Before starting any demolition I went to city hall and got a building permit. This is crucial for a number of reasons. You need get one if you ever want to sell your house and I have a neighbor around the block who's a total nazi/busybody and would most certainly put her big nose in our business once she caught wind of it. I proudly placed the permit in the front window the way you'd hang garlic to keep away vampires and then looked for someone to drain the pool. Our regular pool man is so incompetent that I'm surprised we never came home to find him face down in the pool a la William Holden in Sunset Boulevard. He said he was unable to drain the pool and that he'd have to hire someone. So, I did a little research and found a company that could drain the pool right away. They said it would cost me $100 and takes about 5 hours to do. They then asked me what I was planning to do with the old equipment saying they might be interested in it. I said they could have it but they'd have to lower their price if they took anything. No way was I giving the stuff to them for free when I knew they could benefit from it. They said they'd think it over.
On time, the pool drain guy arrived with a pump and a long hose. He attached the hose to the pump, dropped it in the pool, turned it on so the water could drain out to the street and then left saying he'd be back in a few hours. I was then entertained for hours watching the water get lower and lower in the pool. Of course the whole thing (hole thing?) took longer than he thought and he left the pump overnight. I turned it off when the pool was empty. He came the next morning and asked me if he could take our old pool heater in exchange for only charging me $50 for his services. I said no problem since it was headed straight for the dump anyway so I wrote him a check for $50, he took the old rusty heater that we never used once and the pool was empty and ready for demolition.
