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To begin I decided where I was going to put the hottub. I decided
on my backyard. I had to get an apricot tree removed (which stunned
into complete silence and large doe-eyes the lady I purchased the
house from). I called a local tree service and had them cut it down
and grind the stump for a cost of approximately $300. I marked out
a 10ft X 10ft area which was about 5 feet from the rear of my house
and about 8 feet from the edge of my property line. It was very
fortunate I put it that far because my city building code required
that it be at least 5 feet from my property line.
I looked into building a concrete pad for the hottub to rest on. To
do such a concrete pad would have cost me somewhere around $1000. I
kept looking around and saw that I could build a deck, but that
would also get expensive quickly, not to mention require cleaning and
yearly maintenance. The final solution that I considered was to dig
a shallow hole in the yard and fill it with pea-gravel. I settled on
the hole/pea-gravel method. However, it is important to note that
not all hottub constructions can rest on a pea-gravel bed. It's
important that you talk to whoever you purchase your hottub from and
find out if this is applicable to you. It voids some spa warranties!
If you go to LifeSprings for your spa purchase, you'll learn why this
is.
The first two pictures are shots of the shallow hole that I dug. I
rented a rotary tiller and tilled it very shallow (took only 45
minutes total). I used a shovel and put the dirt onto a tarp that
I had next to it. You would probably be best served to put it on
a trailer and haul it off to somewhere or someone that needs it or
use a wheel barrow to cart it to some low spots in your lawn that
need filling. I spent probably a total of 2 hours shoveling to get
all the dirt out. You can also clearly see the 4 flat bricks that
I laid down for a walkway to the hottub, so you can deduce that I
want the entrance to be on the side facing the house.
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You'll probably notice a few things. The hole looks like it is
deeper on one side than the other. You have good eyes. My back
yard has some slope to it, right around 6 inches per 10 feet. I
was able to verify how level it was with water. This is another
thing that you may have noticed, that the hole looked wet. I used
a hose and filled the hole with about an inch of water. Then I
used a rake and pushed the dirt (mud) around. I got it pretty
close. It didn't need to be perfect because I will be covering it
with 6 inches of pea gravel.
Next I filled the shallow hole with pea-gravel. I went to my local
Home Depot store and bought
(over the course of a few days) 60 bags of pea-gravel in 15 bag
batches. Each bag weighs 50 pounds, so if you have a trailer, you
can get it all at once. You can see the filled and leveled
pea-gravel base in the next two pictures.
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Next I had to plan the route for power to be run to the hottub.
The power distribution panel was about 50 feet away. Building codes
require that conduit be used for all above ground exterior power
runs. I also had to run about 7 feet underground, so I chose to use
rigid PVC conduit for the entire run (rigid and PVC seem to be an
oxy-moron, but that's what it is called :-). These two pictures
show the trench that I dug by hand.
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These two pictures show the conduit run in the trench. Note the
conduit looks like it's "sagging" on the wall above the window. At
this point, I had not yet affixed the conduit with the C-clamps to
hold it rigidly in place. You can also see the roots left over from
the apricot tree that I had removed.
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Here I am so excited, I'm about to wet my pants! The hottub is being
delivered. The trailer pulled up and parked in the street in front
of my driveway. The hottub is light enough when empty that two men
can move it around and get it in place. They use a device similar
to a creeper (a small square piece of wood with wheels on it, used
frequently in the automotive repair industry or for practicing moves
in skydiving) to move the hottub from the trailer to the installation
location. The hottub on the creeper is not depicted.
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The next two pictures show the hottub in place. It's still empty and
has not yet had the power connected. You can see that I did install
the C-clamps necessary to secure the conduit both horizontally (above
the window) and vertically (down into the ground). You have to view
the largest resolution to see it, even then it's kind of blurry.
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I pulled the wire for the power connections. If you are not familiar
and experienced with power connections, then you should use a
qualified electrician. This is a high current connection and is more
sensitive to connection quality than most normal power connections
you might work with. In my area, my city building code required
armored flexible conduit from the rigid conduit sticking up to the
point where it enters the control unit (all inside the hottub). I
had Don from Don's Electric (an electrician recommended by
LifeSprings) come in and inspect the wiring both for quality and
accuracy. He checked it out and it looked good. Don has the
advantage that he will also do the initial loading of chemicals and
show you how to work your hottub. Don does not supply the chemicals,
you must supply them yourself. I used a local swimming pool supply
chain named
Leslie's Swimming Pool
Supplies. This picture shows the armored flexible conduit where
it goes into the control unit (all inside the hottub). It's the grey
fitting on the bottom left side of the control unit, which is the
silver box in the picture. To come: Look forward to a better
picture of the armored flexible conduit.
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Here's a few shots of the hottub. First is running on high. Second
is a shot with no flash and you can see the cool colors that my LED
lights can make. Third is me sitting back enjoying a cold one and
relaxing in the lounge seat. Life is good!
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