Went to dig a hot tub foundation ... and found a burried hot tub.

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stringtheory79

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Jul 12, 2014
5
Pacifica CA
My partner and I were looking to get an above ground hot tub, mainly because we are big on doing as much as we can ourselves (free labor). So today we needed to dig a foundation. We hit rubble, lots of rubble. We started pulling it out. We found the edge of a wall. So of course we just keep digging. (several cool old pots and weird statues were recovered).

Needless to say, right where we were going to put the foundation we found an approx. 12 foot diameter old hot tub, with an 8' diameter bench and bottom. It appears to be a concrete shell with a light blue plaster? lining. There were several copper pipes and what appears to be an intake/outflow. Our house was built in 1954, and there were no records of the hot tub from the previous owners who bought in the 80s so we are guessing it is original. We managed to take the fill out of the entire "hot tub", but our rubble pile ended up being where the outflow exited. Tomorrow we plan on moving that rubble and seeing what is there.

A little background, in college I worked installing large Koi ponds, so I am familiar with hooking up plumbing, pumps etc... just not for people. I did some preliminary research on re-plastering and epoxy coatings - I have also seen some info on fiberglass coating old cement pools. I have built fiberglass aquariums before, but this doesn't feel like the best option.

I have no idea yet if we should abandon the plan to dig it up, try and fix it, or make a pond, but it was a really fun find in our yard.

My two questions I guess are:
Has anyone ever gotten a buried pool/spa into working shape?

Is there anything further I should look for, or try not to break, or could use a clues to figure out the history of the hot tub?
 
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That is hilarious!!! Dig it up and sell it and then off set the cost of a new one ;)

A relative here on the west coast was fishing for salmon and thought that they caught a one. They actually hooked on to a good quality salmon rod. That line on that rod was out and when they reeled in that salmon rod in they had a live 20lb salmon on the line!

Sounds B.S but it's true!

Planning on buying a hot tub and then you end up finding one!

Let's all drink to that! :farao:
 
IMG_3156.jpg

Here is the entire hot tub.

IMG_3162.jpg

Some sort of drain pipe connected to hot tub.

IMG_3160.jpg

This was an attached wall with embedded pebbles. Maybe a fountain or where water came in.

The outside edge is pretty beat up. We think they broke it up when they filled it. The entire thing appears to be made of cinder block coated with some stucco/plaster like coating which is colored light blue.


Tomorrow we are going to make some forms and try and repair the concrete edge. We are thinking about the whole project now on a lets try and if it doesn't work out, oh well sort of mindset.

If we can repair the edge, we figure we can do more research on coatings, etc...

I will keep posting progress!

Thanks!
Diane
 
I don't think my backyard could also fit a pool. It resembles a postage stamp. But with this house, who knows, ...

We did dig 2 feet away from everything and didn't find any other hookups. / concrete. Also, last year we ran irrigation lines in the rest of the yard and didn't hit anything but sand. I am assuming this hot tub / baby pool is it.
 

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That drain pipe is really weird. Are there any floor drains for suction lines? Are there any holes around the seats for the return jets? Or maybe those were broken out.

That corrugated pipe just makes no sense for a spa and makes me wonder if it was something else ... like maybe it was a pond and they diverted rain water into it.
 
No floor drain. but the floor does slope so its lowest point is under where that drain pipe comes in. The drain line is really weird, the corrugated is just at the top, and seems newer so I am wondering if they put it in right before they were taking it out (perhaps to make the ant colony happy we found in there)??? Having done koi ponds, the piping is not something I have ever seen for ponds, and the two levels seem to be the perfect height for seats, so a pool/sap for people was my first thought. Also , from my pond experience those tend not to be light blue.

In the many yards of rubble I found what appear to be the edging containing copper pipe, so far there were 6 of those. I will try and take a picture tomorrow when the light is out again.

I am going to dig further around the edge tomorrow to see if I can find any evidence of more piping/electric etc...
 
We filled in a leaking, poorly-placed in-ground hot tub as part of our pool renovation earlier this year. They used a small jackhammer to chisel the coping off the top edge, and that chewed up the walls a good bit. They chiseled it down some, too, to make it at a level we could pour concrete decking over the top. Also, several drainage holes were punched into the shell so water couldn't stand in it. We had a light and return lines and a main drain (1970s construction) and some of those were ripped out in the course of the renovation, some may still be in the ground. Just FYI!

When we had a small liner DIY pond at our old house, we had a waterfall box and a pump box (you're surely familiar since you've constructed ponds). I'm wondering if the corrugated drain line was the recirculating line, going up to a pump, and then the spillway/rock-embedded concrete was where water entered the spa/pond. Maybe there were rocks mortared to the top edges and those were chiseled out to make it easier to level the ground when it was decommissioned.

Either way, cool project! Will love to see how it goes. Good luck!
 
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