You will never use it as a spa again ? At this point there is no turning back the spa is done for as a therapy water soaking device spa. Price point and cost reasons as you may know. Remove all panels and set them to the side I'm sure you have removed all the electrical connections pumps blowers relays circuitry ect. If you can flip it on a side peel and scrape to remove the bottom insulation expose the bottom suction pipe work. They'll be PVC threaded nuts easy to cut out with a small blade hack saw and easily remove the bottom suctions completely. Blower holes (jets): These will be smaller in size to the water jets and will loop back down then up as a Heartford Loop. While flipped you can remove every connection to the blower holes You shouldn't have to worry about the blower manifold it is under the Heartford Loop and closest to the actual blower motor Same removal tool a small hacksaw blade for these back underside nuts as well a wrench may do the job here too just cutting them will be easier If you care to try your hand at some plumbing then you could even re-plumb some of the water jets to the bottom suctions as well. One person can lift 900 pound spas from the ground to any of it's sides and up to a 3-4 foot high deck all day long alone but that's only because the one person who can do it knows how. I'd suggest you have 2-3 even 4 VERY CAPABLE people to help flip it and depending on size of spa. How to flip a spa on it's side: When drained and ready to flip place a 2x4x6inck long block of wood on a corner of the narrowest side ( less weight) 2) Use two people to lift a corner where block of wood is 3) kick the piece of wood under the corner leaving some of the 2x4x6inch wood exposed 4) Use the remaining 2x4x8 as a lever placing it into the spa bottom and 2x4x6 inch 5) PUSH the lever upward to again flip the corner 2x4x6 inch corner block so the spa sits on the 4 inch side of wood You can repeat these steps again to set it on the six inch side of a 2x4 but should be easy to lift the rest of way on side by sheer lifting by using 3-4 peoples hands and arms. If one person is to lift best advice is to let the center of gravity be your best friend now. Okay ? At this point if you want to continue walking the spa up ( and over on it's side) use a second 2X4 on the same lifted side of other slightly lifted corner. A shop type vacuum cleaner will help remove any residual water in all the pipes. If the pipes dont get cut vacuum the inside of each jet. When bringing back to ground move slowly with good communications and slowly down with same steps as lifting in reverse to set on piles wood blocks or cinder blocks as rest stops to ground level area. Panels : Remember those things you set to the side ? Before you put them back on you still have a chance to cut the backs of each nut of each water jet and remove them as well with a small hack saw blade. You may have to remove some pretty hard tuff foam sprayed insulation here. Use a pry bar and go easy if you want to prevent prevent cracking of the spas fiberglass shell You can also drill a couple 4-6 inch holes in the bottom of the spa as well but you will also be going though unseen surfaces other than fiber glass. Understand the hole saw blade on the end of drill might not be deep enough to reach a visually safe hole for drainage of future raised bed gardening spa. Personally I think what your doing is the best thing to happen to any spa.

I am having a similar problem with my spa. I live in Central Texas with heavy clay soil as well as hard water. I just contacted our pool builder about 10 days ago and we are going on their schedule. We reported horizontal cracks in the spa last year with calcium building up in them. They came out and inspected and said it was normal and nothing to worry about. Now, the spa has a vertical crack going from the seat to the waterline completely through the wall. The spa drains into the pool overnight so the crack is completely visible now appears to go completely through the spa wall. The pool is going on its fourth summer so it is relatively new. I also have a lot of calcium deposits all over the PebbleTec on walls in the pool with very few on the floor of the pool. I have not seen any cracks forming in the pool walls. However, the concrete patio has hairline cracks in several places going the full width of the patio. Do the calcium deposits indicate an underlying problem with the plaster or gunnite and will the cracking patio have any effect on the pool?

My take on spas.... I'm a stunt woman and my husband is a stunt man.....we do physical stuff like falling, fights and car stunts so we pretty much require a spa to take care of my sore muscles. We have thoroughly enjoyed our spa and even if I wasn't a stunt woman I would still have a spa. It's kind of funny when we have a party and they're are a few stunt people here, they always seem to be in the spa instead of the pool, lol. Our spa has 6 jets but, 10 people can comfortably sit in the spa. It's a large spa but, didn't cost me anymore than having a regular sized round spa. Had we put in more jets, that would have been a different deal. One side of the spa doesn't have jets which is great because sometimes I just want to feel the heat. I use my spa daily and if not in the day it's used at night. During the summer it takes 10 minutes to heat and during the winter about 30 minutes even if the temp. is at 55 - 60 degrees. Although I'm in So. Cal. and the winters are mild here, our pool water will still go down into the mid 50s. You don't have to heat the spa to enjoy it during the summer or during the day. I use it for the jets. I'll warm it up to whatever desired temperature I feel I need, if I heat it at all. It's nice because it's above the pool with a nice spill over so when the pool starts cooling down, we'll get a little heat spilling over into the pool. I have an above ground Cal Spa which was great when I was using it but, I personally don't like the smell of the chemicals which caused me to not want to even go in it. My bathing suit smelled and so did my skin. I even put fragrance in the spa and it would temporarily help hide the smell of the bromine chemicals. I basically lost interest in that spa. I've tried to sell it...and I can't even give that spa away. I've offered it to several of my friends to come get it. My pool spa doesn't smell of any chemicals what so ever but, I do have a SWG which helps. So with that being said.....If I were to build another pool someday (and I'LL BE THE BUILDER!) I wouldn't go without a spa.

Sorry -- I had not checked this threat in a long time. Posting an update for folks. We have loved our pool configuration and the choices we made nine years ago. Heating the spa does require a few hours pre-planning. We ran underground lines for gas in case we wanted to switch to gas instead of heat pump, but the heat pump has worked well enough that we've never switched to gas. Depending on the weather here in the midwest, we will start the spa heating 2-5 hours prior to when we need it to make sure it is comfortable when we get in. We tend to stop using the spa once it gets below 50 degrees out (air is too chilly for us!) If you want quicker heating for your spa, you will need gas. The heat pump has worked for us since we are planners. Most of our pool components have continued to operate well even after nine years. We did go with Pentair lights and at this time (9 years later) only one LED color is not working in one of the lights but otherwise all is good there. A few Jandy valves have needed replacement due to minor seepage (but it has been 9 years!) Also, the spa-side remote from Pentair (maybe called the Spa Command?) has been junk -- we replaced it twice in our first three years and finally gave up and moved to controlling everything via Pentair's wireless phone app which has worked well. The River Flow swim current has continued to work well for us. It has gotten a lot of use this year with the pandemic shutdown. We were very pleased this year to have our own swim current to exercise in! We probably used it more this year than all 8 prior years combined. It does require some work each year to winterize properly (using very large marine plugs). We do that in the early fall before the pool water gets cooler. Overall it has been a fun splurge that is used more to create fun in the pool (currents for floats, etc.) and occasionally for exercise until this year when it got heavy use for safe exercise in our own back yard. Our pool cover also is still doing well. We went with a mesh cover (believe it was Merlin) that had attachments in the ground over and past the raised bond beam wall as well as into our travertine decking. They also designed in reinforcement rubber in spots where needed. We have cushions that are placed at rub points. The cover seems to be doing very well. It is typically used November - March and stored inside when the pool is open. Snow weight has not been a problem due to the mesh design and the milder winters we now get in the midwest. The travertine pool decking has held up very well. We have some minor spalling on a few tiles (winter freeze/thaw), but not enough to cause any worries after 9 years. The travertine has been an amazing pool deck surface. It stays cool in the summer and also does not seem to get slippery when wet. It has continued to look very nice. We occasionally have had a few weeds growing between some tiles occasionally over the years, but it has been minor (maybe because I pull them promptly if I see them!) Overall our pool has been very nice and I very much appreciate all of the helpful feedback I got many years ago when we were building it. Hopefully this information helps the people currently with pool projects "in the works". We are getting close to ten years now with our pool!