Tips and Tricks from a Professional Hot Tub & Spa Mover
Honestly, do you think we would just GIVE our secrets away? OK, I give in! I will tell you in this article a little about the methods and tools professional hot tub and spa movers use to move a hot tub or spa.
Well, it takes some special equipment and some practice and know-how. We don\’t just bring ten friends along to exercise their muscles. That would be a disaster waiting to happen. The first thing we need to do is pick up the spa and tip it up onto a special hot tub cart. It will be standing up sideways, but don\’t worry – we almost NEVER drop them… (By the way, it is a good idea to ask if your mover has insurance, because I guarantee your friends wont.) Most pro spa movers have equipment to lift a spa if it is an extra large model. Would you believe an empty hot tub could weigh between 1,000 – 1,200 pounds? Do you really want to pick that up?
In addition to being extreamly heavy, they are big and difficult to control when you start to move them. Having the right tools and some experience is what you really need. With your tub on its side, we wheel it out through your gate and load it on to our truck where it is strapped securely in place to be moved to a new location or hauled away. Don\’t forget that just loading up the hot tub onto the cart is only half of the battle.
The most important thing to remember is that we need a clear path wide enough and high enough to maneuver your hot tub or spa out of your yard. This includes having enough clearance under patio covers, roof eves, and tree branches and a gate wide enough to allow your hot tub or spa to pass though while tipped on its side.
Some of the major obstacles we run into are water meters or hose bibs on the side of the house that obstruct the path, gate latch pins that protrude into the gate opening making it too narrow to pass through, low roof eves and tree branches, and items stored on the side of the house. (When you look to see how much overhead height you need, keep in mind that the spa dolly or cart adds about ten to twelve inches to the overall height of the tub. So and eight by eight foot tub needs at least nine feet of clearance to be safe.) While we can accommodate for some of these depending on how much of a problem it is, sometimes it is necessary to call in a crane to lift the hot tub or spa out of the yard and over the obstacles.
Lifting a hot tub or spa with a crane always costs more money and can create scheduling problems. Because time is money for you and for the spa movers, please walk the path and measure everything carefully so it does not add to the expense of moving your tub unnecessarily, or waste anyone\’s valuable time. If you are unsure, just call your spa mover and ask them what they think. (They like that.) Remember, once it is safely moved, you can start enjoying it again.