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Jacuzzi annd some decking

martc

martc

Seedling
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Roodepoort South Africa
As I'm new to the forum I thought I would share an unusual job I finished in March this year.
We were asked to do a fairly large job by an old client in Pretoria.
This included building a decked bridge inside their house, covering an existing bridge with decking,
a free standing set of built in cupboards, adding a walk in pantry and some floor cupboards to their kitchen
and moving a 12 seater jacuzzi that they wanted cladding in decking to match all the other areas in the house.
I have to add that their house has a 3 meter wide corridor from one end to the other that has about a 10 degree slope the whole 25 meter length of it.


This is the original jacuzzi structure, they wanted it moved to where there was a foot spa area at the top of the slope.

All of this area was level (lucky for us)
so first job was strip all the original decking and frame away . Then we had to break out the walls holding the jacuzzi so we could get to measure it accurately for the frame to be made up



The frame was constructed from 76 x 50 structural pine that was supposed to be CCA treated,
When it arrived I find out it wasn't treated so with time constraints on the job I agreed with the customer to coat the whole frame with a marine sealer.


The front of the frame was designed to be removable as they had a couple of leaks when it was in the brick structure and there was no access panel to allow any repairs.
Next job, build a box for the sand that goes underneath the jacuzzi to provide support to the base.
This is probably the most important part of the build as when full there is around 1800 liters of water
in this thing,

As the customer wanted this clad with decking we decided to clad the frame first with 4mm ply that was stained a dark oak colour then covered with the marine sealer before the decking was added.
This would help prevent too much water from getting to the framework.
Then came the fun bit, lifting the jacuzzi from its original frame and fitting in to the frame



Then it was just a case of bolting on the front of the frame. cladding it with ply and the decking.


We left two removable access panels on either end of the front for routine maintenance.
these were just fixed in place at the end with 4 screws each
we raised the whole jacuzzi up on blocks to be able to finish the sealer as sliding it into place had left a few marks


 
RogerS":47fyzbbp said:
Nice job, Martin. What finish did you use given the water that will inevitably get splashed around?
Click to expand...
Thanks for the comments.
I used Woodoc marine, I normally don't like polyurethane sealers but for this application I thought it would last well and it matched the other woodwork in the house.
 
Andyp":mmvneo57 said:
Very nice indeed. Is there sufficient crawl space at the ends to fix a leak on the far side?
Click to expand...
Yes. You can get all the way round. If you're not too claustrophobic . due to the way the sides slope there is just enough room.
I have to say that this was my first time doing decking .
I will post some more tomorrow showing the rest of the decking
 
OK to add a bit to the post,
In the second photo in the first post you can see the slope of the floor and an area of decking just below the jacuzzis original site.
well they wanted to extend that piece of decking to go right across the walkway.
first job lift all the old decking and give it to my assistant, A lad in his early twenties who is the first
person that has worked for me who has shown some enthusiasm, He is very eager to learn.
He got the belt sander on it and took it all back to bare wood

before we started it looked like this.
I didn't get any pics of the frame work being built but because of the shape of the original piece of decking
the guy who installed it in the first place just put bearers wherever he wanted, this made fitting the good pieces of deck material back in place and using the existing holes was a nightmare. this area also was cladded in ply to stop thing getting lost under the deck,
we found a credit card that had been dropped there three years ago,
It also served to stop too much dust getting underneath as well.

you can see the old structure on the left and what we added to the right

view from the other side

the fact that there are rocks that are part of the structure of the house made for a few interesting cuts

you can see the difference between the new and old decking here
sorry about the quality of the next pic, lens was covered in dust and I didn't realise until later

deck complete

once the sealer went on you can't really spot any discrepancy



Of course after this the stairs next to the jacuzzi looked very tatty.

so can I clad them in decking?
They had coach bolts standing proud so the simple solution, put plywood strips in to counter this

then just clad

 
Very nice Martin. Bet it's quite interesting working on jobs like this where every cut needs to be thought about? A pain maybe, and maybe not the most profitable jobs, but fun… :)

Cheers
Mark
 
Thanks, I'm not sure whether to post the rest of the work on this page or open another post,
as part of the job I had to build a decking bridge between their front door and another section of decking,
What's you opinion?
 
I don't mind. If it's all part of the same job then maybe leave it in this one and change the title? Or start a new one one with the other pieces on work in, doesn't really matter, completely up to you. :)

Cheers
Mark
 
Right then I'll carry on here.
As I said earlier this house has a slope from one end to the other, this gets worse as you get to the front door,
There is an existing bridge between the front door to the first room as can be seen here


as they decided to drywall the first room they wanted another bridge to connect the front door to the next area (which was already decked). so we just constructed a simple frame to join the two areas removing the existing handrails, these were made by the people who did the other piece of decking and were way out of level.


The hardest part of this build is the angles

first part of the job done,


now to get the handrails done, this was using a combination of some of the old posts and adding new where needed,(and altering them so they were all the same height this time

all of the old posts were set at different heights as well as being spaced unequally so fitting the balustrades
was a pain in the .....


but it all worked out in the end, and with a gate added to allow access for watering the plants below
All the railings were given a rosewood stain, this complemented the natural colour of the Red Iron Bark decking the last job was decking over the old bridge to tie the whole lot together


As a little side project the customer asked if I could make two sink units from the decking to go with everything else. So I just built a small frame from some of the leftover 114mm x38mm pine that we used for the bridge and added the decking material.

 
PITA it may have been but the job you made of it looks excellent

All this decking on the inside of the house makes me wonder what he has in the garden, carpet? :D
 
thanks Andy, his garden is made up of massive boulders and trees all on a steep slope,
The only pics I have show the only level area from the drive to the front door, but it will give you an idea


 
Excellent, Martin!!

That looks like more than just a few hours work. Did you have to work the design/s out for yourself, or did someone provide you with drawings?
 
Hi Mike, thanks. I do all the drawings and working out. It is the one part of the job that I spend lots of time on. I've found from experience that getting the planning right and making sure that everything is to the customers satisfaction saves a lot of time on site. Having said that some people tend to change their minds half way through a job. that does make life interesting
 
I used to work in a totally different hitech industry. One of my regular customers used to have a saying "lets draw up a plan so that we have something to deviate from" Apart from the obvious humour, it does actually make sense in the type of job where the requirements are likely to change either for convenience or as a result of snags found in the course of work.
Having a plan and an associated cost from the outset is a vital stage for both the contractor and the customer alike.

Bob
 
martc":1r4mskwf said:
.....some people tend to change their minds half way through a job. that does make life interesting
Click to expand...

One of my jobs is at SK (sketch) 26 at the moment...........for a garage! It looks remarkably like SK2. At least this customer is changing his mind on paper, and not once work has started on site.
 
Hi Mark, they are not Baobabs they are a type of succulent know as halfmens which means half plant, half human.
http://www.plantzafrica.com/plantnop/pachynam.htm

Hi Bob, "lets draw up a plan so that we have something to deviate from". I like that, I may need to steal that phrase for the job I have coming up in June.

Hi Mike, I know what you mean, one of the first kitchens I designed took two months of back and forth with the customer before we found a design they not only liked but was practical.
 
I've experienced a slightly similar situation but where the Client has decided not to proceed with the project - sometimes several times. We did get paid for the design work though.
The Client was generally the Government abandoning road schemes.
One I designed back in 1967 on the A31 Malwood Hiill in the New Forest as a safety improvement. Brought out periodically and dusted off but still not built despite the existing dangerous layout.
Another was the Stonehenge Bypass which the Co. I worked for earned over £4m in fees over the years - still not built!

Rod
 
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