We just took down our pool for the first time, I'm curious how others do it since it's not that easy to get all the water out, (although in the end it wasn't as bad as we thought) and I thought I'd post my experience since when I looked on here for advice I didn't find much on this topic.
It was definitely a 2 person job. All in all it took about 2 hours (excluding draining time). I thought wiping down/drying the pool was going to take a lot longer than it did but it went quite quickly and only used 3-4 bath towels.
1) attached hose to plug at the bottom to drain the pool, took about 2 days (approx 1-2" of water left in pool that wouldn't drain)
2) took down the entire frame & removed pump
3) dumped out the remaining water by lifting the pool from one side and flattening the wall on the other side as much as possible for the water to flow over
4) flip the pool upside down to get out any remaining water
5) push pool off to the side of the tarp that goes underneath it and clean off the tarp by spraying with a hose, remove most of the water with a squeegy and then dry with a towel so that tarp is very clean and dry (important since you don't want the pool getting dirty as you try to dry/clean it)
6) spread pool back out on tarp and wipe inside with towels. One person holds up one section of wall while you dry the interior walls, moving around the entire pool to dry it.
7) fold up pool, wiping exterior walls and bottom as you fold
I had read on here to store pool in a rubbermaid bin or garbage bin (to keep mice from getting to it in the garage) but ours didn't come close to fitting in either so we are keeping it in the basement.
It was definitely a 2 person job. All in all it took about 2 hours (excluding draining time). I thought wiping down/drying the pool was going to take a lot longer than it did but it went quite quickly and only used 3-4 bath towels.
1) attached hose to plug at the bottom to drain the pool, took about 2 days (approx 1-2" of water left in pool that wouldn't drain)
2) took down the entire frame & removed pump
3) dumped out the remaining water by lifting the pool from one side and flattening the wall on the other side as much as possible for the water to flow over
4) flip the pool upside down to get out any remaining water
5) push pool off to the side of the tarp that goes underneath it and clean off the tarp by spraying with a hose, remove most of the water with a squeegy and then dry with a towel so that tarp is very clean and dry (important since you don't want the pool getting dirty as you try to dry/clean it)
6) spread pool back out on tarp and wipe inside with towels. One person holds up one section of wall while you dry the interior walls, moving around the entire pool to dry it.
7) fold up pool, wiping exterior walls and bottom as you fold
I had read on here to store pool in a rubbermaid bin or garbage bin (to keep mice from getting to it in the garage) but ours didn't come close to fitting in either so we are keeping it in the basement.