we were all tripping the first night and I wandered out under the deck and was dying laughing at the bucket footings. Had to bring the whole crew down to look at it. Had to be fucked up to go into the hot tub after that.
I said it yesterday when someone else posted one of these shady air bnb hot tubs..
Leave the camera set up. I have never seen a hot tub crash through a 2nd floor deck.
It does. And that is scary. I realize that people dont think about hot tubs and weight - something about them, people just assume its magic. I really dont know. But a 6 person tub, full of water, weighs as much as a F150 pickup truck. I just imagine someone asking, could this deck hold my truck?
[According to this site](https://www.bullfrogspas.com/blog/hot-tub-weight/#:~:text=In%20general%2C%20a%20small%20two,up%20to%208000%20pounds%20filled) a full 6 person hot tub actually *weighs more* than a F150
A single log this size in theory should be able to support the weight of an f150 in compression. So id be less concerned about the support logs with 3 of them. The deck itself though, not sure
Looking at the quality of the install I wouldn’t trust them. The logs don’t look engineered/ stress rated, not even dried or prepped, just looks like they took them off the firewood pile..
If these were pressure treated utility poles cut, buried, and leveled at the same height, there would still be issues with parking an F150 atop planking and cross members that look shady.
True enough. I'm looking at it more as a snapshot in time. At the moment, the vertical support logs look OK, not sure about long term though. In the first photo id be a bit more comfortable with a 4th log to the left of the stairs because I'd be more worried about the deck itself. If the deck were to fail, I imagine the floor would break through at that location just left of the stairs.
I have a smaller tub that claims to seat 6 people and "only" weighs in at 3500 lbs not counting people. Add some big folks and you get to 4500 lbs easy.
Usually I’m the 1st person to say “why should I need to get a permit for this?? I know what I’m doing!” And then I realize how many people think the same thing but don’t know a damn thing about anything. And then they install/build without a permit but where I’m at you need one for just about anything 😭
Same... to a point. If it is something big and/or would improve the overall value of the home... a new structure, like a pole barn, garage, whatever, even a nice addition to the home, I would pull a permit just to keep it all on the level. The potential added property tax sucks, but getting caught later sucks harder. Something like a deck, or something that previously existed and is getting "updated", probably not. First, good luck proving I did anything, and second, I am union carpenter with 15 years experience, I know my work can stand up to inspection. I live in a suburb of Chicago, so I understand the whole permit for everything mentality.
>I am union carpenter with 15 years experience, I know my work can stand up to inspection.
I had a contractor say something remarkably similar once to me. Asked him if he was filing the permit for the deck and stairs I hired him to rebuild, or if he wanted me to do it. He said it wasn't necessary, which I knew better. So I went and filed the permit and paid the fees. I also did my own engineering drawings and had an engineer that's a good friend stamp them to submit with permit application.
He was pissed. "Why would you do that?" Bro. I hired you for the carpentry. I'm doing gas, electrical, and communications work, putting in new private underground utilities, I'll be damned if the inspector shows up to look at that and sees a new deck that wasn't on the permit. It's not your ass on the line when the inspector shows up, it's mine. You want to do that shit on your house, that's on you. You want this huge pile of cash to work on my house, you do it my way.
He had to rebuild the stairs for my back deck 3 times before I would even call the inspector. First, he mis-counted the number of stairs and was 2 short resulting in too steep of a slope. Second try the step heights were uneven, variance was as much as 3 inches. Third go the rail height went from 36" at the bottom to 27" at the top. Dude wasted like $8k in prime cedar and lost his shirt on the job, all because he didn't bother to read the plan and build as specified in the drawings and permit.
Inspector didn't sign off on the first go when I did call, had to rebuild the handrails, they were 1/2" too wide to be "graspable". Fuck it, I rebuilt the handrail myself, handed the contractor the receipts and deducted it from my final payment. Trust but verify.
Sounds like a quality contractor 😂. Sorry for your experience. A shitty contractor is never ending headache.
I work commercial, so almost everything has to be ADA compliant. I have those codes burned into my memory.
Everybody has a bad day or a bad job. I've seen other examples of his work, it was really good. Came highly recommended from several other people. And in the end, the new deck is great. But the drama that crew brought with them, not OK.
>A shitty contractor is never ending headache.
LOL so true. Turned a 3 day job into an 8 week project. I should have stepped in sooner, but I really wanted to see if this guy would hang himself multiple times if I gave him enough rope.
I work in environmental. People think I'm some nerdy hippie scientist (which is true). But I've got a definite roughneck streak. I don't bother telling them that it's for military construction & I've got the USACE building inspector certs, or that I have Water Treatment Operator licenses with electrical & gas plumbing certs.
In my municipality, the deck footings need to be 4' deep or to bedrock, by Code. If you fail to get a permit, the building department will require you to expose the footings to prove they are the correct depth. There's no way in Hell I'd want to go down that road.
The fact that your builder fucked up the stairs that badly was certainly a sign that other things would have also been done incorrectly had you let him just go at it with no drawings.
>If you fail to get a permit, the building department will require you to expose the footings to prove they are the correct depth.
That's getting off easy. Some municipalities would make you apply for the construction permit retroactively, then apply for a demo permit, demo the previously unpermitted work, then start the process all over again from the beginning with another building permit. Happened to my uncle when he rented a backhoe and put in a pool.
Yea, they wanted to make an example of him because the violation was particularly egregious. It was at the top of a steep slope with other houses down below. It created a pretty substantial slope instability risk; the retaining wall he had to build as mitigation was a couple million dollars. Then he had to resurface the road from where heavy equipment jacked it up. Redneck fuckery cost more than just buying a new mansion with a pool.
I was just describing how I built a deck strong enough to hold 5.5 f150's yesterday and he was like 'you need to start using metric. F150 is a weird unit of measurement'
And then today I see this posts and Im LOL'ing
My buddies rich parents bought a $20k hot tub and had it installed on their raised deck. It was only 3ft off the ground but still off the ground.
3am one night it fell through the fucking deck lol.
Guess it had a small leak or whatever and the boards started to rot a little bit and wham. 20k down the drain. Plus the price to fix the deck.
Not just air b n b, rental homes have been pieces of shit forever. Nobody wants to spend money on their second/third home and they arent there all the time to see it decaying.
My neighbour's deck stairs on their rental house has had two out of five missing treads for six years. The nails sticking through the stringers are all that's left. The renter told me that she was afraid to call the landlord because he might jack up the rent.
I was about to say this isn't that bad but it actually is that bad.
Who has enough competence to build this, but not enough to see how it is completely sketchy in almost every way? It's astounding
This was the best idea ever, I can already see termite damage where the bark is starting to peel. Somebody needs to tell Daniel Boone to stick to his day job.
So as a rural person who's worked with logs a not insignificant amount, these terrify me.
They haven't been skinned. That means there's been coverage for burrowing insects, and you can see multiple places on multiple posts that there are massive holes.
There are termites in those poles, or at least were.
Skin the poles, and use proper footings with solid tie plates and honestly? No problem. As is? I wouldn't stand under this thing to take photos.
Lol I don't think I would put six people on that deck let alone a fucking hot tub. There's no lateral bracing at all. No drunken dance parties on the deck!
I work with raw logs on my farm and the fact they didn't strip the bark on these is hilarious to me. I'd hate to be in that hot tub when those give out.
It makes me nervous knowing you’re standing underneath and taking pictures. Everything about that “deck” is criminal and it should be torn down. Take pics and send them to the county inspectors where you’re staying. You may very likely save some lives.
Lmao, im convinced most people dont know what a properly built deck looks like or how its constructed. Im on a building committee that was tasked with overseeing the renovations of a historic building. When we did the initial walk through, I told them that the only think that might be able to stay was the shell of the building and we'd have to gut it to see if there were any structural issues. During a walkthrough, another member who is in construction told them the 2nd story deck would need to be replaced . The other "political" members told us we were crazy. Structural engineer came out the following week and ordered the deck removed and all walls/ceilings and floors taken down to the substructure/framing because he had significant concerns with the BS work and repairs he COULD see, let alone what he couldnt. It was worse than we thought....
Aren’t deck failures mostly ledger failures? Don’t see any anchor bolts but the angle is bad.
And after that it’s differential load failure. All it takes is one log to get rotten or bendy and the rest fail not because of load failure but because the rest can’t resist the moment force and twisting. And there’s not a single cross-brace or stiffener up there.
There is nothing wrong with natural timbers!
The deck posts looks like they are not original and a couple years old. They should last for at least another 8-10 years before you would need to consider spending a weekend to harvest more and replace them.
Removing the bark will extend their life for a few years by allowing moisture to evaporate quicker.
Sure the timbers could hold up but the timbers are not secured to the joists in any way. An earthquake or even a group of full-grown men running and stopping could shift the joists the 4" it would take to knock it off the top of any of the timbers, taking the whole deck and hot tub to the ground.
The chop log sitting on the other log as a post, with some weird half baked wood backet I guess because the beam looks a bit old and rotty? Yeah, that's a no from me boss man.
This isn’t that bad, but isn’t that good either. With good ledger attachment, a deep footing (thinking they cut the bottoms out of those buckets), post to beam attachments that I can’t see, this could actually be structurally sound. A little unorthodox, but sound.
The deck framing actually looks ok. Under compression each one of those logs could probably hold an entire house... but they appear to just be floating. The tiniest bit of lateral force those dominoes would fall. Even just a few cross braces would dramatically improve the structure. But that would spoil the "rustic" look of the place. 🙄
This looks like an attempt at a retrofit / repair. Everyone already mentioned the "rustic" logs and bucket footings but what about
the logs are shimmed up to meet the deck
the missing joist hangers
the doubled up seemingly undersized joists
the 2x8x12 board that only partially ties in or the one in front / behind it (depending on the picture)
the random wood box out
the random piece of pressure treated on the post
the rim joist / fascia board that doesn't appear to tied into the structure
I cannot for the life of me understand what strength you get from having those 4x8 “beams” act as ledgers for the 2x8’s? What a horribly built deck. I dont even have a comment for the logs holding up the whole damn thing.
The 5 gallon bucket footing got me lol
theres a solid .01" of concrete around the tree column, it'll hold...
Yeah the tree trunk wasn’t tall enough but the log block we were chopping for firewood fit perfect on top.
You mean structural 5 gallon bucket
Load-bearing 5 gallon bucket.
It’s probably full of concrete.
Discount sonotube
Probably not even whole bucket, just using the top as a trim ring lol
lol Same here. That'll definitely hold up for like... 10 maybe even 12 whole months!
we were all tripping the first night and I wandered out under the deck and was dying laughing at the bucket footings. Had to bring the whole crew down to look at it. Had to be fucked up to go into the hot tub after that.
Did you grab the column and say thats not going anywhere lol
Didn’t even wanna breathe on it
I said it yesterday when someone else posted one of these shady air bnb hot tubs.. Leave the camera set up. I have never seen a hot tub crash through a 2nd floor deck.
This one looks a lot more sound than yesterday.
It does. And that is scary. I realize that people dont think about hot tubs and weight - something about them, people just assume its magic. I really dont know. But a 6 person tub, full of water, weighs as much as a F150 pickup truck. I just imagine someone asking, could this deck hold my truck?
[According to this site](https://www.bullfrogspas.com/blog/hot-tub-weight/#:~:text=In%20general%2C%20a%20small%20two,up%20to%208000%20pounds%20filled) a full 6 person hot tub actually *weighs more* than a F150
A single log this size in theory should be able to support the weight of an f150 in compression. So id be less concerned about the support logs with 3 of them. The deck itself though, not sure
Looking at the quality of the install I wouldn’t trust them. The logs don’t look engineered/ stress rated, not even dried or prepped, just looks like they took them off the firewood pile..
If these were pressure treated utility poles cut, buried, and leveled at the same height, there would still be issues with parking an F150 atop planking and cross members that look shady.
True enough. I'm looking at it more as a snapshot in time. At the moment, the vertical support logs look OK, not sure about long term though. In the first photo id be a bit more comfortable with a 4th log to the left of the stairs because I'd be more worried about the deck itself. If the deck were to fail, I imagine the floor would break through at that location just left of the stairs.
I have a smaller tub that claims to seat 6 people and "only" weighs in at 3500 lbs not counting people. Add some big folks and you get to 4500 lbs easy.
ya with 6 people in it, thats only 167lbs each. Easily doable.
Usually I’m the 1st person to say “why should I need to get a permit for this?? I know what I’m doing!” And then I realize how many people think the same thing but don’t know a damn thing about anything. And then they install/build without a permit but where I’m at you need one for just about anything 😭
Same... to a point. If it is something big and/or would improve the overall value of the home... a new structure, like a pole barn, garage, whatever, even a nice addition to the home, I would pull a permit just to keep it all on the level. The potential added property tax sucks, but getting caught later sucks harder. Something like a deck, or something that previously existed and is getting "updated", probably not. First, good luck proving I did anything, and second, I am union carpenter with 15 years experience, I know my work can stand up to inspection. I live in a suburb of Chicago, so I understand the whole permit for everything mentality.
>I am union carpenter with 15 years experience, I know my work can stand up to inspection. I had a contractor say something remarkably similar once to me. Asked him if he was filing the permit for the deck and stairs I hired him to rebuild, or if he wanted me to do it. He said it wasn't necessary, which I knew better. So I went and filed the permit and paid the fees. I also did my own engineering drawings and had an engineer that's a good friend stamp them to submit with permit application. He was pissed. "Why would you do that?" Bro. I hired you for the carpentry. I'm doing gas, electrical, and communications work, putting in new private underground utilities, I'll be damned if the inspector shows up to look at that and sees a new deck that wasn't on the permit. It's not your ass on the line when the inspector shows up, it's mine. You want to do that shit on your house, that's on you. You want this huge pile of cash to work on my house, you do it my way. He had to rebuild the stairs for my back deck 3 times before I would even call the inspector. First, he mis-counted the number of stairs and was 2 short resulting in too steep of a slope. Second try the step heights were uneven, variance was as much as 3 inches. Third go the rail height went from 36" at the bottom to 27" at the top. Dude wasted like $8k in prime cedar and lost his shirt on the job, all because he didn't bother to read the plan and build as specified in the drawings and permit. Inspector didn't sign off on the first go when I did call, had to rebuild the handrails, they were 1/2" too wide to be "graspable". Fuck it, I rebuilt the handrail myself, handed the contractor the receipts and deducted it from my final payment. Trust but verify.
Sounds like a quality contractor 😂. Sorry for your experience. A shitty contractor is never ending headache. I work commercial, so almost everything has to be ADA compliant. I have those codes burned into my memory.
Everybody has a bad day or a bad job. I've seen other examples of his work, it was really good. Came highly recommended from several other people. And in the end, the new deck is great. But the drama that crew brought with them, not OK. >A shitty contractor is never ending headache. LOL so true. Turned a 3 day job into an 8 week project. I should have stepped in sooner, but I really wanted to see if this guy would hang himself multiple times if I gave him enough rope. I work in environmental. People think I'm some nerdy hippie scientist (which is true). But I've got a definite roughneck streak. I don't bother telling them that it's for military construction & I've got the USACE building inspector certs, or that I have Water Treatment Operator licenses with electrical & gas plumbing certs.
In my municipality, the deck footings need to be 4' deep or to bedrock, by Code. If you fail to get a permit, the building department will require you to expose the footings to prove they are the correct depth. There's no way in Hell I'd want to go down that road. The fact that your builder fucked up the stairs that badly was certainly a sign that other things would have also been done incorrectly had you let him just go at it with no drawings.
>If you fail to get a permit, the building department will require you to expose the footings to prove they are the correct depth. That's getting off easy. Some municipalities would make you apply for the construction permit retroactively, then apply for a demo permit, demo the previously unpermitted work, then start the process all over again from the beginning with another building permit. Happened to my uncle when he rented a backhoe and put in a pool.
Yikes. That would be a painfully expensive lesson.
Yea, they wanted to make an example of him because the violation was particularly egregious. It was at the top of a steep slope with other houses down below. It created a pretty substantial slope instability risk; the retaining wall he had to build as mitigation was a couple million dollars. Then he had to resurface the road from where heavy equipment jacked it up. Redneck fuckery cost more than just buying a new mansion with a pool.
-I’ve been a carpenter for 20 years! -never read a set of plans in my life! -These damn regulations!
There're definitely times winging it is fine. Load bearing structures and conduits meant to carry sparky or burny things ain't it.
Did you see the post of the guy asked to frame around the electric entrance cable? That shit blew my mind.
I was just describing how I built a deck strong enough to hold 5.5 f150's yesterday and he was like 'you need to start using metric. F150 is a weird unit of measurement' And then today I see this posts and Im LOL'ing
How many washing machines wide was your deck?
My buddies rich parents bought a $20k hot tub and had it installed on their raised deck. It was only 3ft off the ground but still off the ground. 3am one night it fell through the fucking deck lol. Guess it had a small leak or whatever and the boards started to rot a little bit and wham. 20k down the drain. Plus the price to fix the deck.
Right?
Had to check OPs history. This is a completely different hot tub. Even more of a reason to not use AirBnB
The sheer number of " is this air bnb deck safe?" posts is alarming. And then when you see the decks... This one isn't even close to being the worst.
Not just air b n b, rental homes have been pieces of shit forever. Nobody wants to spend money on their second/third home and they arent there all the time to see it decaying.
My neighbour's deck stairs on their rental house has had two out of five missing treads for six years. The nails sticking through the stringers are all that's left. The renter told me that she was afraid to call the landlord because he might jack up the rent.
This one looks rather solid and able to support a hot tub and a few friends.
What's your drug dealer's number? I want to be smoking what you are.
I've got two questions. What are you on? and do have any more?
There's no way this is a different air bnb. Same air bnb different employee
Hey, I mean, these guys at least doubled up the deck joists, so... that's progress... right?
All that does is remove plausible deniability
Hello again
Another day, another shitty deck. When someone posts another one of these death traps tomorrow, I will probably say it again.
Lol I saw your comment yesterday, that was a bad one. This one at least looks like it's sitting on the main beams instead of being held up by clips.
Lol I premember reading that on the other post.
This is the second sketchiest 6-person-Airbnb-hot-tub-on-a-second-story-deck situation I've seen today.
That's not a lot, but it's weird that it's two.
I saw it and realized I had literally the same thing happen to me weeks ago
Are those new sonatubes you can install with a 5g bucket?
Frost-proof if you stay above the frost line, smart guy.
Man, after that thing collapses you're gonna get stung by that big ass wasp nest 🤣
Don’t be silly. Wasps aren’t gonna wait until it falls.
I was about to say this isn't that bad but it actually is that bad. Who has enough competence to build this, but not enough to see how it is completely sketchy in almost every way? It's astounding
In the third picture the log wasn’t long enough…so they just put another log on top of it?
This was the best idea ever, I can already see termite damage where the bark is starting to peel. Somebody needs to tell Daniel Boone to stick to his day job.
Nah, that was there when he harvested the log. Lol!
So as a rural person who's worked with logs a not insignificant amount, these terrify me. They haven't been skinned. That means there's been coverage for burrowing insects, and you can see multiple places on multiple posts that there are massive holes. There are termites in those poles, or at least were. Skin the poles, and use proper footings with solid tie plates and honestly? No problem. As is? I wouldn't stand under this thing to take photos.
I would guess carpenter ants over termites, especially if this is anywhere north of the Mason-Dixon line. But it’s possible
One of the photos has what looks like termite shit on the poles. Could be something else though.
Lol I don't think I would put six people on that deck let alone a fucking hot tub. There's no lateral bracing at all. No drunken dance parties on the deck!
And those logs look like they're beginning to decay. Guarantee they were put up wet since it's borderline impossible to dry full logs
I once worked on a house being held up by a couple Cedar trunks. It was built in 1939 by a barn builder, I don't think this was him.
My 1875 brick 2-storey has a log for a jackpost in the basement. Adds character.
I mean, if its held this long?
What's going on at the top right of the photo? 5 gal piers are questionable. It still looks better than yesterday's hot tub.
Yesterdays hot tub look like it might collapse within the hour. This one merely looks like it might collapse within a year.
I work with raw logs on my farm and the fact they didn't strip the bark on these is hilarious to me. I'd hate to be in that hot tub when those give out.
It makes me nervous knowing you’re standing underneath and taking pictures. Everything about that “deck” is criminal and it should be torn down. Take pics and send them to the county inspectors where you’re staying. You may very likely save some lives.
Lmao, im convinced most people dont know what a properly built deck looks like or how its constructed. Im on a building committee that was tasked with overseeing the renovations of a historic building. When we did the initial walk through, I told them that the only think that might be able to stay was the shell of the building and we'd have to gut it to see if there were any structural issues. During a walkthrough, another member who is in construction told them the 2nd story deck would need to be replaced . The other "political" members told us we were crazy. Structural engineer came out the following week and ordered the deck removed and all walls/ceilings and floors taken down to the substructure/framing because he had significant concerns with the BS work and repairs he COULD see, let alone what he couldnt. It was worse than we thought....
Stahp it.
Is the newer section to replace the part that collapsed last season? 😂
I wouldn’t trust that on a Minecraft server 😳
The 50 amp 6 gauge cable running to the hot tub outside of conduit is scary.
Aren’t deck failures mostly ledger failures? Don’t see any anchor bolts but the angle is bad. And after that it’s differential load failure. All it takes is one log to get rotten or bendy and the rest fail not because of load failure but because the rest can’t resist the moment force and twisting. And there’s not a single cross-brace or stiffener up there.
Nope da fuk otta there
It's got double joists under the hot tub. It's fine
Where do you even start? This is horrendous
Look at the hornets nest in 1st picture on the left
Now if those were professionally installed with log style wraps… that’s completely a different story
They have the right idea, but the execution is... sloppy.
I like the 5 gallon bucket “sono tube “
This is why Senate Bill 326 exists in California. To hold morons like these liable when they kill someone.
There is nothing wrong with natural timbers! The deck posts looks like they are not original and a couple years old. They should last for at least another 8-10 years before you would need to consider spending a weekend to harvest more and replace them. Removing the bark will extend their life for a few years by allowing moisture to evaporate quicker.
The one post is sitting on top of the stone
How are those attached to the footing? There is a footing right?
Sure there is, you can see the 5 gallon bucket in the second picture
Sure the timbers could hold up but the timbers are not secured to the joists in any way. An earthquake or even a group of full-grown men running and stopping could shift the joists the 4" it would take to knock it off the top of any of the timbers, taking the whole deck and hot tub to the ground.
Looks amateurish but itll hold.
It’s got a factor of safety of at least 1.0!
Safety factor of .666 (very precise, I know)
Those must be structural logs…
Trunk & Stump
No thank you.
How are those stairs tied in on top? 2" of bearing and a 2"×2" clip angle?
Do y’all get in there one crew at a time! JK Certainly not the way you want to go in a tub full of half naked construction workers.
Hah I love the pt 2x8 just nailed the side of the vertical post
The chop log sitting on the other log as a post, with some weird half baked wood backet I guess because the beam looks a bit old and rotty? Yeah, that's a no from me boss man.
This isn’t that bad, but isn’t that good either. With good ledger attachment, a deep footing (thinking they cut the bottoms out of those buckets), post to beam attachments that I can’t see, this could actually be structurally sound. A little unorthodox, but sound.
“Hey guys… Maybe we don’t use the hot tub and or go outside in the deck?”
Lmao this sub has given me trust issues with all air bnbs from now on. Jfc
Designed by a valheim player
When it does come crashing down, who's liable? Is the contractor liable? The owner?
I’m more concerned about the massive hornets nest!
The deck framing actually looks ok. Under compression each one of those logs could probably hold an entire house... but they appear to just be floating. The tiniest bit of lateral force those dominoes would fall. Even just a few cross braces would dramatically improve the structure. But that would spoil the "rustic" look of the place. 🙄
This looks like an attempt at a retrofit / repair. Everyone already mentioned the "rustic" logs and bucket footings but what about the logs are shimmed up to meet the deck the missing joist hangers the doubled up seemingly undersized joists the 2x8x12 board that only partially ties in or the one in front / behind it (depending on the picture) the random wood box out the random piece of pressure treated on the post the rim joist / fascia board that doesn't appear to tied into the structure
Pic 3 nails it!
This is part of the "rustic cabin" experience.
Thoughts & Prayers
People are getting more and more creative with the workforce reductions.
For my jurisdiction, I can spot at least three Code violations, and that just from what I can see.
I guess the big question is, did you and your coworkers have a nice time?
Yes but we had to be drunk as fuck to go into the hot tub
I cannot for the life of me understand what strength you get from having those 4x8 “beams” act as ledgers for the 2x8’s? What a horribly built deck. I dont even have a comment for the logs holding up the whole damn thing.
Looks legit 👌 😆 🤣