Ok. Got a bit of an update.
We talked to the pool company again this week and they said that if the pool was filled in properly, it can't be salvaged. I gather they think that the proper way is to break out the entire bottom, which I have seen before.
We asked them about digging it out and why they think we can't find anyone that wants to do it, since in our mind there's no difference between digging out that dirt than if we went to them and said we wanted a new pool. The same amount of dirt would need to be taken out of our yard. We know it's possible. They agreed, but told us it would cost ~$15,000 for them to dig it out.....
All of the pool companies immediately told us they don't think we can fix it and said basically the same thing....it was filled in for a reason. Even after we told them the neighbor said there was nothing wrong with it, they just didn't want to take care of it anymore, they still seemed skeptical. They all said they can't really tell us anything until they see it dug out....
Soooooo.......
Since we have other projects going on around the house that are gonna need an answer about this project before they can move forward, we got sick of waiting. We decided it was worth the money to do an exploratory dig to see if we could find the bottom and make sure the deep end wasn't completely missing the floor.
So that's how I spent my day.
Dug out a chunk of the shallow end first to make sure it was all there. Floor looks in the same condition as the walls.
So we moved on to the deep end hoping it would be a bit easier to dig and not be so full of junk....
Wrong...
We found what appears to be all of their landscaping, trees and all. Concrete slab, diving board, etc all there. Completely full of voids, etc because of the way they did it.
The good news, though, is that we found the bottom. There is no evidence of any of the bottom being broken up. Looks like they possibly just disconnected the main drain and that's the only way for the water to get out.
We also found the light. We still aren't sure if there is more than light. The glass is cracked. Presumably they hit it with some of the massive chunks of concrete/tree they threw in there.
So we have hope now that we have enough information to know that it should be fixable (hopefully) so we will try to get someone to come get the rest of the dirt and empty the pool out.
Once it's empty we'll re-assess.
Any reason not to think that since the low point isn't broken that likely none of it is? We didn't uncover all of completely, but can feel the floor through most of the deep end anywhere we tried.