Pool Digs
Inground Pool Excavation
Princeton Excavation digs inground pools for pool builders and owner-builds in the Princeton area. We dig to your pool company's spec sheet — dimensions, depths, and over-dig allowance — manage the spoils, and time the hole so the shell goes in right behind us.
Dug to the spec sheet
Your pool company sets the shell. We put the hole exactly where their sheet says it goes, after the 811 utility markout clears the yard.
Their Spec, Our Bucket
Every pool builder issues a dig sheet: footprint, depths, transitions, and the over-dig their crew needs to work around the shell. We hold it with laser grade control so the shell sets without hand-digging or rework.
Spoils Handled, Not Piled
We decide before the dig what leaves and what stays — haul-off in our 7-yard dump truck, regrade on site, or a split of both. No mystery mountain sitting on your lawn for a month.
Access Through the Side Yard
We walk the route the machine and truck will take, pull fence panels where needed, and lay ground protection, so the only torn-up part of the yard is the pool.
The dirt is most of the job
A pool dig produces far more soil than people expect. Soil bulks up once it's out of the ground, so even a modest pool turns into truckload after truckload. That volume is the real logistics problem of a pool dig, and it's why we plan the haul-off route and the truck cycle before the excavator starts. Usable clean fill can stay on site for regrading if your yard needs it; the rest leaves.
Where we work
The other half is timing. An open pool hole is weather exposure — rain in an unprotected dig means pumping, sloughed walls, and re-cutting. We schedule the dig against the pool company's shell or steel date so the hole is open for days, not weeks, and we stay reachable while their crew sets so any trim work gets handled fast.
How a job goes
From the first call to a clean handover
1. Site Walk
We come look at the property by appointment, check the access and any constraints, and go over your plans or what you have in mind.
2. Marking & Layout
We set the layout on the ground with laser accuracy. Depths, lines, and elevations are marked before anything gets dug.
3. The Work
We bring the right machine for the access, lay ground protection where it's needed, and keep the mess around lawns, trees, and hardscape to a minimum.
4. Clean Handover
You're left with a site that's ready to go and a yard that's still in one piece, set up for whatever's next.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, that's the normal arrangement. They send the dig spec, we dig to it, and we coordinate the date with their shell delivery or steel crew. On owner-builds we work from the manufacturer's dig sheet the same way.
More than the pool's volume — excavated soil fluffs up as it's dug, so plan on a long series of 7-yard truckloads. At the site visit we tell you what's leaving, what can be reused on site, and what that does to the price.
A pool dig takes our 5-6 ton excavator, so we need a real access path — usually a side yard, sometimes with a fence section down. We confirm the route at the site walk and put protection down along it. Marking out utilities through NJ One Call comes first, every time.
Service Areas
- Princeton· Mercer County
- Hopewell Township· Mercer County
- Montgomery & Skillman· Somerset County
- West Windsor· Mercer County
- Lawrence Township· Mercer County
- Pennington· Mercer County
- Robbinsville· Mercer County
- Hamilton Township· Mercer County
- Plainsboro· Middlesex County
- Cranbury· Middlesex County
- South Brunswick· Middlesex County
- Hillsborough· Somerset County
- Ewing· Mercer County
Princeton, Hopewell Township, Montgomery & Skillman, and surrounding Mercer and Somerset County, NJ.
Have a dig sheet from your pool builder? Send it over and we'll walk the site.
Owner-operated and by appointment. Tell us about your project and we'll walk the site with you.