Hot Tub Upgrade

Having now owned an inflatable hot tub for 2+ years and using it almost daily between March to October I have been toying with the idea of upgrading to a hard tub for some time. Our old inflatable was starting to look tired and had a slow puncture last season which seemed impossible to patch and so I decided to sell it on eBay earlier this week. Given that we are a matter of weeks away from starting a house extension it was really a case of now or never as once the extension is done there would be no way of getting a hot tub in the back garden without the use of a crane.

So last weekend with the help of Michael, David, Matt and Nick we laid 700kg's of concrete to form a steep reinforced C35 grade concrete base capable of holding a 1.3 tonne hot tub!!!! Not sure my DIY decking would take that much weight (even with my over engineered approach). After allowing the base to dry for a week, the new hot tub was delivered this Saturday from a company based up in Chester. After lots of panicking about whether they could get the hot tub through my gates and whether they could drop it into a 26cm deep hole set in the decking, I am pleased to say the delivery, positioning and installation couldn't have gone smoother. 2 hours and it was all done and the 2 man crew were on their way back to Chester as we had the painful wait for the tub to warm up and the initial shock loading of chlorine to stabilise, but that was fine as I had about 4 hours of work to get all my decking cut nicely around the hot tub.

Anyway we are absolutely over the moon with the hot tub and got to use it for the first time this morning. I woke early and made myself a nice latte before slipping outside for about 30 mins to soak in the lounger seat at a rather pleasant 38 degrees C before anyone else woke up. However my peaceful morning watching the sun rise was soon interrupted by 3 little people excitedly running through the conservatory with swim kits on and a towel over their shoulders.

Farewell to our trustee Intex inflatable spa which did is proud for a couple of years.

Down went the concrete base for the new hard tub.

A bit of a tight squeeze as the sledge for the delivery of the new tub just about fit through our front gate.

The next challenge was the back gate which required a but of fence removal!

Then the biggest challenge of all, dropping 250kg of hot tub into a square slot that only has a few cm's of play each side.

The two guys that installed the hot tub did an amazing job.

And within no time we were pumping in the fresh water.

Despite taking more water than the inflatable it seemed to fill up pretty quickly.

Then on goes the lid and its time to sit back and let it warm up.

This gave me time to dodge rain and sleet to get the decking cut around the profile of the tub.

Without blowing my own trumpet, I think it looks bloody amazing.

A nice early start the morning after armed with a towel and a coffee.

Until these 3 decided to interrupt my relaxing morning.

Holly loves the water fountain feature. The hot tub also has internal and external led lights, plus Bluetooth speakers.