Top 5 Things You Should Not Do to Your Hot Tub

Energy House encourages our customers to get into their hot tub and relax and believe owning a HotSpring® Spa makes Every Day Made Better™. To keep enjoying your hot tub our service technicians recommend following these guidelines for what not to do to your hot tub. Regular maintenance of your hot tub could save our customers a call to our service department and costly repairs. Just like most valuables, you can extend the life of what you own if you take good care of it. For example, you would not leave your car sitting in the garage for months at a time without driving it, change the oil at the recommended mileage mark, and clean your car inside and out when it gets dirty. All of these things combined help down the road to having a better-looking vehicle that runs smoothly years later. A hot tub is a machine like your car that needs minimal maintenance to keep running smoothly.

1.       Do not skip out on routine water care: It is very important for your safety to maintain sanitary water of your hot tub. When it comes to water care, test the water weekly with a test strip and add spa water care based on your results. Another time to test the water is just before you get in to make sure the water is balancing out and ready to get in. If you smell an odor, see a green color, or suds in the hot tub, it is time to drain and refill, as the water is no longer sanitary.
2.     Do not forget to clean your filters: After talking with our service manager about the calls and scheduled backyard visits, he said about 70% of the time the issue is caused by dirty filters. The good news is that if customers clean their filters, they can prevent a technician from coming out to their hot tub. We sell two different types of filter cleaner one that is a spray and the other is a deep conditioning filter cleaner, either product works wonders. The filters should be cleaned every 2-4 months and replaced every 2-21/2 years. Also, another trick is to rotate the filters, meaning one filter runs the water with the circulation pump and the other filters with the jets. It is important to give this main filter a break by moving another filter in its place. The filter that runs the circ. pump will have a gray cap, so it is easy to identify. 
3.        Do not forget to care for your hot tub cover: Wipe the spa cover clean, we offer a cover spray that is formulated to keep your cover clean. Leave your cover open for an hour or so right after putting chemicals into the hot tub. Don’t let the cover get too heavy, this is especially important for those in areas where there is snow during the winter, such as: Shaver Lake, Squaw Valley, Oakhurst, and Bass Lake.  Pro tip: allow your cover to fully dry out once a month, this will help extend the life of your cover.
4.        Do not quit maintaining your hot tub: Do not forget to maintain weekly water care, clean your hot tub cover periodically, clean your filters every 2-4 months, and drain and refill hot tub based on use. If you can maintain a schedule for making sure that these steps are not completely forgotten in the mix of life, then you will have a well-functioning easy to use hot tub in your backyard. For our customer who use the salt sanitizing system, the hot tubs control panel will alert you when the salt in the water is getting low and needs to be replaced. Do not leave your hot tub full of water and not care for the water by testing and adding water care products. Do not turn the power off and leave the spa full of water, this can lead to freezing of the pipes, especially during winter months in places that snow. A frozen hot tub is a costly mistake. Change the silver ion cartridge every 4 months. Drain and refill as needed. This is based on usage; how many people are getting in the hot tub at one time and how often the hot tub is being used. A good indicator of when it is time to drain and refill is when the PH balances are getting off the scale more than your usual weekly maintenance seen on the test strip. 
5.        Do not use your hot tub as a bath: Another way to keep your hot tub water clean and ready for a soak is to not use your hot tub as a bath. If you had a long day or just went to the gym, your hot tub is not the first place that you should go. A quick rinse in the shower will be sufficient for you to be ready to hop in and relax. Same goes for wearing lots makeup and hair products, if you know there might be a chance of getting your face and hair in the water, leave the makeup and hair spray off or wear waterproof makeup. Same goes for lotions, sunscreen, sweat, dirt, etc. Your hot tub filters will thank you. Also, laundry detergents with lots of soap can easily create bubbles or foam in your hot tub. Rinsing your swimsuit with water after use will keep them clean and your hot tub foam free.