Hot Tub Demo and Deck Rebuild

Hot Tub Demo

Fifteen years ago we bought an 6 person hot tub and I cut out a section of our deck, built a platform for it and embedded it in the deck. We got a fair amount of use out of it over the years but, the last few, I have had lots of trouble with heaters failing, leaking and most recently one of the pumps failing. Since it is half buried in the deck you have to remove a bunch of deck boards to get at it and it was still very difficult to work on.

This spring one of pumps was leaking. I replaced the impeller and various seals and re-installed the pump. It failed immediately...Arg and the spa started leaking again. Kathryn's suggestion -- let's get rid of it and rebuild the deck. It will be a liability when we eventually sell our house. I agreed, I was looking for a project.

Getting someone to remove a spa embedded in the deck was going to be expensive so, I went to You Tube and found videos on how to cut up a hot tub. So, here I go!

I removed lot's of decking around the Spa but, it was still framed in with Joists. I bought 12" Sawzsall blades and started cutting through fiberglass, hoses, pipes, insulation and wood framing. Fun, Fun. The thickest parts of the spa needed cutting from both the inside and outside but, since it was half embedded in the deck, I could not get at the outside of three of the sides. So, my plan was to cut the spa in half, shift it and then get at both the outside and the inside of the remaining spa.

Removing the front end stuff, pumps, heater, control board was easy. Cutting the middle section out was a bugger! But, once I was able to do that, I was able to move the other pieces to get at the inside and outside and then things went smoother. More Fun! I cut the Spa up into manageable pieces and rented a 10 yard dumpster for disposal.

Demo Complete!

We also took advantage of having the dumpster to de-clutter some so, that last picture has it pretty much filled to the top.

Deck Reconstruction

Removing all the deck boards was tedious. I had used screws but over twenty years the heads were filled with stain, etc. and I had to clean out each screw head one at a time to extract.

Now I have a big hole in the deck! In 2021, for various reasons, some related to Covid, wood has gotten crazy expensive. My first plan was to use all the prior pieces of the deck and add only enough wood to make it complete. I was going to stagger the cuts so, you would not see the squared out section where the spa was. After some thought we decided it would not look very good. I needed about 14' spans and would have to use two boards for each of 24 spans splicing them in at staggered locations. It would be much more tedious to build and it would look bad. Unfortunately, length of new decking does not come in 14' spans so, I had to buy 24 16' lengths and 5 2x8 10' joists. The wood was expensive.

The project went well. I added the necessary joists for framing. then Jake helped moving the 16' decking from the driveway. I used treated wood instead of the original cedar for three good reasons. 1. Treated lasts longer. 2. Since I use a solid stain on the deck, once stained, no difference in appearance from cedar. 3. Cheaper.

All the boards were going to be the same length which made things a lot easier. About 14' long. I removed the boarder decking near the house to let the boards go long (a trick I learned). I cut the 45deg ends, then using a template from the first board, I cut all the boards about 2-3" long. Since the treated wood was very wet, you want to put butt the boards next to each other in the installation. As the boards dry they will shrink and create the small gap you want between the boards. Some of the boards had some warp to them so, in a few cases it took Jake and Me forcing the wood to close the gap and then screwing it down.

I snapped chalk lines to mark the middle of each joist and started screwing the boards down (drilled pilots for each one with a countersink so the boards don't split). Lots of screws!

Jake helped at the end. The new boards were slightly wider than the original so, the last board was going to need to be trimmed to only 1 1/2" to fill the last gap to meet up with the rest of the existing deck. The other option was to remove a whole bunch more original decking and run everything out to the end. I wasn't going to do that. Jake had the very good suggestion to trim the last two boards to the same width to fill the gap. We had to rip the last two 16' boards to fit the space which took two of us on the table saw. A little sketchy but we did it safely. Turned out really well and much better than just one last skinny sliver of a board.

Now the trick! To trim all the boards to perfect length to butt up against the boarder I snapped a chalk line, set the depth of the circular saw and cut them all to the exact perfect length all at once. Very nice trick! Finally, screwed back down the boarder boards.

I need to let the boards dry out for a month or more before I apply the stain.

As you can see from the pics, I think it turned out pretty well!. Deck looks so much better without the bulky Hot Tub.

Project Complete!