A Hot Tub Enclosure for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCXXXVIII

hot-tub enclosure

Few freelancers are more irksome to our Antisocial Network Staff than the ones who repeat the same tired posts multiple times in a sorry attempt to collect more pennies. It's much, much worse, however, if the original was utter crap to begin with. Which brings us to today's nominee, an eHow.com "contributor" (that's what they called them back in the day) we'd already caught once, pounding out truly worthless instructions for a "cheap" gazebo. Let's welcome back Heidi Cardenas, whose "Cheap Way to Build Enclosure for a Hot Tub" somehow ended up at Synonym.com.

Last time around, we upbraided Cardenas for her slapdash plans that not only didn't include any steps to make the gazebo level or plumb, they also didn't make any sense. Well guess what: she didn't do any better this time out! Cardenas started by telling her followers to,

"Measure a 10 feet by 10 feet square and pound the stakes into the four corners."

We respectfully submit that it might be a good idea to fit the enclosure to the tub, huh? Following that step, Heidi wants people to,

"Dig a 5-inch wide, 2-foot deep hole at each corner and pour 2 inches of pea gravel into the bottoms of the holes."

Presumably, "5-inch wide" refers to the diameter, but one never knows. So, next is to,

"Position the posts in the holes and fill with cement."

Uhhh, yeah: "position"  them... Since Leaf Group lopped off the materials list, we have no idea what the dimensions of said posts are, but they might be 4-by-4s. So, now what? well. we're s'posed to,

"Nail or screw the boards at the top edges of the posts, on the inside of the posts."

What boards, you ask? Who knows; not to mention that it's physically impossible to attach boards to all inside surfaces of such posts (think about it). Heidi also wants us to make 8-foot by 3-foot "frames" of 2-b-y-2s, slap on some lattice, and then

"Position two frames on the outside of each post and screw them to the posts to form the corners of the enclosure."

Probably not the outsides, Heidi: they'd just be sticking out like weird wings.

So we're left with four posts sticking out of the ground with lattice wings and "boards" nailed across the top. Sadly, there's no way to look at the actual plans our Dumbass of the Day used – if there are any, which is doubtful – because she claimed to have used books for all of her reference material. Yeah, sure: probably another "instructable."

DDIY - CONSTRUCTION