A concrete question for you guys

winterulez

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Gonna be pouring my concrete pad outside my walkout basement soon. Plan is too put hot tub out there. Hot tub with water and people prob close too 6000 lbs. Just wondering with all the weight will the pad crack ? Should i pour a thick pad and or put piles in ? Any ideas and tips are greatly appreciated.
 

Highfly

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I know nothing about concrete but a pickup weights 5000 lbs and is putting all the force on 4 spots. You will have weight spread over a larger area. Build it like a garage floor with rebar, should be fine????
 

maxwell

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Put some control joints in it and let it crack. Its going to happen so may aswell have it look normal.

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plio7

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How big is the tub? 8x8.

There's no way to guarantee it won't crack but for best results put in time on properly compacting the ground. For checking this is almost more important than the thickness of the pad. You can also put the rebar in at 12" oc to reduce the chance. With a dead load like a hot tub you may be ok but tooling in a control joint every 6' or so wouldn't hurt. And make sure you use a good sealer after to protect it from the water with all the chemicals being tracked in and out.
 

ferniesnow

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How long has the back fill settled for? The part closest to the house is probably most susceptible. Plio has a good point with the compacting but you will not compact very deep along the foundation with a small pad compactor. You may want to pin the pad into the wall. With control joints and re-bar at 12" oc you should be fine (as the boys mentioned above). There will be surface cracking over time but you shouldn't have pad separation and heaving.
 

plio7

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How long has the back fill settled for? The part closest to the house is probably most susceptible. Plio has a good point with the compacting but you will not compact very deep along the foundation with a small pad compactor. You may want to pin the pad into the wall. With control joints and re-bar at 12" oc you should be fine (as the boys mentioned above). There will be surface cracking over time but you shouldn't have pad separation and heaving.

Yea I guess I should elaborate. By take the time to properly compact I mean pull all top soil an arabica out and run a jumping jack over the area really well before placing the crush and don't just run a 100lb tamper on the crush do a solid job with a 500lb
 

maxwell

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Another option is to just use the large 2' patio blocks on a compacted sand base. This is what we did and its working fine. Just a thought as its much cheaper.

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arff

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If its a new house watch for settling. Depending on the backfill job you need to compact it yourself. I set up ours similar to Maxwells sand and gravel and 2x2 cement pads You can always move the tub and level again if required.

If you place it on a cement pad as Pilo said use a sealer as the chemicals we make a mess of it.
 

armymags1

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An old concrete guy told me there are only 2 kinds of concrete in Alberta , cracked concrete and concrete that's gonna crack
 

hbar218

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When i did my pad i dug down 12-18 inches??? and used pea gravel. It seems to be still level after 8 years.
I would still wait for cyle's opinion.
 

X-it

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Pack in some geogrid into the soil, pour with rebar and reinforced fibercrete . Attaching rebar to walls, drill with a large hilti drill at about 30% ...shove rebar into the hole and bend down into the slab.
 
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Mike270412

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Mike270412

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Cyle is reading all your bullsh!t advice and will soon post the proper way to pour a concrete pad.
 
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