Boise Hot Tub Removal: Cutting Power and Draining It First

A guy in Meridian texted me a photo last spring. Hot tub with maybe eight inches of green water in the footwell, cover caved in from the snow, the whole thing looking like a science project.

His first question wasn't what hot tub removal costs. It was whether he had to drain it himself, and whether he could just yank the plug on it.

Both of those come up on almost every tub I pull out around the Treasure Valley. Neither answer is complicated.

Hot tub removal starts with killing the power

Almost every tub around here runs on 220 volts, fed from a breaker in your panel out to a GFCI disconnect box bolted to the house a few feet away.

Shut off the breaker. Then flip the disconnect too, so nothing's live when I start cutting.

That's it for electrical prep. You don't need an electrician standing in the yard while I work.

Where an electrician actually earns their money is when you want that disconnect box and the conduit gone from the siding, not just switched off.

I'll cut the whip loose at the tub so I can haul the thing out. I won't pull wire out of your wall or touch anything inside your panel. That's licensed work, and it should stay that way.

The plug-in 110-volt tubs, which I see more of in the newer Star and Middleton subdivisions, are easier. Unplug it and you're done.

Draining it without killing a patch of your lawn

A typical backyard tub holds somewhere between 300 and 500 gallons. A swim spa can be double that.

Tip: Quit adding chlorine or bromine about a week before you drain. The levels fall off on their own, and water that's sat untreated for a few days is a lot friendlier to your grass than water you shocked yesterday.

Two ways to get it out. A submersible pump from any hardware store will empty it in under an hour, or you can open the drain valve at the base, run a garden hose out to the yard, and let gravity handle it while you do something else.

Just don't put 400 gallons in one spot. Move the hose every fifteen minutes or so, or aim it somewhere gravelly that can take a soaking.

Chlorinated water sitting in one place burns a dead ring in the grass, and a Boise summer is dry enough that the ring is still there in August.

One more thing: keep it out of the storm drain. Those empty toward the Boise River, not a treatment plant.

If it's been sitting all winter

Here's the part that surprises people. A tub that's been shut down since November usually isn't full of water. It's full of ice.

I've loaded tubs on the Boise Bench in January with a couple hundred pounds frozen solid into the seats. You can't drain that, and a pump won't touch it.

All it does is make the tub heavier and meaner to get over a fence, which shows up in what you pay.

So if the tub's already dead and you know it's going away, drain it in the fall. October's about right around here.

What hot tub removal actually looks like in your yard

Do these come out in one piece? Usually not. That's normally good news, because cutting it down beats trying to muscle a 700-pound shell around a corner.

Older places in the North End and on the Bench have side gates around 30 inches wide. A tub is six or seven feet across. So it gets cut into three or four chunks with a reciprocating saw and carried out by hand.

Loud for about 45 minutes. The acrylic shell and the foam insulation make a real mess, so I tarp first and sweep after.

If there's a wide gate and a straight shot, which happens a lot in the newer Meridian and Nampa neighborhoods, sometimes it rolls out whole on a dolly. That's the fast version.

Either way, figure two to three hours from when I pull up to a swept-off pad.

What it costs, and where the tub ends up

For a standard backyard tub with decent access, hot tub removal lands in the few-hundred-dollar range. A swim spa, a set of stairs, a tub built into a deck, a long carry down a narrow side yard, or a block of ice inside it will all push that up.

Drained, powered down, and reachable? That's the cheap version, every time.

After it's out, I break it down. The frame, motor, pump and heater are metal and go to a recycler.

The shell and the foam ride to Hidden Hollow, because nobody's figured out anything better to do with that stuff yet.

If your steps or cover lifter are still in decent shape, those can go to Idaho Youth Ranch or St. Vincent de Paul instead of the landfill.

Bottom line

Drain it, cut the breaker, and don't let it sit through one more freeze. That's most of the prep, and it's most of what keeps your price reasonable.

Honestly, if you own a truck and you're not scared of a Sawzall, this is a doable weekend project. I'd rather have the work, but I'm not going to pretend it's impossible.

If you'd rather not deal with it, or you're not sure what's underneath the tub, text a photo to (208) 391-0221 and I'll tell you what I see and roughly what it'd run. Usually I can be out within a couple of days.