Anyone have a hot tub?

[aimeedyan]

{We are newbie hot tub owners, since we inherited one with our house.}

The cover to ours is a soft padded one but it dips down in the middle and collects water on top. So now it doesn't seal well on the sides even with it snapped closed. So... the hot tub runs more often than it should to maintain the heat that it's losing out the sides.

I like that the cover is light enough to take on and off easily but I hate 1)how it looks and 2)that it's running so much.

If you have one, what kind of cover do you have? Do you have issues with water collecting on top and it creating a crater?  

[april37]

We have a hot tub outside. The cover looks like this:



It's pretty thick and heavy (I can lift it by myself but it's not easy). It does not dip down in the middle and it has never collected water on top.  

[sillygoosegirl]

We have a hot tub cover similar to the one shown above. It's heavy. I can get it on and off by myself, but I can't exactly lift it--it's more of a sliding motion.

We also have a "soft cover" which is basically a sheet of something like bubble wrap (only much stronger), which floats on top of the water and keeps steam from getting into the cover. According to the hot tub guy, the steam will get into your hard cover and cause it to get very heavy and potentially sag over time.

In my state, you can get a tax credit for replacing your old cover with an energy efficient modern cover.

[aimeedyan]

Awesome, thanks y'all. I'm going to look around for a soft cover to go underneath, too. It makes sense that it'd be a combination of both water collecting on top and the steam underneath that's causing the issues.

[stellarose]

Can anyone share approximately how much they spend on operating your hot tub each month or year?  I am interested in getting one, but worried about how much cost and maintenance is involved.  

[sillygoosegirl]

Apr 4, 2013 22:59:46 GMT -5 stellarose said:

Can anyone share approximately how much they spend on operating your hot tub each month or year?  I am interested in getting one, but worried about how much cost and maintenance is involved.  

We bought ours when we moved in, so we don't have a baseline on our utility bills before we got it.  One salesman we talked to at one store said $10/month in ongoing costs.  Another salesman at another store told us that was ridiculous and to expect $50/month.

Unfortunately, it doesn't just plug in, it's wired up directly (if you buy one that runs off 240V you'll probably need to pay an electrician like $700 to install it; even if you buy one that runs off 120V you may need to do this), so we can't just put a Kill-O-Watt on it and measure how much electricity it is using.  Because I'm totally the kind of geek who would do that.

At our local water rates, it's about $7 to fill it (every 3 months).  We've had it 2 and a half months and are still on our initial $40 of chemicals from the spa store (and DH says if we buy our chemicals elsewhere, we can do the same stuff chemically for cheaper--for example, household bleach instead of super highly concentrated stuff that you buy at the hot tub store and you can burn yourself really badly with, and likewise baking soda instead of the hazardous spa product for lowering the pH).  It's the electricity that is the big unknown.  Our electricity bill is about the same as what the previous owners paid and the only thing we've done to increase our electricity efficiency was to replace maybe 20 high-use light bulbs with LEDs (cost of maybe $400 up front).  

The process with the chemicals takes about an hour, and is largely unattended (have to go out and do something for 3 minutes 3-4 times in that hour).  One guy told us to do it weekly, but we've also read online that some people spread it out and do a little bit each time they use the tub, which I think we will try next time as we haven't been super happy with our results yet.  

In our state, all hot tubs are required by law to come with a high level of internal insulation.  In some places you'll have to ask for it and pay extra for it.  

[stellarose]

Apr 5, 2013 10:44:29 GMT -5 sillygoosegirl said:

Apr 4, 2013 22:59:46 GMT -5 stellarose said:

Can anyone share approximately how much they spend on operating your hot tub each month or year?  I am interested in getting one, but worried about how much cost and maintenance is involved.  

We bought ours when we moved in, so we don't have a baseline on our utility bills before we got it.  One salesman we talked to at one store said $10/month in ongoing costs.  Another salesman at another store told us that was ridiculous and to expect $50/month.

Unfortunately, it doesn't just plug in, it's wired up directly (if you buy one that runs off 240V you'll probably need to pay an electrician like $700 to install it; even if you buy one that runs off 120V you may need to do this), so we can't just put a Kill-O-Watt on it and measure how much electricity it is using.  Because I'm totally the kind of geek who would do that.

At our local water rates, it's about $7 to fill it (every 3 months).  We've had it 2 and a half months and are still on our initial $40 of chemicals from the spa store (and DH says if we buy our chemicals elsewhere, we can do the same stuff chemically for cheaper--for example, household bleach instead of super highly concentrated stuff that you buy at the hot tub store and you can burn yourself really badly with, and likewise baking soda instead of the hazardous spa product for lowering the pH).  It's the electricity that is the big unknown.  Our electricity bill is about the same as what the previous owners paid and the only thing we've done to increase our electricity efficiency was to replace maybe 20 high-use light bulbs with LEDs (cost of maybe $400 up front).  

The process with the chemicals takes about an hour, and is largely unattended (have to go out and do something for 3 minutes 3-4 times in that hour).  One guy told us to do it weekly, but we've also read online that some people spread it out and do a little bit each time they use the tub, which I think we will try next time as we haven't been super happy with our results yet.  

In our state, all hot tubs are required by law to come with a high level of internal insulation.  In some places you'll have to ask for it and pay extra for it.  

Thanks for sharing.  I was just worried it would be like $100 a month!  Good to know about other options for chemical care.  Can I ask how many people your hot tub can hold?  I want a more generic, circular shape without designated seating spots.  Then you can fit more or less in there.  We are installing a gas furnace next fall and we were looking at putting a gas line in for a hot tub...need to research that option more.  But especially if we drop our electric bill by moving to gas it won't be so bad to have an electric one.

[whitepicketfence]

We have an almost identical cover to the one april37 posted. I can lift it by myself but not easily. It is does not collect water on top. In fact, it's somewhat slanted so that any rain water runs down the sides.

[sillygoosegirl]

Apr 6, 2013 19:43:40 GMT -5 stellarose said:

Thanks for sharing.  I was just worried it would be like $100 a month!  Good to know about other options for chemical care.  Can I ask how many people your hot tub can hold?  I want a more generic, circular shape without designated seating spots.  Then you can fit more or less in there.  We are installing a gas furnace next fall and we were looking at putting a gas line in for a hot tub...need to research that option more.  But especially if we drop our electric bill by moving to gas it won't be so bad to have an electric one.

We got a circular one that officially seats 5, but it also has a step that works as another seat for someone who only wants to be half in. And they aren't defined seats, so in theory we can probably fit more people than that if they were friendly. But so far our friends actually don't seem that interested, and we've not put more than 4 people in it at a time so far. I think we got the Nordic Warrier XL, but I can't look it up for you because I'm in Peru...