Advice on masonry stone work around spill over spa?

[james138]

We built our pool last year with a spill over spa. The only thing we were not able to accomplish was getting the masonry work done to apply stone around the outside of the spa. We met with one mason who said he could do it but he seemed unsure about how to do the job properly. With all the pictures I have seen of spas I assumed it would be pretty easy to get a mason to do the work. Does anybody have any advice in general about stonework around the spa? How it should be installed, what I should avoid, etc.? It would be a bonus if you lived in southeast Michigan and could give me a reputable contractor. Also, we are still trying to figure out if we want a limestone cap to go around the top of the spa or to leave it uncapped. Any advice would be appreciated!

 

[JVTrain]

My thoughts, despite not having had to deal with this before. Ideally, you'd want to use a stone dimension that would be free standing below the edge of the spa, not attempting to apply a thick layer or mortar and doing veneer type stone. The stone wouldn't have to be attached to what appears to be the yellow insulation. This means using a stone that has a depth (horizontally from the back to the visible face) that's deep enough to be free standing but not be up against the insulation. My thoughts go to something like this:

Obviously there are lots of color/size options that might fit your yard and current finishes better than the picture. The hard part about using this kind of block is that they are designed to be installed with soil behind them, using the pressure of the soil to keep the blocks in place, utilizing the back lip that rests behind the previous course of stone or pins that go in between block courses. In your case, they would have to be mortared or glued together without that back pressure. Making it look nice underneath the spillway would take some creativity with this type of block.

On the capping... it might be difficult to get a good result trying to mortar or glue the cap stones to the fiberglass spa edge.

 

[gwegan]

I too have never done one of these but here is my 2 cents: You may want to think of using bendable cement board around the outside and attaching a veneer stone. It would be much less heavy and bulky. You would need to construct it so you could sit on it.

 

[james138]

Thanks for the advice, I appreciate it! I hate having to think about this stuff but I have no idea what I'm doing and I want to make sure it gets done correctly the first time as I'm sure the mason will be hard to track down once I pay him!

 

[james138]

I spoke to a mason and he recommended using large brick shaped natural stone and then mortaring them in place and then attaching a limestone cap to the top. The spa is currently cemented into my stamped concrete patio. I was told the stone I plan on using around the spa should weigh 2,00 pounds plus whatever the weight of the limestone cap is. Does anybody think that it will be too much weight for the patio to handle? The spa is has an 8' diameter.