At the beginning of January, we visited Trade Winds Spas in Los Gatos (we had to wait a couple of weeks as the place was closed through the Christmas holiday), and after looking at a couple tiny options, we finally found the perfect hot tub: a Maxx 461. It’s a nice little four-seater that is really built for just two, but should we have guests, there will be room for sociability. What made it an easy decision was the total lack of hard sell by the staff there. When we hit up a Jacuzzi dealer in November, the dude in charge of all sales training was living at the store for a period of time apparently. We were thus treated to the whole sales spiel. It seemed to last forever and I’m sure was meant to be very impressive. Agent Smith tried to be polite and I went into ditz mode–you know, where you become that annoying sort of person that just smiles and nods and looks really interested, but in reality you’re thinking about whether you want to create a new database table to handle a new series of information in your James Bond suit analysis project.
Anyway, there was none of that at Trade Winds and when we returned home, we began plotting out the next steps. Agent Smith pulled the old tub out of the way and we set about leveling the pad. Once the dirt was broken up and hoed out of the way, we made sure things were pretty level. Then we took the little red tractor and its pull-along cart down to the old dog kennel/gravel pit to get some pea gravel.
That’s right, we have our own gravel pit. Seems that when the Doc put in the dog kennel, they used several tons of gravel to build up about 6 inches before setting down large concrete slabs. I guess the theory was they could easily wash dog pee off the concrete and down through all the pea gravel. So three of us shoveled two loads of gravel into the pull-along (my parents were visiting at the time and my dad helped out a bit).
That thing snaking out from the river rocks at the bottom of the third photo is the old electrical. The old unit just ran off a 110 circuit and we did investigate 110 options; they don’t retain heat and aren’t very cost efficient, so we will be putting in a 220 circuit soon. The wiring the POs used though is straight out of their normal operating procedure–so old the rubber insulation had disintegrated and they’re lucky they didn’t have a fire because of it. On top of that, the circuit that ran the hot tub is the same circuit used for my office. Seems any time they added something to the house, they used that circuit.
Another not-so-great thing about the old hot tub is that the POs just set the thing on the dirt and built a deck around it. As mentioned in an earlier post, we had the deck removed and found the local critter mortuary/graveyard. Besides the mummified possum below, there are a half-dozen rodent skulls (we think squirrel), some possum jaws and limb bones, and a partially-intact squirrel mummy. We’ve collected the assortment into a little pile as you can see.
While all of this was going on, Thy decided he wanted to help. That’s him at the back door off our bedroom (fifth pic). He has his most supervisory look going.
After we got the gravel in place, it was a simple matter of laying out the durable composite pad we had ordered from EZPads. They’re a better option over trying to get heavy pavers in and level, or worse, laying in our own concrete slab. You can see the back side of two of the panels as we put them together, and another shot of the last two panels being put in place. We then attached some brackets to hold the pieces together, and then the four of us (even my mum was helping out for this) flipped it over and set it down on the pad.
Lastly, a shot of the finished pad. Not bad for a couple hours’ worth of work. Next up–actually putting something on top of it.
