Almost nobody plans to own a dead hot tub. It worked, then the heater went, then it sat with a foot of rainwater and leaves in it for two summers, and now it is a four hundred pound fiberglass shell wired into your house behind a deck gate that is thirty inches wide. It is one of the single most common things we get called about, and one of the most satisfying, because the backyard looks completely different an hour later. Here is what the job actually involves.
Why It Is Still Sitting There
A hot tub is the rare item that is heavy, wired, plumbed, full of water, and bigger than every gate and door around it, all at once. It cannot be dragged, it cannot go in a pickup whole, and your garbage service will not touch it. Most tubs sit for years for exactly that reason, usually with standing water in them, which adds hundreds of pounds and, by the second season, mosquitoes.
There is also the electrical. Most spas are hardwired to a dedicated 240 volt circuit with a disconnect box near the tub. That stops a lot of people cold, and it should, because guessing at it is how people get hurt.
Step One: Drain It
Everything starts with getting the water out, because water is most of the weight. A standard tub holds several hundred gallons, and water weighs a little over eight pounds a gallon, so a full spa can be well over two tons before anybody touches the shell.
It gets pumped or gravity drained somewhere sensible, away from the foundation and away from anything that will be damaged by a few hundred gallons crossing it. If the tub has been sitting open and the water is foul, that changes where it can go, which is the kind of thing a crew figures out on arrival.
Step Two: Kill the Power and Disconnect
The circuit gets shut off at the breaker, then verified dead at the disconnect rather than assumed dead. Only then does anything get unwired. Plumbing lines get cut and capped where needed so you are not left with an open line.
This is the part to leave alone if you are thinking about a do it yourself teardown. There is no reason to have 240 volts in the conversation while you are standing on a wet deck.
Step Three: It Usually Gets Cut Up
This is the part that surprises people, so it is worth saying plainly: most hot tubs leave a backyard in pieces, and that is the right way to do it.
The cover comes off first, then the cabinet skirting, then the shell gets cut into manageable sections with a saw. The pieces get carried out one at a time by hand. The alternative, muscling an intact shell over a deck rail or through a gate that does not fit it, is how fences get broken, siding gets scraped, and people get injured. Cutting it down is faster, quieter, and far gentler on your property than lifting it whole, and it means no crane and no equipment tearing across your yard.
Decks, Gates, Patios, and Landscaping
The route out is planned before the saw comes out. Deck boards and railings get protected or, if the tub is set into a deck, a section gets carefully opened up and the pieces come out through it. Gates get measured. Patio pavers and walkways get boards laid across them where the carry is heavy. Beds and shrubs along the path get worked around rather than through.
If the tub is fully built into a deck surround, that is a bigger job than a freestanding tub on a pad, and it is worth mentioning when you call so the right crew shows up.
What Drives the Price
Four things, in rough order. Size, because a two person spa and an eight person swim spa are different animals. Access, which is the big one: a tub on an open patio ten feet from the driveway is a very different job from a tub in a fenced backyard behind a deck, up a slope, sixty feet from the truck. Whether it is built in to a deck or surround. And disposal, since a spa is a large volume of fiberglass, foam, and framing.
What does not drive the price is whether it still runs, how gross the water is, or how long it has been sitting. None of that bothers us.
What You Need to Do Before We Come
Almost nothing, which is most of the point. Do not drain it, do not take the cover off, and do not start unscrewing panels.
Two things help: clear the path from the tub to the driveway of bikes, planters, and furniture, and tell us where the breaker is and whether there is a sprinkler system or a septic field along the carry route. Unlock the gate or plan to be there to open it. That is it. See hot tub removal for the full service.
What You Are Left With
A clean slab, a patch of flattened grass, or an open section of deck, swept, with the hardware and debris gone. The grass under a tub comes back in a few weeks. If there is a concrete pad you also want gone, say so when you call, because breaking and hauling concrete is a separate piece of work and it is easier to plan for than to spring on a crew that day.
Old hot tub taking up the backyard? Call or text Onit Junk Removal at (815) 240-0735 for a flat quote on hot tub removal across Plainfield, Naperville, and the surrounding suburbs.
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