Well my R8 came today. I had some meetings that cropped up at work and couldn't sneak off while it was being delivered, but the crew did a nice job and placed it exactly as I wanted it. They called me twice throughout the process - one to confirm placement and desired cover-lifter location preferences, and the other upon completion to confirm that all went well. I ended up doing my pad out of pavers. A bit more time consuming than originally anticipated, but the end result came out great and ended up about a grand cheaper than my concrete estimates. Ended up digging down ~6" and filling with stone. Came over top of the stone with sand to level everything off and compacted down with the machine from Home Depot. The side nearest my house was nice and flush with the ground, but the opposite side closest to my fence dropped off about 3", thus leaving the pavers and a bit of sand underneath exposed. I wasn't keen on that and was concerned about rain washing the sand away, so I poured a concrete curb to prevent that from happening. I am really pleased with the end result, and the tub is sitting perfectly level.
After digging down 6" and back-filling w/ stone:
Pavers going in. Very tedious process making fine adjustments to get each paver perfectly level.
Curb progress under way:
Finished product:
Tub in place:
Will be finishing electrical over the weekend, and hopefully running thereafter. Very excited for our first soak in this beast!