Tub Orientation?

[paulrubin3]

What should I consider when determining what direction the hot tub should sit on the pad? There's electrical access from at least two sides and the concrete slab and patio are all being designed by me now. The tub will be about 5 feet (I think code requires me to stick with 4-6 feet from the 220 circuit breaker box) from the house with two possible doors I can use (probably 2-3 to the left of one and about 20 feet to the right of the other). 100x100 backyard with about 800 square feet of patio, not too close to neighbors, a number of trees around the perimeter. Should the cover open towards the house (one would think so, no?) and without knowing which seats my wife and I will prefer, how will we know? Would we shoot to have the lounge's back up against where the cover will sit vertically between tub and house? Or should the lounge face sideways. Do people tend to enter the from the steps near the cool down seat? That's on an adjacent side to the lounge. I'm sort of assuming we'll eventually get a second set of steps or some sort of wraparound thing but initially just the plain one.

[TemptingDestiny]

What kind of slope does your pad have? I suggest always having your filter bay at your lowest point. The two most favored seats in the Aria are lounge and corner seat. Making sure that the most amount of seating has the best view! The cover typically goes from front to back, but sometimes people use the cover as a privacy screen for neighbors.
Many people get multiple sets of steps. The cool down seat is one of the easiest accessible spots for entering and exiting. Lounges can be awkward to step into.
Hope this helps.

[twodogs02]

First thing to consider -  orient the tub so the access panel to the pump house has plenty of area around it should you need to gain access.

Second - Some visibility is lost once the cover is parked.  My advise is to you is to park the cover over an area that has a view already blocked by something (hedges, house, etc.).  We like to look up in the sky at night and the cover can impact the view in one of the seats.  Lounge seat while looking out beyond your feet should be clear of obstructions (although this is our least used seat now).

As far as cover opening - We have a Cameo and enter over the topside control panel, opposite the waterfall.  The cover folds over in the same orientation as we enter.  We walk up a few steps, fold the first half over while entering the tub and then when in the tub, while standing, fold the two part cover up and over the side.   

I'll also add, a tub closer to your exterior door is going to get more use than a tub that is 50 foot away, close proximity to a door in 10 degree weather also makes chemical maintenance more compliant in my house!

If you have the manpower available and it is feasible to do, place the tub in what you think will be the best orientation, get in without water and look around, do this for every seat.  If you don't like what you see, rotate the tub and repeat.  We did this when positioning the tub on our concrete patio but we had a few furniture dollies strapped to the bottom so rotating it was a breeze.

[bud16415]

I thought about orientation and access etc quite a bit. I also built my own deck and did the electrical install myself. Code says 5’ from the water to the GFCI disconnect. I placed mine high on a wall of the house about 5’ to the bottom of the enclosure and under an eve for a little protection but the height keeps it from being an attraction to little ones and helped stretch the 5’ dimension a little. Do not mount it in a hidden location behind a bush or off the deck you want it right close to the tub and in sight of the tub just where it can’t be reached from inside the tub.

I agree with the above the closer to the house the better if you live in winter snow areas ours is one step out of the house and you are climbing the stairs.

Different cover lifters have more or less of the cover sticking up when open and also require different amounts of clearance between the tub and the wall ours needs about 18” and I left 2’ in case that side of the tub ever needed service. Try and not have the cover lifter attach to the main side panel that covers the equipment area if you can. Try and open your cover so that the first flip exposes your filter area and have the filters at a spot that’s easy to get at. 

Views are important and I thought a lot about having the main seats looking out and also facing people not in the tub just as a social thing. I also wanted the stairs to enter in the tub at the flattest highest least used seat (cool down) the other seats are deeper and sloped and the lounger would be very hard point to enter for anyone older or without being sure footed.

We totally loved star gazing in our tub and we built a roof over it because we liked using the tub more than we liked star gazing. Your climate will quickly tell you if you want your spa covered and if you want any wind breaks. I want to use my tub without shoveling 2’ of snow off it and use it when it is raining and not have it covered in leaves in the fall. Truth is most of the time I’m in the tub I’m talking with others or I have my eyes closed just enjoying the water. I do miss the sky and if I could afford it I would build a retractable roof. But for us here the roof was a must after a few months of owning. If we lived in AZ we would have it wide open northern PA covered.   

One last thing. I installed water hot and cold close to the tub for filling and cleaning. Having hot water outside with a short hose with a jet cleaner tip works amazing for cleaning filters and deicing the tub and deck.  Plus topping off the water with hot water lets you get in right away.

[paulrubin3]

Access won't be an issue. It's going to sit on a concrete pad being created INSIDE a paver patio approximately 5 feet from the house and there will be at least 3 feet of space around the other 3 sides. And I probably will either get another set of steps (I simply took the free ones for now) or a partially wrap around two tier thing that can all be used as steps plus decorative stuff. The pad will likely be pitched at close to what the pavers will be pitched at. I believe that's about an inch for 8 feet. If the pavers are sloping more than that, then I'll have him do the concrete a bit less. I figure that means 1 side is a max of 1/2 inch low and 1 side a max of a 1/2 inch high. And at the moment, my inclination is to make sure that the filter compartment is on the lower side. That makes sense and lets you stare straight away from the house when in the lounger. In this setup only the cool down seat has a crap view (the cover .

The salesman told me the pad has to be pitched or water could pool underneath it. I sort of assumed the opposite but that makes some sense.

[paulrubin3]

All good ideas by the way. Thanks. Some of them I've already been thinking about. Others I'm going to make some modifications to plans for where certain things go around the patio. But all sensible stuff. I'd love a overhead cover and I'd love not to have an overhead cover. I do like looking at the night sky on a clear day. But for now I'm already about $2000 too high on what I planned to spend on the tub so that's got to wait. Thankfully we're on 1/2 acre zoning. My rear neighbors house is literally 200-225 feet from the tub. The neighbors on one side have so much landscaping and a shorter house from front to back so they're not seeing anything. And to the 3rd side are trees, and open field and no possibility of view from that house. Privacy, even without a fence is not an issue.

[bud16415]

If you are pouring a pad it would be the time to install anchor hardware for whatever covering you may build down the road if it isn’t in this year’s budget.  You don’t want to have to cut the pad and get a truck out again to pour some footings.

If you are like us we love the freedom hot tubbing Au Naturel. Some people are more modest than others and neighbor view is an issue for some and not others. We are lucky as you are to mostly have natural cover. We have a neighbor to one side and we designed some wicker roll down screening to block that side. It makes us and them feel more comfortable. Our friends live in the city and have a back deck that can be viewed by a 100 people if they had spy glasses and they could care less saying if they are going out of their way to look it is not our problem. When we join them in their tub it is “when in Rome.“ I always wave to the high-rise just in case they are watching.

We were fortunate to have a few people we knew with tubs to see how well and how much we wanted one. Many people kind of know they want one but it is a big expense and you are unsure if the urge will pass shortly after getting one. Most people when they first get one go crazy for a month living in it and then get back to real-life and go a week without getting in and think maybe we didn’t really need this. I get in a lot of times when I really just want to go to bed but you will learn a soak in the tub will make your sleep so much better. We have zero regrets hope yours works out as well.  Another thing we have found is a hot tub is a great place to really talk over the day and clear your mind. We sit and talk in ours a whole lot. 

[Alicatt]

You talk a lot of sense there Bud!

We are waiting for our neighbour on one side to start building his new extension to his house and garage, we will be removing the tall hedge between our properties and also the wall that is between us but the new extension will replace that and it is being built on the property line. Just now our tub is at the back of the garden in front of the garage about 25m from the backdoor... it's a long way to run au-naturel  but once the building works are done the tub will be only a few meters from the door. We will lose a bit of the view being closer to the house but it will pay back it's self in privacy. After last night the lounger has to face south but that will also mean that the control panel will be to the west and furthest away from the backdoor of the house, our garden runs north - south as does the house, the control pack will be on that side too and therefore I have to plan to have enough room for access to it and to the motors if needed.

Last night laying back in the lounger and with the clear sky above and a big bright moon it was really quite the magical introduction to the hot tub, hang I even managed to see a shooting star

Now the neighbour on the other side, well they know exactly what you are doing before you do it yourself, from them we have to screen as they are not above poking their head through the hedge!

[paulrubin3]

I'm getting it placed just a few feet from two separate doors so a quick 3 seconds with a robe and then toss it on the side should do the trick if I feel like giving the distant neighbors a thrill. But realistically they're not likely to see anything of consequence in the dark unless they're sitting there will binoculars

I have thought about the possibility of anchors but theoretically most of the patio will be pavers and they'd be able to remove some pavers, create a footing and then put them back if I go the pergola route down the road. The only reason I'm even doing the concrete pad is simply to give the hot tub the best possible foundation so there are no warranty issues.