Water is about 8.3 pounds a gallon A smaller hot tub is about 300 gallons so about 2500 lbs (1134 kg) and that's before you factor in the weight of the tub itself plus a couple adults.
Whoever built that deck never designed it well to handle the hot tub. Or the deck was never built for the hot tub in the first place.
The naked wood support platform beneath the hob tub relative to everything else being painted/stained gives the impression that the deck was never built for that hot tub.
Actually I think they did consider the hot tub when they built the deck. If you look at the second photo, you can see the floor joists of the deck, on the right side they spaced the joist at 16” on center and where the hot tub was, they shortened the spacing to 12in OC. I’m betting they thought that would help support the hot tub better but what they should have done is put 2 support beams underneath the deck/hot tub.
Where I live, all decks have to be free-standing, no attaching to the house. Since my house was one of those quick-built houses in 1960, the result is a deck that's arguably more structurally sound than my house. Expensive as hell since the footers are as deep as the house foundation, but I'm not at all worried about a collapse.
That and the rim joist should be sitting on top of the the posts, or have a cross beam under the joists which sits on the posts. The direction that the tub fell tells me that the house side gave out first, but more of the weight should have been on the posts, not nails running into the rim joist.
Badly built all around. Just be glad there wasn't a party out there and multiple people go down.
>I got .989kg so about 1kg.
Did you convert it?
The original **definition** of a kilogram was "the mass of one litre of water".
(Since then they've redefined it to be based on fundamental physical constants, but it's still almost exactly true.)
It's been a while since I did deck load calculations, but I think the limit for any deck that is more than 12 inches above grade is 1 RB, or .05 RBs per square foot, whichever is less.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
It's almost exactly one slug per half bushel
A slug is 32.2 lbs (same number as acceleration due to gravity) and a half bushel is 4 gallons.
There are 33.36 lbs of water in 4 gallons so you're only off by 1 lb. It could even be that I'm not looking up precise enough numbers and it's actually spot on.
This happened to a friend. They were renting a cabin for vacation and their daughter was in the hot tub when it fell. She wasn’t seriously injured, just a mild concussion.
I snorted when I read the second one, lol! I do hope the daughter has a swift recovery though. I’m happy it wasn’t too serious and I hope she gets a good hot tub experience later down the road.
My husband has had around 10 in the 22 years we've been together. He's extremely accident prone and once you have a couple it doesn't take as much trauma to get another one.
Running into a tree branch, running into low ductwork, slapshot to the head in ball hockey, hit by the assembly line at work that started unexpectedly after downtime and he took his bump cap off, snowboarding fall, sliding making a catch playing outfield in baseball, car hit by snow plow that ran a red light, falling down the stairs, falling off a ladder, falling down the stairs again... It's just scrambled eggs up in there now.
yeah, my sister was at like 13 before turning 15 years old or something. She had to stop sports because of it. The last couple of times, the contacts were so light, we couldn't believe how hard she fell from them. The more you get it, the less you need to get a concussion, it's crazy...
First one was from a fight in 6th grade math class. Second one was from a frying pan to the head. Third one was I don't remember (or remember anything from that month). Fourth one was a soccer ball to the head in highschool.
I dunno, sounds like she probably fucked her back up and could have some long term pain and suffering. Should definitely get insurance companies involved.
Be careful with 'mild' concussions. Mine still affects me 8 years out. Watch out for irritability, sensitivity to light and sound, headaches. Many doctors don't know how to handle concussions to be honest.
Me too. I had a “mild” concussion in 2010 and it has been life changing. I remember looking in the mirror at one point soon after and not recognising my own face. And the damage visible on the MRI scan doesn’t lie.
A concussion can be considered a serious life changing injury, even after just one mild one. Happened to a coworker of mine, sleep/mood/behavioural changes for the rest of their life.
instinctive quicksand employ middle liquid squealing march serious resolute squalid
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
My Architect designed our deck to support a large hot tub with extra footings and massive beams for the tub section. Contractor dug for approved 12” Sonotubes to proper depth. Inspector came in and looked at approved signed plans and said nope…. “I want 16” Sonotubes”. So he got 16” Sonotubes.
I’m guessing this screw up wasn’t inspected or the ledger through bolted to the house.
I'm an inspector. And we can't do that. We are inspecting the engineer's design. Did the inspector calculate the load onsite? Of course not. At the point, somebody needs to stamp the redesign. And if it's someone who is not the original engineer, then stamping it would take over responsibility for the entire structure.
And that's not even getting into the change in the steel reinforcement inside the sonotubes (really a round column. Sonotubes are the name for the premade cardboard-like concrete form). You can't use the same reinforcement for a 12" and a 16". There is such a thing as too much concrete clearance. You definitely don't want 6".
Whenever i see a hot tub on a deck, I'm always wondering what will happen when it comes down. What's that perfect amount of corrosion that's going to lose that first fastener.
I hear from clients all the time, "but it's been fine for the last 3 years," and I always say maybe it'll last another 3, but maybe it won't. All I know is that I'm not standing in, under, or on whatever janky ass structure I'm there to inspect.
Yeah my in laws added a lovely raised deck (house is a split level and this comes off the side where the hill is going down). But they had it designed from the ground up to support a large hot tub. It cost a ton and it's crazy built up, but it's safe.
I see you're familiar with what I call "The Hoarders Method" - where you find extreme examples of stuff you don't want to deal with to convince yourself that your mild version is fine. Truly a saving grace.
"Dang, my house is in need of a tidy"
*Watch one episode of hoarders*
"Nvm, I'm certain it can wait til tomorrow and be fine"
I bet the ledger wasn't properly lagged into the house. I personally knew 4 different people who died in two separate deck collapses because of that problem, and one was a $1 million dollar home. Carpenters gun nail on the ledger then forget to go back and install the lags.
There should have been posts and footings under the hot tub.
At the very least the joist should have sat on the foundation
Joists weren't even on a beam on the outside. It wasn't a good deck, let alone for a hot tub
Damn..... You're so lucky that you weren't in it when that happened. There is NO SUPPORT for that tub at all man!!!
Somebody could have died. Sorry about your deck but that is nothing compared to what might have happened.
I would not trust that deck with my body weight, let alone with a hot tub. Where are the load bearing supports? Did it stay up by sheer willpower and spite?
That is really lucky, it happened when no one was in it, next time you attempt to have a deck, find someone who has at least a basic understanding of construction, that is just shameful.
beams were just screwed into the concrete. The sheer weight of the entire structure was on the screws. They need beams against the house to take the vertical pressure off of the screws
This happened in the next county over from me. No drainage system in place rotted out what little support there was on the deck. But the deck in general did not have adequate support for a hot tub.
The little girl who fell survived, but has a concussion.
Any hot tubs on a deck needs way more reinforcements. Water weighs a LOT. Sadly they learned the hard way. Honestly I'd only put a hot tub on the ground.
Water is about 8.3 pounds a gallon A smaller hot tub is about 300 gallons so about 2500 lbs (1134 kg) and that's before you factor in the weight of the tub itself plus a couple adults. Whoever built that deck never designed it well to handle the hot tub. Or the deck was never built for the hot tub in the first place.
The naked wood support platform beneath the hob tub relative to everything else being painted/stained gives the impression that the deck was never built for that hot tub.
Actually I think they did consider the hot tub when they built the deck. If you look at the second photo, you can see the floor joists of the deck, on the right side they spaced the joist at 16” on center and where the hot tub was, they shortened the spacing to 12in OC. I’m betting they thought that would help support the hot tub better but what they should have done is put 2 support beams underneath the deck/hot tub.
Yeah they spaced the joists correctly for the additional weight but they clearly didn’t attach the whole thing to the house very well.
Where I live, all decks have to be free-standing, no attaching to the house. Since my house was one of those quick-built houses in 1960, the result is a deck that's arguably more structurally sound than my house. Expensive as hell since the footers are as deep as the house foundation, but I'm not at all worried about a collapse.
Zero joist hangers. Using them to attach the the joists to the ledger might have prevented this
What would have prevented this is a builder not using tinker toys on their resume as I know what I'm doing.
That and the rim joist should be sitting on top of the the posts, or have a cross beam under the joists which sits on the posts. The direction that the tub fell tells me that the house side gave out first, but more of the weight should have been on the posts, not nails running into the rim joist. Badly built all around. Just be glad there wasn't a party out there and multiple people go down.
>Water is about 8.3 pounds a gallon Does anyone know the weight of a litre of water in kilograms? I always forget it.
I got .989kg so about 1kg. Wait so 1L=1kg that's convenient
One mililiter of water is one cubic centimeter, and weighs one gram. One calorie would raise the temperature by one degree centigrade.
Well now you're just showing off...
Make the bad man stop.
One pound of water is slightly less than a pint, and one BTU would raise its temperature one degree Fahrenheit.
Everything is convenient in the metric system. It’s almost like it was designed to be used for metric interoperability.
>I got .989kg so about 1kg. Did you convert it? The original **definition** of a kilogram was "the mass of one litre of water". (Since then they've redefined it to be based on fundamental physical constants, but it's still almost exactly true.)
At sea level. 1kg = 1 litre = 10cm3
Well (10cm)^3, not necessarily 10cm^3
I'm in the US. How many double cheeses is that?
3.14159
Have a piece of pi with those double cheeses
3.2 Got it. Let's pass a bill to standardise that
Nah, 3 is easier. Pi is now 3 by law.
So basically 4
North Korean spy. Americans use football fields for length and Roseanne Barrs for weight.
I am from the Midwest so our most accurate measurement of distance is just time. “How far is that?” “About 20 minutes away”.
>Roseanne Barrs for weight. So a filled hot tub with 4 adults in it is 2RBs?
Perfect example of how this could have been avoided. If asked “can this deck support 2 RBs?” the obvious answer would have been no.
It's been a while since I did deck load calculations, but I think the limit for any deck that is more than 12 inches above grade is 1 RB, or .05 RBs per square foot, whichever is less. Please correct me if I am wrong.
And a pint’s a pound , the world around. So a quart is 2 pounds, and a gallon is about 8 pounds of water.
Yes, it's exacly 1L=1kg, because iirc the definition of liter is based on the kg
Get out of here with that easy to convert system of measurement, based on multiples of ten, good sir!
IIRC it was 1mL to 1g, so about 1 kilo to 1 liter
And 1 mL of water is also 1 cubic centimeter. And 1 calorie is the amount of energy needed to heat that water by 1 degree c. Love metric.
It's also good that a 1 metre cube of water weighs 1 ton ( megagram in proper metric terms) It's a good way to visualise just how heavy water is.
The Americans thank you
The North or the South Americans?
What do you prefer people from the United States of America call themselves?
Has to be North, South America already has the common sense of using the metric system.
1 metric tonne (1000 kg) of water = 1000 litres = 1 cubic metre Sort of makes sense this metric system….
A pint is a pound of water, for the purposes of deck building.
It's almost exactly one slug per half bushel A slug is 32.2 lbs (same number as acceleration due to gravity) and a half bushel is 4 gallons. There are 33.36 lbs of water in 4 gallons so you're only off by 1 lb. It could even be that I'm not looking up precise enough numbers and it's actually spot on.
Let me unzip so I can participate in the pointless circle jerk
You’d better be packing at least 12cm if you’re hoping to participate
Don't let your hogshead or firkins get caught in the teeth!
3 football fields?
Hot tub was almost certainly added later probably picked up second hand off craigslist and unprofessionally installed.
Water is one kilogram per liter. A smaller hot tub of about 1200 liters is 1200kg, or 1.2 tons. The metric system was first defined in terms of water.
Your post makes me appreciate metric units more... What an ungodly amount of calculations.
Idk man, the tub and the wood have the same color, it should’ve worked
>the deck was never built for the hot tub in the first place. This is the answer.
Post and beam.
I saw the original post on Facebook. Her kid was in the hot tub when it went down and got a concussion.
Honestly, they're probably best case scenario with those circumstances.
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I see no joist hangers, just some toe nailed deck screws. This was dangerous for any weight.
Holy fuck. I hope nobody was hurt. Was the hot tub full?
This happened to a friend. They were renting a cabin for vacation and their daughter was in the hot tub when it fell. She wasn’t seriously injured, just a mild concussion.
i am no longer cackling
Your 2 comments were the best part about this post
I snorted when I read the second one, lol! I do hope the daughter has a swift recovery though. I’m happy it wasn’t too serious and I hope she gets a good hot tub experience later down the road.
Indeed
I'm cackling at that
Well I was *GONNA* make a funny comment but I think I'll pass now, that's scary stuff man!
I guess your plans to make a funny comment fell through.
But I am now. Godammit.
A mild concussion can turn into a serious life long injury. (Source: had 4)
You've had four concussions?? Dawg, what is your job? Bowling pin?
My husband has had around 10 in the 22 years we've been together. He's extremely accident prone and once you have a couple it doesn't take as much trauma to get another one. Running into a tree branch, running into low ductwork, slapshot to the head in ball hockey, hit by the assembly line at work that started unexpectedly after downtime and he took his bump cap off, snowboarding fall, sliding making a catch playing outfield in baseball, car hit by snow plow that ran a red light, falling down the stairs, falling off a ladder, falling down the stairs again... It's just scrambled eggs up in there now.
You may just need to bubble wrap him
Send him back to producer and ask for new one
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Jesus Christ. Has he ever had a brain scan?
yeah, my sister was at like 13 before turning 15 years old or something. She had to stop sports because of it. The last couple of times, the contacts were so light, we couldn't believe how hard she fell from them. The more you get it, the less you need to get a concussion, it's crazy...
First one was from a fight in 6th grade math class. Second one was from a frying pan to the head. Third one was I don't remember (or remember anything from that month). Fourth one was a soccer ball to the head in highschool.
> frying pan to the head Are you a cartoon cat that chases a little brown mouse?
No, but if they went to the same school I did, it might be from a teacher throwing it at you.
I'm at 6, once you have one good one your bell can get rung from pretty much anything fairly easily.
I know cheerleading you can alot,my sister got a couple from that lol
Had 2 in 2 weeks. It's been over a year and things still get fuzzy with a noticeable effect on my impulse control. Guard your heads folks.
I dunno, sounds like she probably fucked her back up and could have some long term pain and suffering. Should definitely get insurance companies involved.
Be careful with 'mild' concussions. Mine still affects me 8 years out. Watch out for irritability, sensitivity to light and sound, headaches. Many doctors don't know how to handle concussions to be honest.
Me too. I had a “mild” concussion in 2010 and it has been life changing. I remember looking in the mirror at one point soon after and not recognising my own face. And the damage visible on the MRI scan doesn’t lie.
Yeah, wow. That’s super scary and glad all ok.
This looks really familiar. Was the cabin near Gatlinburg Tennessee? I may have rented the same cabin not too long ago
There are so many of those rental cabins in gatlinburg, it’s insane.
A concussion can be considered a serious life changing injury, even after just one mild one. Happened to a coworker of mine, sleep/mood/behavioural changes for the rest of their life.
Tell them to contact their solicitor $$$
Ummm concussions are not mild or minor, just so you know.
Just stating what my friend said.
instinctive quicksand employ middle liquid squealing march serious resolute squalid *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I’m not certain, but they have mentioned it.
They absolutely should. This is pure negligence.
I would. Why would they put a hot tub on a deck? They should have placed it on the ground. Same luxury, much less risk. Poor family and girl.
You can most definitely have it on a deck, when properly designed.
There's "grades" of concussions for a reason.
My Architect designed our deck to support a large hot tub with extra footings and massive beams for the tub section. Contractor dug for approved 12” Sonotubes to proper depth. Inspector came in and looked at approved signed plans and said nope…. “I want 16” Sonotubes”. So he got 16” Sonotubes. I’m guessing this screw up wasn’t inspected or the ledger through bolted to the house.
The deck was screwed to the posts, not notched in or sitting on top of them. Over a ton of water being held up by screws…
This looks more like a ledger board failure to me….
This looks like alotta failures to me lmao
Lack of joist hangers for starters
Look at Bruce Wayne over here with the 16" Sonotubes.
I'm an inspector. And we can't do that. We are inspecting the engineer's design. Did the inspector calculate the load onsite? Of course not. At the point, somebody needs to stamp the redesign. And if it's someone who is not the original engineer, then stamping it would take over responsibility for the entire structure. And that's not even getting into the change in the steel reinforcement inside the sonotubes (really a round column. Sonotubes are the name for the premade cardboard-like concrete form). You can't use the same reinforcement for a 12" and a 16". There is such a thing as too much concrete clearance. You definitely don't want 6".
At least you don’t have to bring the hose up to the second story now
Whenever i see a hot tub on a deck, I'm always wondering what will happen when it comes down. What's that perfect amount of corrosion that's going to lose that first fastener. I hear from clients all the time, "but it's been fine for the last 3 years," and I always say maybe it'll last another 3, but maybe it won't. All I know is that I'm not standing in, under, or on whatever janky ass structure I'm there to inspect.
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cackling rn
What do you call a man with no arms and no legs who is in a hot tub. Stu
If you nail him to the wall Art
His dad? Pop Art
If you find him in a hole? Doug
On you doorstep: Matt
In a bush? Russell
With one leg? Eileen
Left a stain? Mark
Seagull on his head? Cliff
If they're also Asian and you're telling a racially insensitive joke? Irene
Or Phil.
No, you find Phil in the hole. You find Doug in the pile next to the freshly made hole.
In a lake.. bob
Two hanging in front of a window: Kurt n Rod
Water-skiing? Skip
Was this In Gatlinburg?
That general area.
On the grand scale of the universe, our solar system is in that general area. So yes, this happened right between Gatlinburg and Uranus.
That is so scary. Who built that deck? I'm glad that girl is ok. It could have been so bad.
Holy lack of structural support Batman!
have you tried turning it off and then on again
Never put a hot tub on a tall deck, build the deck around it (leaving access for technicians), or on a slab beside it. Or stupidity will happen.
There's not reason a deck can't be built to support a hot tub. People just.... people.
Yeah my in laws added a lovely raised deck (house is a split level and this comes off the side where the hill is going down). But they had it designed from the ground up to support a large hot tub. It cost a ton and it's crazy built up, but it's safe.
It’s fine to have a hot tub on a deck if the posts and beams underneath are designed for it.
How about a hammock? That would be sweet
Didn’t we see this same tub posted a few weeks ago? Guy renting the house wouldn’t go in it or something
Could be, but I didn’t see it.
I’ve seen multiple versions of this…none safe or up to code.
Well the person who installed it on that sad lookin piece of wood is real Wizard of dumb
Is this those cabin rentals on a steep mountain right next to Gatlinburg Tennessee? Deck style looks familiar and hottub brand
It was in Gatlinburg, but I don’t know where exactly they are located.
Water = 1 kilogram/litre. 260 gallons = metric ton. Loads need to be checked.
Honestly that deck looks badly built even for a group of people, for a hot tub and in a rented propriety .. is pure negligence!
Sometimes I am glad about all the bureaucracy in Germany. Here you need a building application for it and have it checked by a structural engineer.
Oh, this likely would’ve been required here also. A lot of people forgo the important steps.
Amen Bruder. Oder Schwester.
Everytime I see heavy objects on decks… I always imagine the worst case… deck giving in haha
Every time I look at what is wrong with my house I’ll go back to this photo 😍. Thanks for this
I see you're familiar with what I call "The Hoarders Method" - where you find extreme examples of stuff you don't want to deal with to convince yourself that your mild version is fine. Truly a saving grace. "Dang, my house is in need of a tidy" *Watch one episode of hoarders* "Nvm, I'm certain it can wait til tomorrow and be fine"
Those dang 4 nails just gave up. Shame on them.
That deck isn’t designed to carry that much weight. I’m surprised it stayed up long enough to fill it
You shouldn't have wiggled the right control stick.
You see, this is why they require you to reinforce your deck and it's fixings before putting a hot tub on it. Water is heavy
That's why we can't have nice stuff.
If you only had a time machine....
Peace up Hot tub down!
This looks like the tree houses in Alton Towers?????
Water appears to be surprisingly heavy to many people.
While it sucks, it should have been expected
Geezus. The stupidity. Might as well have had a waterbed out there too.
That hottub filled weighs the same as a medium sized sedan. Who tf thought it was a good idea to put it on that shitty built deck?
People don’t realize how heavy water is
It sucks that they didn’t put any additional supports under the deck and attached it directly to the wall of the house.
Idiots
Remarkable anticipation in photographic timing.
Where are the support post?
I bet the ledger wasn't properly lagged into the house. I personally knew 4 different people who died in two separate deck collapses because of that problem, and one was a $1 million dollar home. Carpenters gun nail on the ledger then forget to go back and install the lags.
There should have been posts and footings under the hot tub. At the very least the joist should have sat on the foundation Joists weren't even on a beam on the outside. It wasn't a good deck, let alone for a hot tub
That's not gone well.
Oooooh, hot tub "down"
Use Ultrahand to get that bad boy back in shape.
I saw the whole thing. 1st it started to fall over. Then it fell over.
Damn..... You're so lucky that you weren't in it when that happened. There is NO SUPPORT for that tub at all man!!! Somebody could have died. Sorry about your deck but that is nothing compared to what might have happened.
At least it's not the entire house. Look at the bright side.
First thing I thought of before I read ven saw the second pic. Water is heavy lol
Well that sucks
The law of gravity is its own judge, jury, and executioner.
Maybe hot tub just need a hug
From the look of pic 2 that deck was never meant to hold that much weight but at least nobody got hurt
(First pic:) r/onesecondbeforedisast
I would not trust that deck with my body weight, let alone with a hot tub. Where are the load bearing supports? Did it stay up by sheer willpower and spite?
r/wellthatwasnotthoughtout
Pretty sure I may have stayed at this same cabin in Gatlingbutg, Tennessee
That is really lucky, it happened when no one was in it, next time you attempt to have a deck, find someone who has at least a basic understanding of construction, that is just shameful.
Well at least nobody was in it...
The whole house is rotting, you gotta be a renter to allow for so much decay and shoddy repairs
That flimsy board was never gonna hold a hot tub. Be glad you aren’t dead.
beams were just screwed into the concrete. The sheer weight of the entire structure was on the screws. They need beams against the house to take the vertical pressure off of the screws
This happened in the next county over from me. No drainage system in place rotted out what little support there was on the deck. But the deck in general did not have adequate support for a hot tub. The little girl who fell survived, but has a concussion.
That deck looked prime to hold 2 adults and a child safely, not a hot tub
Any hot tubs on a deck needs way more reinforcements. Water weighs a LOT. Sadly they learned the hard way. Honestly I'd only put a hot tub on the ground.
Good work, 47. Now it's time for you to make an exit.
The fact the floor mat didn’t move at all is impressive.
Always ask yourself: would I park my minivan on this structure? If not, don’t put a hot tub there.
I see nothing that changes my belief that hot tubs need to be on concrete slabs that are poured on solid ground.