Hot Tubs 101: Winterizing/Turning Off to save energy?
March 9, 2023 5:40 PM Subscribe
We moved into a home with a hot tub five years ago. Five years later, I still don't have the hang of being a hot tub owner. I think it might be blowing up our electric bill. Help!
Our current home has a hot tub in the back yard, and it's lovely, but a bit old. It sits four people comfortably, and I'm guessing it's about 15-20 years old based on the hook-ups for an old style ipod/speakers for music that we entirely do not use.
The previous owner installed the hot tub because he was the type of person to use it every. single. night. Including all winter long. It turns out none of us are that type of person. I mean, it's a lovely thought, but it's also a lot of work to use a hot tub every night, or once a week, or even once a month in cold weather, when you could, I don't know, look out at the cold and the snow with a nice hot cup of something in your hands.
But the thing is, it seems like it might be using a lot of electricity/energy, and as electric rates go up and up (mainly because mysterious "delivery fees" keep increasing) we have been looking for more places to cut back. And I go to websites, and try to read up on whether it is safe to drain your hot tub over the winter, or whether this means certain doom for the plumbing/machinery, and everyone has a different opinion. I have failed to come to a useful conclusion as to whether it is a good or bad idea, or even safe.
While it's obviously a bit late for this year to be draining the tub, I would like to start planning for next year, or figuring out what is going on here, and whether this is normal, or the result of the hot tub aging out and becoming inefficient. We now have the means to monitor how much power is being used by the circuit the hot tub is using - and it's about 2,000 kwh a month. There is almost nothing else on this circuit, maybe a few LED lights. Is this normal? is this extraordinarily bad? Do you have a hot tub, and do you drain it for the winter, and does that result in pipes freezing and equipment breaking?
There has to be a better way to use it in nice weather or when company wants to try it out year round, but not have it bankrupt us! Or is this ridiculously hopeful of me?
Our current home has a hot tub in the back yard, and it's lovely, but a bit old. It sits four people comfortably, and I'm guessing it's about 15-20 years old based on the hook-ups for an old style ipod/speakers for music that we entirely do not use.
The previous owner installed the hot tub because he was the type of person to use it every. single. night. Including all winter long. It turns out none of us are that type of person. I mean, it's a lovely thought, but it's also a lot of work to use a hot tub every night, or once a week, or even once a month in cold weather, when you could, I don't know, look out at the cold and the snow with a nice hot cup of something in your hands.
But the thing is, it seems like it might be using a lot of electricity/energy, and as electric rates go up and up (mainly because mysterious "delivery fees" keep increasing) we have been looking for more places to cut back. And I go to websites, and try to read up on whether it is safe to drain your hot tub over the winter, or whether this means certain doom for the plumbing/machinery, and everyone has a different opinion. I have failed to come to a useful conclusion as to whether it is a good or bad idea, or even safe.
While it's obviously a bit late for this year to be draining the tub, I would like to start planning for next year, or figuring out what is going on here, and whether this is normal, or the result of the hot tub aging out and becoming inefficient. We now have the means to monitor how much power is being used by the circuit the hot tub is using - and it's about 2,000 kwh a month. There is almost nothing else on this circuit, maybe a few LED lights. Is this normal? is this extraordinarily bad? Do you have a hot tub, and do you drain it for the winter, and does that result in pipes freezing and equipment breaking?
There has to be a better way to use it in nice weather or when company wants to try it out year round, but not have it bankrupt us! Or is this ridiculously hopeful of me?
At my current electrical rate, 2000 kwh/month would cost around $300. That seems really high to me for a hot tub. When we actually had a hot tub in a previous house, it bumped our electrical bill up by about $10/month, which felt like an amazing deal for having a big tub of hot water available all the time.
Googling a bit, your measured consumption seems unusually high for a hot tub and certainly isn't what you would be expecting if you were to install a tub from scratch.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:04 PM on March 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
Googling a bit, your measured consumption seems unusually high for a hot tub and certainly isn't what you would be expecting if you were to install a tub from scratch.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:04 PM on March 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
Getting all the water out of a hot tub to over winter it is fairly difficult because all the lines for the jets aren't designed to drain. You need to decouple the pump and spa pack and then vacuum and blow out the lines. We also would stand them on end.
And then all the seals don't really like to be dried out. It is pretty common to have leaks when the tub was refilled. Some times they resolve themselves when the water comes to temperature sometimes not.
It is important that power be off whenever the water is low to prevent the element burning out.
Lowering the temp to the minimum will reduce electrical consumption while still keeping anything from freezing. It generally takes only a few hours to raise it back to operating temp.
posted by Mitheral at 8:06 PM on March 9, 2023
And then all the seals don't really like to be dried out. It is pretty common to have leaks when the tub was refilled. Some times they resolve themselves when the water comes to temperature sometimes not.
It is important that power be off whenever the water is low to prevent the element burning out.
Lowering the temp to the minimum will reduce electrical consumption while still keeping anything from freezing. It generally takes only a few hours to raise it back to operating temp.
posted by Mitheral at 8:06 PM on March 9, 2023
We bought a house with a hot tub in January 2020. We live in North Dakota, so the prospect of braving below zero temps to get in and out of the tub did not appeal. For the rest of that winter, we turned the thermostat down to minimum recommended by the manufacturer to keep the pump safe.
The following fall, we drained it completely and winterized, blowing out the pipes with a shop vac. So far it has worked fairly well when we refill in the spring. The only leaks we have had were from not getting the filter cover on tight enough (ie operator error).
posted by weathergal at 11:01 PM on March 9, 2023
The following fall, we drained it completely and winterized, blowing out the pipes with a shop vac. So far it has worked fairly well when we refill in the spring. The only leaks we have had were from not getting the filter cover on tight enough (ie operator error).
posted by weathergal at 11:01 PM on March 9, 2023
Just another data point: Our house uses about 1400 KWH a month during winter, including a hot tub that we do use regularly and keep hot all winter. That also includes heating the house and charging an electric car. Agreed that your usage seems high.
posted by mmoncur at 5:42 AM on March 10, 2023
posted by mmoncur at 5:42 AM on March 10, 2023
Our hot tub has a 4kW heater, and the pumps probably pull another 300W when they're running. So, if that were our hot tub, that means that the system would have been running for about 465 hours in a month. There are 720 hours in a month, so that's about a 64% duty cycle, which is incredibly high. Do you have a cover on the tub or is it always open?
posted by hwyengr at 8:02 AM on March 10, 2023
posted by hwyengr at 8:02 AM on March 10, 2023
And I forgot to answer the other question. I keep it running year round (and do use it until the temps hit about 10F (lower than that and my eyelashes start to freeze shut from the steam immediately freezing...)).
But recently having re-read the manual, there is an anti-freeze solution that you should add directly to the jet ports if you do drain in the winter, because there is enough residual system water that's lower than the drain which can hurt the system if it does freeze.
posted by hwyengr at 8:07 AM on March 10, 2023
But recently having re-read the manual, there is an anti-freeze solution that you should add directly to the jet ports if you do drain in the winter, because there is enough residual system water that's lower than the drain which can hurt the system if it does freeze.
posted by hwyengr at 8:07 AM on March 10, 2023
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by restless_nomad at 5:46 PM on March 9, 2023 [1 favorite]