possible. The challenging access limited the size of equipment we could use.

The bathhouse, which sat on a concrete pedestal over the shallow end of the pool had a kitchen, with a sink with a disposal, a gas range, and a dishwasher. The bathhouse also had a guys and a ladies changing rooms complete with a commodes, showers, and changing areas.

Every aspect of the backyard was well thought out, well designed, and well-engineered. It was clearly evident that no stone was left unturned, and clearly evident that the original owner didn’t spare a dime.

It was so well engineered that during the demolition process we encountered difficulty with the concrete pedestal that the bath house sat on. The pedestal was found to be over-engineered, stronger than a highway bridge. We encountered two layers of re-bar, the rebar was close to 1-inch diameter, and spaced every two inches. And because the pedestal was circular, the rebar overlapped in the center. This made for hammering through the concrete to be the equivalent to hammering 1-inch-thick steel plates. Using a bigger machine would not have made much of a difference with all that rebar. And it’s believed that they used 5,000 psi concrete mix, as opposed to the typical 3,500 psi.

The property owners are thrilled that now they can look out their windows and breath a sense of relief, and I know their young children are excited to finally have a backyard they can freely play in!