First time hot tub owner questions
October 21, 2018 11:40 AM Subscribe
My wife and I just purchased a used hot tub. Looking for advice on maintainence and water treatment.
Hi all,
My wife and I just purchased a Watkins Envoy (Hot Springs brand) hot tub that’s about eight years old. It’s being delivered tomorrow, and we would like to get out ahead with any maintenance and treatment issues.
Our biggest question is what the recommended water treatment schedule is. My wife wants to use as few chemicals as possible, and also not worry about daily arduous water checks and balancing.
Every forum and YouTube channel seems to have a completely different opinion on all of this, and it is very difficult to get non-biased information. I cannot believe how contentious online spaces dedicated the hot tub’s are. It’s like a bad political forum, where everybody is accusing everybody else of being a “shill”.
Second question is the lid / lifter solution. The lid the owner has his very badly worn, and we’re looking to replace it. Prices on replacement covers are all over the map. Is there any recommended brand for a replacement cover? Should I shell out $300 for the OEM one?
Third, we paid $2200 for it, which seemed fair as it’s a $10-14k hot tub new. I confirmed there were no leaks and it was demoed by the owner with it filled. My understanding is that Watkins is one of the nicer brands you can get before approaching stratospheric prices. Is this accurate?
Please god help us, this is all very confusing and causing a huge amount of stress for something that is supposed to relieve it.
Hi all,
My wife and I just purchased a Watkins Envoy (Hot Springs brand) hot tub that’s about eight years old. It’s being delivered tomorrow, and we would like to get out ahead with any maintenance and treatment issues.
Our biggest question is what the recommended water treatment schedule is. My wife wants to use as few chemicals as possible, and also not worry about daily arduous water checks and balancing.
Every forum and YouTube channel seems to have a completely different opinion on all of this, and it is very difficult to get non-biased information. I cannot believe how contentious online spaces dedicated the hot tub’s are. It’s like a bad political forum, where everybody is accusing everybody else of being a “shill”.
Second question is the lid / lifter solution. The lid the owner has his very badly worn, and we’re looking to replace it. Prices on replacement covers are all over the map. Is there any recommended brand for a replacement cover? Should I shell out $300 for the OEM one?
Third, we paid $2200 for it, which seemed fair as it’s a $10-14k hot tub new. I confirmed there were no leaks and it was demoed by the owner with it filled. My understanding is that Watkins is one of the nicer brands you can get before approaching stratospheric prices. Is this accurate?
Please god help us, this is all very confusing and causing a huge amount of stress for something that is supposed to relieve it.
We have had a hot tub for about 7 years - one “free”, recently replaced with a new Jacuzzi.
Do you have any hot tub dealers in your area? Ours was happy to analyze a water sample for us and give us guidance on chemicals, even though our initial tub didn’t come from them.
We purchased some chemicals from them initially - and they also helped us order the correct cover (it was about $250) and a lifter since our first tub didn’t have one.
The amount of chlorine you need to add depends on how often your use it. We use ours every day (at least 1x a day, sometimes more often) and I add 2 teaspoons of chlorine granules and 2 teaspoons of oxidizer. This keeps the water clean and clear, but it rarely has a chemical scent.
I really encourage you to take a jar of water to your local hot tub place. They generally understand that most people don’t want overly-chemically water and will be happy to help you get off on the right foot.
posted by hilaryjade at 1:01 PM on October 21, 2018
Do you have any hot tub dealers in your area? Ours was happy to analyze a water sample for us and give us guidance on chemicals, even though our initial tub didn’t come from them.
We purchased some chemicals from them initially - and they also helped us order the correct cover (it was about $250) and a lifter since our first tub didn’t have one.
The amount of chlorine you need to add depends on how often your use it. We use ours every day (at least 1x a day, sometimes more often) and I add 2 teaspoons of chlorine granules and 2 teaspoons of oxidizer. This keeps the water clean and clear, but it rarely has a chemical scent.
I really encourage you to take a jar of water to your local hot tub place. They generally understand that most people don’t want overly-chemically water and will be happy to help you get off on the right foot.
posted by hilaryjade at 1:01 PM on October 21, 2018
I should add - I check the chemical balance frequently with the quick little dip sticks (every 2 days or so) and occasionally with the kits you can buy that have drops you add to a water sample.
Every once in a while, if I’m concerned about the ph or something, I scoop out a jar and take it to the local hot tub place for more precise testing.
It isn’t much more of a chore than any of the other little household things we do without thinking - certainly less of a pain than scooping the cat box or unloading the constantly full dishwasher. 😊
posted by hilaryjade at 1:05 PM on October 21, 2018
Every once in a while, if I’m concerned about the ph or something, I scoop out a jar and take it to the local hot tub place for more precise testing.
It isn’t much more of a chore than any of the other little household things we do without thinking - certainly less of a pain than scooping the cat box or unloading the constantly full dishwasher. 😊
posted by hilaryjade at 1:05 PM on October 21, 2018
Find out the recommended cleaning/maintenance schedule for the filters and follow it like clockwork. For example, I pull ours out and give them a good forceful rinse with the hose every week, and rotate their positions when they go back in. Quarterly they get a cleaning with spray cleaner or soak. You can add all the chemicals to your tub that you want but if your filters are dirty it won't matter much.
posted by donnagirl at 1:44 PM on October 21, 2018
posted by donnagirl at 1:44 PM on October 21, 2018
Best answer: Generally it's either use more chemicals, or use mostly just bleach and Ph-, but you need to check water more frequently.
Personally as a pool owner; the forums at troublefreepool.com matched my thoughts best. They also have a spa section, but I haven't looked at it since we got our hot tub 5 years ago since I haven't had water issues (but sigh, the top side controls just died).
Our water is really hard here, so on a water change, ideally I take it from my pool (which is constantly getting topped up each winter from the snow/spring rains) when possible. If I fill the hottub from the tap, I need to spend hours dumping in ph- and re-checking ph after 30 minutes of circulation. On our first fill I didn't, and quickly we got a lot of lime buildup. I needed to spend about 3 hours scrubing with vinegar to get rid of it so I'd advise being good about blancing PH/alkalinity early.
Get an app for pool chemistry - a good one will have settings to set the volume of your spa, you put in the reading, desired value and the chemicals you use and it tells you how much.
Beyond the aforementioned bleach (I use the 12% sodium hypochlorite that we get bulk from the pool store as well as chlor-2 granuals to build up/maintain stabiliser (cyanurate)) and PH-, we use a bottle of "anti-scale" stuff.
I used to add enough to take the spa up 5ppm of chlorine every time after we left the hottub (it's always just my wife and I) and I'd check the levels the next morning. At this point, I've got in my head how much the chlorine will drop when we use it vs. it not being used for a night, and I'll do a reading about once a week and otherwise add chemicals by rote.
At troublefreepool, there's a lot of hate for test strips, but in Canada it's ridiculously expensive to get a good chlorine kit, so I've made do with test strips.
My understanding of hot tub brands based upon our first failure of electronics is most of the "manufactures" use parts from a few suppliers and just put it together. Our "Freestyle" spa is manufactured by Sunrise Spas, a part of Leisure Manufacturing. But the spa control pack is Balboa, so all Balboa pumps/topside parts. Sunrise seems to have several sub brands. Jacuzzi is the name that everyone's heard of, but I don't know enough to say if they're quality to match their prices, or even if they don't use someone elses controls.
posted by nobeagle at 3:51 PM on October 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Personally as a pool owner; the forums at troublefreepool.com matched my thoughts best. They also have a spa section, but I haven't looked at it since we got our hot tub 5 years ago since I haven't had water issues (but sigh, the top side controls just died).
Our water is really hard here, so on a water change, ideally I take it from my pool (which is constantly getting topped up each winter from the snow/spring rains) when possible. If I fill the hottub from the tap, I need to spend hours dumping in ph- and re-checking ph after 30 minutes of circulation. On our first fill I didn't, and quickly we got a lot of lime buildup. I needed to spend about 3 hours scrubing with vinegar to get rid of it so I'd advise being good about blancing PH/alkalinity early.
Get an app for pool chemistry - a good one will have settings to set the volume of your spa, you put in the reading, desired value and the chemicals you use and it tells you how much.
Beyond the aforementioned bleach (I use the 12% sodium hypochlorite that we get bulk from the pool store as well as chlor-2 granuals to build up/maintain stabiliser (cyanurate)) and PH-, we use a bottle of "anti-scale" stuff.
I used to add enough to take the spa up 5ppm of chlorine every time after we left the hottub (it's always just my wife and I) and I'd check the levels the next morning. At this point, I've got in my head how much the chlorine will drop when we use it vs. it not being used for a night, and I'll do a reading about once a week and otherwise add chemicals by rote.
At troublefreepool, there's a lot of hate for test strips, but in Canada it's ridiculously expensive to get a good chlorine kit, so I've made do with test strips.
My understanding of hot tub brands based upon our first failure of electronics is most of the "manufactures" use parts from a few suppliers and just put it together. Our "Freestyle" spa is manufactured by Sunrise Spas, a part of Leisure Manufacturing. But the spa control pack is Balboa, so all Balboa pumps/topside parts. Sunrise seems to have several sub brands. Jacuzzi is the name that everyone's heard of, but I don't know enough to say if they're quality to match their prices, or even if they don't use someone elses controls.
posted by nobeagle at 3:51 PM on October 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by humboldt32 at 12:22 PM on October 21, 2018 [2 favorites]