Spa Care

This depends on the usage of your hot tub, but a minimum of 4-6 months is a good guideline to determine when to change the water.

If your hot tub has a drain valve, you can connect a garden hose to drain it. If not, a submersible pump will work as well.

Use this time to clean out your hot tub and filters with a specially designed hot tub cleaning solution.

First, remove the filters from the hot tub and spray them down with a high-pressure garden hose attachment, ensuring you are getting between each pleat of the filter. Next, fill a large bucket with warm water and 250 mL of filter cleaner, allowing the filters to soak for 12 hours. Remove filters and spray down again.

We recommend you have a second set of filters on hand to ensure no shutdown time on your hot tub during the cleaning process, which should occur every 4 weeks.

During the winter months, always make sure you remove all snow and ice from your hot tub spa cover with a broom. Do not use a shovel, as it could potentially rip your cover.

Always use cleaning or care products that are specifically designed for hot tub covers. These products should be applied every 3 months to prevent your cover from drying out.

On a warm, dry day, you can remove the foam inserts and let them dry out in the sun to prevent the cover from getting waterlogged.

If the hot tub will remain operational while you are away, make sure the water is balanced before leaving. If you are only going to be away for a few days, it is a good idea to have someone monitor your spa.

If you are going to be away for a long period of time in the winter, you may consider shutting down and winterizing the hot tub to prevent potential freeze damage.

After adding any type of shock or sanitizer to your hot tub, you should wait a minimum of 2 hours before use to eliminate skin irritation or bleaching bathing suits.

When adding chemicals to your hot tub, always remove the cover, have jets on high circulation and wait 15-20 minutes between adding each additional product.

There are many reasons for hot tub water to go cloudy, but some of the more common reasons include:

• Dirty filters
• Low sanitizer
• High Total Dissolved Solids (TDS)
• Unbalanced water
• Excessive contaminates

If none of these appear to be the issue, you should contact your local dealer for hot tub service.

The range for pH is 7.2 - 7.6 ppm; alkalinity is 100 - 150 ppm; hardness is 150 - 250 ppm; and chlorine/bromine is 2 - 5 ppm.

Levels may vary slightly, but these ranges indicate a good guideline. We recommend using test strips and having your water tested by your dealer on a regular basis to ensure accurate water chemistry.

If your test strips are often showing high levels of chlorine/bromine, the easiest solution is to open the cover and let the spa vent, and then top up the spa with fresh water.

You will then want to recheck your levels with a new test strip, as other levels may now need to be adjusted.

If your levels are extremely high, come to Niagara Hot Tubs and let us advise on how to lower levels before using your spa again.