but i thought i would at least share the story, so here it goes................
I just had my tub installed March of last year (06) and was finishing up rebuilding the house from the first flood from Hurricane Ivan in September of '04 when the week of June 28th rolled around last year. We got some rain, then we got some rain, and then it rained some more, then it rained ( did I mention we had a little rain?) and on June 27th it rained some more. All added up, we had 12 - 14 inches of rain in 4 - 5 days. The last day it put down almost 4 inches and I knew that I was in trouble. I rounded up a bunch of help, rented a U-haul, and got almost all of the brand new contents of the house loaded up and out of here. Everything in the house was new from the '04 flood. So after that was accomplished, we went out in my woodworking shop and put everything up as high as we could.
While we were doing that, I had the forethought and drained the hot tub, nailed a stong brace about 3 feet above the hot tub on the porch poles in hoping that if it did float, I could at least keep it in the corner of my front porch.
What I didn't do was put the 2 drain plugs back in after I drained it.......( I was a little stressed at the time).........
Anyways, the tub still floated, less than 8 inches of creek water in it at he heavy motor end, but my problem was that the water got that high it floated the tub above my brace and the current started to take it out around my porch. The only thing that was keeping it from going downstream, never to be seen again, was the electric wire going into the tub.
I was NOT going to lose my brand new hot tub!!!! I went into the water, over to my wood shed, stood up on my kids bike seat hoping that the bike was still proped up against the support column, that I hoped was still there under water, untied a rope off of the roof that used to hold up my topper for the pick up truck, then swam over to the house, out to the front porch and tied off the hot tub.
I don't think I would pull such a stunt again. The water current between my house and the shop was almost enough to take me away. The current on the front porch was just slightly less. Nevertheless, I did save the tub.
In the meantime, I rebuilt the house again, then added 10 courses of concrete block to raise it 7 feet.
It cost me a little less than $1000.00 to get the tub up and running again. I don't have the bill in front of me, and if someone wants to know exactly, contact me, but in a nutshell, heater element and one of the 2 motors replaced, start up kit and I had them bring new filters and a boatload of new chemicals. The motor ran, but was a little noisy.I have it in my shop and will replace the bearings when I get time.
For those of you who are wondering, I lived here 8 years and never had a problem with high water. The guy I bought this place from was here 12 years and did'nt have a problem. Now that I raised the house 7' I hope I am done with all that fun!!
