Hot Tub Removal in Chicopee, MA

An empty hot tub weighs 500 to 900 pounds on its own. Full, it is well past three tons, so the water goes first and that is not negotiable.

Most of them are cut apart on site. A tub is an acrylic shell, a plywood and foam frame, a cabinet, and a mass of plumbing and wiring, and it is nearly always sitting somewhere that a 700 pound object cannot be carried out of intact.

Price runs $300 to $800 for most. On a ground level pad with truck access, at the low end. On a raised deck, behind a gate, or in a sunroom, at the top and sometimes past it.

Cutting it up is normal, not a shortcut

People are sometimes surprised that a crew arrives with a saw. That is the standard method. A tub cut into four or five pieces comes out through a normal gate and up over a deck rail without four people risking their backs. Whole removal is only realistic when it is on a pad, at ground level, with a clear straight run to a truck.

The electrical has to be dealt with properly

A hot tub runs on a dedicated 240 volt circuit with its own disconnect. That has to be shut off and disconnected by an electrician. A hauler should not be cutting into that, and a hauler who offers to is telling you something about how they work.

Do it in advance rather than on the day. Otherwise the crew arrives, cannot safely start, and you pay for a visit that achieved nothing. The same goes for any gas heater, which needs the gas line capped properly.

If the tub is on a deck, look at the deck too. Hot tubs are frequently set on decks that were never framed for the load, and after ten years of that the framing underneath is sometimes in worse shape than the tub. Worth knowing before somebody stands on it with a saw.

Where the pieces go

The acrylic shell and the foam go to disposal, since nobody recycles either. The frame is wood and goes on a wood route. The pump, the heater, the jets and the wiring are all metal and go to a scrap yard, and the copper in the wiring and heater element is worth a little. Massachusetts has kept wood and metal out of disposal since 1 July 2006, so the split is required rather than optional.