Have You Made These Mistakes with Your Hot Tub?

A spa or hot tub is a luxurious addition to any home. However, without proper care, your hot tub can become dirty or unpleasant. And routine maintenance and cleaning aren’t the only factors when it comes to keeping your hot tub clean.

Are you making these common mistakes with your hot tub? Learn what they are and how to avoid them here. #SpasUnlimited #hottublife Click To Tweet

Common Mistakes Hot Tub Owners Make

Hot tubs come with their own unique set of requirements for proper usage and longevity. When you go shopping for a personal spa, keep in mind the most common mistakes hot tub owners make and how you can prevent yourself from making the same mistakes:

1. Forgetting about privacy
2. Wasting energy
3. Being too strict on energy usage
4. Neglecting proper maintenance
5. Allowing contaminants in the water

1) Forgetting About Privacy

The most common place for a private hot tub to be installed is the backyard. Relaxing in your new backyard spa sounds fantastic–until you remember you have neighbors who might be able to get a great view of your spa out their windows. Give yourself a little privacy with a fence, a wall of plants, or simply strategic spa placement to prevent someone from spying on you. You’ll enjoy the enhanced feeling of privacy during a spa session.

2) Wasting Energy

If you’re not in your hot tub, there’s no reason for the jets to be running and consuming electricity. There’s also no need to keep the temperature at your favorite level constantly. In fact, leaving the water too warm for too long between cleanings can actually encourage bacterial growth in your spa. Take note of when you typically use your spa and try to reduce the amount of energy it consumes when you aren’t in it.

3) Being Too Strict on Energy Usage

While it definitely pays to not waste energy in powering an empty hot tub, it’s just as bad to swing too far in the opposite direction and shut down your spa entirely when it’s not in use. An idle hot tub filters the water and maintains a balanced temperature for ideal conditions when you’re ready to return. If you disconnect the power entirely, these systems come to a halt and your spa has no way to regulate itself. Not only can water sitting idly in the plumbing cause buildup and damage, but your water can turn cloudy and unpleasant through neglect alone. Don’t let that happen! Let your hot tub system clean itself.

Pro Tip: If you’re concerned about passive energy consumption, talk to your spa contractor about energy-efficient brands that offer a good balance between cost and comfort.

4) Neglecting Proper Maintenance

Your hot tub needs cleaning! While you certainly don’t have to clean it every day, you need to remember to complete this task often enough to keep both the shell and the water clean and prevent bacterial buildup. Get a more thorough guide to hot tub cleaning and maintenance here.

5) Allowing Contaminants in the Water

Sweat, makeup, lotion, sunscreen, dead skin cells, and more will accumulate in your hot tub with time. And since you don’t replace the water after every use, those contaminants build up with time and can lead to cloudy, smelly water. That would be bad enough on its own. But if you forget to use your hot tub cover, you can also find yourself contending with bugs, leaves, debris, and even small critters that find their way into your spa and introduce all sorts of new contaminants. Organic debris is especially bad since it can clog your spa’s plumbing and cause motor failure. Don’t let that happen! Scoop out larger debris immediately and clean your spa thoroughly to remove water contaminants. (For a quick clean to remove oily film from the surface of the water, toss a couple of tennis balls into your spa overnight and let them absorb the oil.)

Help Your Spa Last a Long Time

It doesn’t take much effort to put a little extra thought into the process of purchasing a hot tub or its ongoing maintenance once it’s installed. With these good habits firmly established and your hot tub ready to go, you won’t have trouble remembering to keep your spa in good condition!

Join the conversation to learn more about how to make sure your spa lasts a long time.