Spa Deck and Rail | West Chester

After I was finished with the ‘Deck Connector‘ my client decided to get a new spa installed in place of their old one. The new one was going to be a little bigger. They brought me in to beef up the structure of the spa platform and add a new railing around three sides of the spa. The spa deck is now supported properly due to the added galvanized attachments and looks amazing with the new railing. Check it out!

This is my helper, Liam, as we took notes on what need to be done to beef up the structure.

Here is a small example of what needed to be done before the spa was installed. This is a 2×4/2×6 joist hanger. These are 2x10s under the deck. That hanger is way too small to support the weight of a fully loaded spa.

And here are the new joist hangers installed. I always upsize the hangers as compared to the size of the lumber. These 2×12 hangers in addition to the roughly (40) 1/2″ carriage bolts I put into the beams and posts. This was all completed before the new railing was installed.

There was nothing holding up the small upper deck in the corner. I added this 4×4 to carry the load of the upper deck down through the lower spa deck and to the beam.

This is what the hole looked like after the old spa was removed. The railing was barely holding on…

…but with a light push of the spa installers hand the rear rail fell off into the yard. Time to install a whole new rail.

Here’s the new railing, installed. I always forget to take process photos during the construction of something new. You see all of the photos leading up to the build then BAM it’s done. That’s something I am working on providing, you, my followers and potential clients.

The new railing from the other side. The horizontal pieces of decking under the rail are to hide the spa tub. Where you don’t see the vertical pieces is where the spa access panel is located.

New decking and step were also installed to finish off the build.

This was a fairly involved project that was about 8′ off the ground in most places and 10′ in others. The client is happy and so am I with how this turned out.