How Much Does a Hot Tub Weigh? – [Empty, Filled, People]

If you ever needed to move your hot tub or build a deck to install the hot tub, then you probably asked yourself how much does a hot tub weigh.

On average, a hot tub weighs from 551 lbs (250 kg) for a 4-seater to 1428 lbs (648 kg) for a 10-seater. Almost every hot tub prospect will have this number listed under their specifications as ‘Weight Empty’ or ‘Dry Weight’.

You will also have another weight called ‘Weight Full’ that would indicate the total weight once the tub is filled with water. To calculate the weight of the full hot tub you need to add the tub’s dry weight to the amount of water it can hold, (For reference 1 litre of water weighs 1 kg or 2.2 lbs) and add an average weight of 185 lbs (84 kg) per occupant.

How Much Does A Hot Tub Weigh Dry Vs Filled

I made a research and collected different hot tub models and their empty / filled weights.

BrandModelSeatsEmpty (lbs)Empty (kg)Filled (lbs)Filled (kg)
Hot SpringsGrandee79404255,9202,685
Hot SpringsVanguard66953154,5402,070
Hot SpringsSovereign66102754,2901,945
Hot SpringsEnvoy58303754,9602,250
Hot SpringsAria56953154,2801,940
Hot SpringsProdigy55402453,8351,740
Hot SpringsTriumph45252404,0601,840
Hot SpringsJetSetter LX34802202,7551,250
Hot SpringsJetSetter34552052,6501,200

Notice how weigh is being reduced as you look at smaller models.

How can I make my hot tub lighter ?

Unfortunately, it is not possible to make a hot tub lighter as the weight is primarily determined by its size and the materials it is made of. However, there are some steps you can take to make the hot tub easier to move or transport, such as:

  1. Drain the water: If you need to move the hot tub, draining it first will make it significantly lighter and easier to handle.
  2. Disassemble the hot tub: If the hot tub can be taken apart, this will make it easier to transport and can also reduce its overall weight.
  3. Use a hot tub dolly: A hot tub dolly is a special type of cart designed to move hot tubs. It can help distribute the weight of the hot tub evenly, making it easier to maneuver.
  4. Enlist help: Moving a hot tub can be a challenging task, so it’s important to have at least two or three people to help you lift and carry it.

It’s important to keep in mind that hot tubs are heavy and cumbersome, and attempting to move them without proper equipment and assistance can be dangerous.

What If My Hot Tub Weighs Too Much

Once you know the total weight of the tub, you can then divide it by the size of the tub in square meters (feet) giving you a number in kilograms (pounds) per square meter (feet). This is the load that your surface must absolutely support. A structural engineer can help with your hot tub on deck or concrete pad designs to ensure they can withstand the full load.

If your deck is not engineered to hold the weight of the tub water, it could then collapse or it could cause timbers to sag.
As for the water, you have to know that rain is not the same as constant wet or leaks caused by sagging timbers due to excess weight.

hot tub failed

I have found an example where a small inflatable pool, nothing like a hot tub, totally bent the wood on the deck, made like a crater. It did not break the wood, but it bent it, almost as if it was stretched, completely damaged the deck.

More people are injured or even killed by collapsing decks than most people realize. Frank Woeste, professor emeritus of wood engineering at Virginia Tech is quoted in JLC as saying, “Except for hurricanes and tornadoes, more injuries and deaths may be connected to deck failures than to all other structural failures stemming from typical residential code loads, including seismic and snow loads.”

What Materials Cause My Hot Tub To Weigh More

Weight will vary depending on setup, piping, number of jets, number of motors, etc but this may give you an idea of what to expect. Hot tub shells, due to their size, can affect the weight the most.

Hot tub shells can come in a variety of materials, each having their own strengths and weaknesses. Acrylic hot tubs will give you the worst time moving them while plastic ones will allow you to maneuver them way easier.

The Heaviest – Acrylic

Acrylic is considered to be one of the most durable materials for a hot tub shell you can find today. The downside of it is that it is heavier than some of the other options. It can also cost more than materials like fiberglass, plastic, and vinyl.

Wood

In the early days, wood was a common material used for hot tub shells. Although plastic remains popular today, high-end wooden tubs still look beautiful and are usually made from cedar, redwood and other trees.

Getting a wooden hot tub is likely to cost more than purchasing one with a synthetic shell. While wood generally has a more natural, classic appearance than synthetics like acrylic, the downside is that it can’t be molded into smooth shapes for benches. Going further, it probably won’t hold heat as good and will have much higher energy costs.

Vinyl

While the vinyl shell is way less expensive and can be moved easily, you probably won’t get as much joy from using this kind of hot tub. It is not very durable and thus it is prone to cracks and tears far sooner than other materials. In some cases, damaged vinyl can be repaired.

The lightest – Rotomolded Plastic

A wide range of plastics can be used to make hot tubs, and one method is rotomolded plastic. This uses a plastic powder that is put on a mold, then heated until it melts and finally rotated until the entire mold is smoothly and evenly covered.

The result is a matte finish that could easily be considered a few steps north from vinyl. The Rotomolded plastic will also be lighter and more affordable than acrylic.

Best Places to Keep a Heavy Hot Tub

The reality is that the further the spa is from your back door, the less it will be used.

hot tub on concrete

If you own a house, many people opt for patio after a few years of fighting the grass. If you have the option of placing the hot tub a bit further from the door, ask yourself if you would be using the hot tub during winter. You shouldn’t walk all the way to the hot tub in the freezing cold weather. Otherwise, your deck is the best option.

For most hot tubs your deck should be able to hold 90 pounds per square foot. Most older decks will need to be reinforced a bit with a few extra stringers and 4-bys.

If you live in an apartment you should stay away from the idea of placing your hot tub on the balcony due to potential leaks that can cause damage to the building. In this case, just rent out a garage space at your complex and keep it in there. There is also very little risk of weight problems.

However, the safest bet would be to pay a couple of bucks to a licensed structural engineer to make the decision for you and save the big bucks for the kids.

I Want My Hot Tub on The Existing Balcony

Most balconies around the world provide amazing views and it makes a lot of sense to install your heavy hot tub right there. As I previously said, generally, having your hot tub on a balcony is a serious no go, however, it is not impossible.

hot-tub-on-balcony

For this to work your deck must be reinforced concrete, and it is especially important how it is tied into the building and what’s inside the concrete, such as steel L-beams.

Concrete has its structure buried inside where it can’t be seen and is really difficult to detect or inspect. The main problem is that you don’t know what is in your concrete for support or reinforcement.

Hence, without expensive testing it’s really difficult, not to say impossible to know how strong it is. Simply saying “reinforced concrete” doesn’t really mean anything until you can say specifically how it was constructed.

Find out when your balcony was built. Then look up the code requirements for deck construction at that time. That will give you some ideas. In general, older structures can be very inadequate by modern standards.

Twenty years ago decks were built thinking there wouldn’t be more than a few people standing out there. And then today comes a party with the deck full of dancing people and it’s all over the news. Numbers of deck collapses have shown that many of those old decks did not have a proper safety margin built into them.

How To Move An Empty Hot Tub

I can hear you asking yourself the following question: “How to move a hot tub easily?”. 

You might have sold your house and you want to take your hot tub with you. This could only be one of the reasons. Regardless of the reason, the easiest way to move an empty hot tub to a new home is to not move it at all. 

There are a number of time-consuming difficult tasks for getting the home spa ready for moving along with the real-life risks of personal injury or even damaging your property during the actual relocation.

I would say that recently most often, the hot tub owners choose to leave their hot tubs behind for the new owners of the home to enjoy in it and they just change a bit more money for it. If you haven’t moved your hot tub before or you are just not handy enough, just don’t try.

On the other hand, if you are someone who likes to calculate things and costs, let’s talk about that as well. The thing is when you take into consideration the money you will spend on the transportation of your hot tub, then the time you will waste preparing it, relocation, re-assembly, and the efforts and risks involved, it might not be worth it.

As a matter of fact, you may actually find out that the best option for you is to purchase a new hot tub when you move into your new home. Ideally, your old hot tub would be good to go at that time so you don’t regret leaving a brand new hot tub behind.

In case you really want to take your hot tub with you to your new home, then hire a moving company to do it for you, hassle-free.

How heavy is a hot tub?

Hot tubs come in different shapes and sizes. This means that they will weigh as heavy as their sizes allow and the materials used in their creation. For example, you could have two tubs, one inflatable, and another permanent. Although they might have the same capacity, their construction materials will make the latter a lot heavier than the former.

On average, the smallest hot tub will weigh around 500 pounds when empty and get as heavy as 3,000 pounds when full of water. The eight-person tub is approximately 1,000 pounds when empty and around 6,000 pounds when full.

How much does an empty hot tub weigh?

It is much easier to tell how heavy is an empty hot tub. Water makes the tub five to six times heavier. However, the type of hot tub you choose will also cause a significant difference in weight. Cast iron tubs often appear heavier than the rest because of the materials used in their modeling. So how much does a hot tub weigh without water? On average, hot tubs will weigh as follows when empty:

Hot tub per capacityWeight when empty
Inflated 2-3 people hot tubsNegligible
Inflated 4-6 people hot tubsNegligible
Standard 2-3 people hot tubs600 pounds
Standard 4-5 people hot tubs750 pounds
Standard 6-8 people hot tubs1000 pounds

4 person hot tub weight

Most 4 person hot tubs are either 3 or 4 person tubs or 4-5-person hot tubs. Therefore, you will not always find a tub that is exclusively a 4 person capacity. However, when you do, it will range from 650 to 750 pounds when empty and around 3 000 pounds when full. Note that these numbers will appear different depending on the brand you choose, the material used in the creation, and whether the tub is inflatable or not.

Hot tub weight in kg

One of the things you will need to pay attention to when moving a hot tub is its weight. While some people will comfortably understand the weight in pounds, some are more accustomed to kilograms instead. For this reason, here are the average hot tub weights in kg:

Hot tub per capacityWeight in kgs when emptyWeight in kgs when full
Inflatable hot tubsNegligible1000 to 1200
2-3-person hot tubs2721134
4-5-person hot tubs3401680
6-8-person hot tubs3652000

How much does a jacuzzi weigh?

Many people use the terms Jacuzzi and hot tubs interchangeably. For this reason, when one is asking about the weight of a standard jacuzzi, they are often asking about how much a two to three-person hot tub weighs.

A small jacuzzi or a 2-3-person hot tub will weigh between 300 to 600 pounds, which is about 270 kilograms when empty. A large jacuzzi will comfortably fall between 750 to 800 pounds or 340 kilograms when empty. This is to say that Jacuzzis weigh between 300 to 800 pounds depending on their capacities and the materials used to construct them.

How much does an 8-person hot tub weigh?

An 8-person hot tub is among the largest that you will find in the market today. Most come labeled between 6 to 8-person tubs or 8 to 10-person tubs. On average, such an enormous tub will fall between 800 to 1000 pounds. When filled with water, it can easily get as heavy as 6,000 pounds. This makes it one of the heaviest tubs to transport, and many people opt to have inbuilt ones instead.

How much does a 6-person hot tub weigh when full?

A hot tub that comfortably holds at least six people is a great family capacity tub. Many will lie between 4,500 to 5,000 pounds depending on how they are created and other accessories that come with the tub. Such weights are a bit cumbersome when it comes to transportation, but when you buy a new one directly from a manufacturer, you might get a transportation discount of a subsidized amount.

How much water does a 4-person hot tub hold?

You will need to know how much water your hot tub holds since this will significantly affect the amount of chemicals you use to treat and wash the tub. Many tubs come with their water capacities outlined in the manual, and so you won’t have to measure the tub’s interiors physically. A 4-person capacity tub is large enough to hold at least 715 liters of water when full.

5-person hot tub weight

A 5-person hot tub is a great family capacity tub. On average, it will weigh between 650 to 750 pounds, depending on the manufacturer’s choice of materials. This gets it to around 5,000 pounds when full of water.

How much does an average hot tub weigh?

An average hot tub often carries four to five people at a go. This makes the 4-5-person hot tub considered as a medium tub or, in this case, the average-sized tub. Such tubs weigh around 750 pounds when empty and 5,000 pounds when filled with water. However, an inflatable tub will not be as heavy since it is made of less dense materials and has fewer accessories.

How much does it cost to move a hot tub?

Moving a hot tub is often the most stressful part of buying one. You will need to add the moving cost to your purchase price, especially if the seller does not have after-sale services. Such costs will depend on the distance and quality of service you seek to receive. On average, you should expect to spend something between $350 and $400.

The average weight of an empty hot tub

Empty hot tubs only account for the material used to make them when you are seeking to inquire about their weight. An empty hot tub will range between 300 pounds to 800 pounds when empty, that is, two and eight-person tubs, respectively.

How much does an acrylic tub weigh?

You can easily find high-quality acrylic hot tubs, which are also considered lightweight options. Compared to cast iron hot tubs, you will be surprised to realize that the acrylic option only weighs 75 pounds relative to the 300 pounds cast iron option when empty. The heavier the tub, the more you will need to invest in your flooring work.

Emily Williams

Emily Williams

Emily is a passionate Hot Tubs researcher who loves writing about all things Hot Tubs! She has years of experience and a knack for simplifying complex concepts, these articles are here to answer all your burning questions in a simple and easy to read style.
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