Thinking of renting a house that has a jacuzzi, spa, hot tub, whatever have you on the back porch.

Maintenance doesn't seem like a big deal given the benefits ... but does anyone have experience with what this'll do to utility cost?

6/3/2008 11:15:00 AM

I have experience with "left the water heater on a few degrees too high" and got an extra 50 bucks thrown onto my power bill that month. But it would probably have a lot to do with how often you use it.

6/3/2008 11:21:37 AM

does this come down to how hot you keep the water? how long you have to wait for it to heat up? or do you pretty much have to keep the water at operating temperature 24X7?

6/3/2008 11:25:05 AM

Keep it near operating temperature all the time. Otherwise you have to heat up hundreds of gallons of water each time you use it which will more than out weigh just keeping up the temp. Think of how your A/C, or heat works in your house.

6/3/2008 11:52:21 AM

I have had one for a couple of years. If you have a newer one with a cover thats in good condition you will be ok.

During the summer months it will have almost no effect on your electric bill. Water holds heat for a long time and when its hotter than all hell during the day it never even gets a chance to cool. During winter they say its ~1.00 per day if it is really cold.

From a hot tub owner I can promise you that $1.00 a day for 4 months of the year is certainly worth the expenditure. Especially if you are renting and do not have to deal with repairs.

6/3/2008 11:57:11 AM

ours is about $50/month, at least in the winter

this is in northern WA, though, so it's slightly colder than NC, and it's a pretty good size hot tub.

6/3/2008 11:59:33 AM

paging dharney

6/3/2008 12:23:16 PM

If you're worried about your electric bill, you can't afford a hot tub. I'd guess mine is $40/month, even in summer. It's like adding a second hot water heater, which is probably the largest electricity user in your house after the A/C.

6/3/2008 12:26:09 PM

Quote :

"If you're worried about your electric bill, you can't afford a hot tub"

that's crazy talk. there's nothing wrong with doing research before you make a major purchase like this

6/3/2008 12:56:21 PM

just dont turn it on and call it a pool

6/3/2008 1:18:18 PM

The place I've lived at for the past 2 years has a hot tub


I got lots of know-how with this one


Huge Factor = age of hot tub.

The pump on it was new, so that was cool, but hte insulation/shell was old. Basically the insulation was nothing more than that canned insta-hardening foam shit, and it was breaking off.

For a good, decent hot tub, yeah, $50/month extra sounds about right. For mine it was easily $100.

temperature wise-set it at one temperature and leave it alone, unless you are planning on not touching it for a long time, >month. Mine goes up to 104F, I'd usually keep it around 102. Watch out for shitty roommates who don't give a fuck about things and press buttons when they aren't supposed to.


Summer 06 I set the hot tub down to about 80F and kept the circulation jets on a lower cycle (for mine its recommended continuous cycle, i went down to 8h cycle) and I saw about a $50 reduction in my electric bill, which was very nice.

In March of this year, i drained the hot tub completely and turned everything off, my electric bill was $100 cheaper than in the previous month.


Make sure you are aware of the age and insulation of your hot tub shell. THe new ones are insulated very well, so you don't lose near as much heat. Oh and the hot tub covers are really inefficient, so just go for what is recommended by your hot tub guy, I wouldn't spend TOO much money on one cause none of them are all that great at holding the heat.


Don't forget you gotta pay for chemicals too

I had an ozone system on mine, chlorine free, so I had to buy shock, clarifier, and a nature2 purifier about every ~4 months and it cost me about $80 bucks, so expect about $20/month to keep the hot tub clean for regular maintenance

filters cost about $50/a piece if you get the larger sizes (you gotta get what fits, so idk about yours) but they will last a long time if you take proper care of them.

about every 4 months you'll want to drain the hot tub, clean, and refill. If ur not ever using it, this isn't needed as much, but if you are regularly using it, then you'll need to do this.

Women are very damaging to hot tubs, because of shit like lotion, sunscreen, perfume, long hair, all that collects can clog the filter and eventually dirty the water. If the water starts looking green after use, shock the hell out of it. If the color doesn't go back to clear blue, you'll need to drain it completely


Use a non-sudsing detergent to clean the filter (like dishwasher detergent, cascade)


adding oils or smells like eucalyptus is cool, but be careful cause some can damage the filter if you use it a lot.


anything else let me know. I've gotten pretty familiar with the pump/electrical system too. Air pockets are a bitch sometimes.

[Edited on June 3, 2008 at 1:53 PM. Reason : .]

6/3/2008 1:51:09 PM

If I rented a college place with a hot tub I sure as hell would never get in it.

6/3/2008 1:51:57 PM

Quote :

"If I rented a college place with a hot tub I sure as hell would never get in it."

nah, that's ridiculous. Hot tubs are great to have. Just when you move in, drain the hot tub completely, scrub it and clean it well, clean the filter well, and you'll be fine. There's nothing to really worry about.

As long as you add shock, chlorine, or whatever (ozone works well too) bacteria and algea or whatever won't be able to survive in it. Take proper care and there's nothing to worry about.

6/3/2008 1:58:25 PM

ozone or oxone?

6/3/2008 2:25:57 PM

^^ Fair enough.

6/3/2008 2:26:39 PM

^^

Ozone, O3

It kills germs, bacteria very well. You need an ozonator for your hot tub to make it. Has a noticeable odor, smells very 'clean' but not pungent like chlorine is in a pool

Ozone Info website
http://www.spadepot.com/spacyclopedia/aaozone.htm

6/3/2008 2:43:48 PM

Ozonator + Spa Frog FTMFW

Ever since adding those two things I hardly have to do anything to my water.

6/4/2008 12:05:34 AM

my hot tub added about 45 to our electric bill but we hardly ran it

6/4/2008 12:08:00 AM

Interesting tid bit about summer.

All last summer I pretty much left the heat off (set on 70). It was miserably hot here anyway and no one wanted to get in and sweat more at night. On a few occasions some drunken individuals would get in at night and set it to 102 degrees or something.

The next day I would put it back on 70 and it would stay above 100 for DAYS afterward. This is with the heat shut down. This pretty much proved to me that it was using no energy on heat this time of the year since it was about 100 degrees every day. It still had the filtration cycle which uses power to run the pumps but the heater is supposedly the biggest electricity consumer.

6/4/2008 12:10:06 AM

My hot tub has been here since 4/20/2006. The heat was kept on low last June-August but other than that it has been running since then. For about the last 30 days it has been shut down because the cover caved in and I do not have a new one yet. Notice the power bill has not really dropped.

I think the biggest save on my power bill is my room mates changing. My current ones never mess with the thermostat. Also we used to have a bunch of traditional light bulbs in the upstairs fans that put off a bunch of heat and used power. They have been changed with low wattage ones or compact fluorescents. Those keep the rooms cooler and also use less power. Last summer the blower on my AC unit slowly died and I did not know until it finally quit. I was probably losing a huge amount of efficiency there.

My hot tub is a 2002 Jacuzzi Aero Select. The age of the hot tub is definitely something to consider. I have not had to replace anything on it, and believe me it has taken some abuse. Since buying it the only thing I have changed is installing the ozone injector on the port that was designed for it (it was "ozone ready" this cost about $80 for the parts but has been well worth it.

6/4/2008 12:24:54 AM

50$ a month seems insane for a hot tub.

6/4/2008 7:03:32 AM

insane like too much, or insanely cheap?


i don't think that's too much at all. It's a luxury. Think about everything else you spend more than $50 each month?

cable is insane. no way TV should be fucking that expensive.

btw here's my billing history and analysis graph from progress

basically when i first moved in i had a guy that kept turning the thermostat to 68, we had the hot tub at 104, and the house leaked cold air like nobody's business. It sucked. Those are the early big spikes

the second summer I turned the hot tub down, kept the thermostat higher, and it helped out a lot more.

the spikes around february-march of this year was for a new roommate that kept on fucking with the thermostat a lot and took 3 showers a day. he wasted a lot of electricity, leaving my computer on and my tv on with the stereo blasting at like 3 am and just forget about it. douchebag.

6/4/2008 10:29:11 AM

active solar? That would be free (after installation) and if you're already spending 50-70$ a month it would probably pay for itself over a couple summers. It's just so silly spending all that money heating up water when all that usable sun is beating down all over the place.

I haven't really done much research but it seems like there's plenty of products out there. Even if you spend 600-800$ on a solar heater for a spa it'll pay for itself within a few years.
http://outdoors.pricegrabber.com/heaters/p/2061/form_keyword=spa%20solar%20heater/rd=1/skd=1/st=query/

I guess this is really only an option on a house though, not so much an apartment.

[Edited on June 4, 2008 at 11:06 AM. Reason : .]

6/4/2008 10:53:27 AM

since we're on the topic of hot tubs...

is there any way to get a really good deal on one?

eg is this the high season and deals will be better in the winter?

6/5/2008 9:26:24 AM

If you can find enough guys to move it yourself then buy a newer one on craigslist. That is what I did. I paid $1200 for a hot tub that would have been about $5,000 new. The power cable is $3 a foot , and then you need someone who knows how to hook in on your electric panel. I managed to get a friend to wire mine up too.

It took 9 guys to move it from the guys house I bought it from and bring it around my building to put it in place. Every damn one of us was lifting like hell too. We made a sling out of a tarp and some 2x4s and that is how we carried it vertically.

The guy we bought it from asked my roomate if he was an engineering student, my roomate replied "no I work in construction". . I guess he was pretty fucking impressed that we got it off his deck, down the stairs, and on the trailer without damaging it or his house at all.

6/5/2008 9:52:56 AM

http://raleigh.craigslist.org/for/700422670.html

Go offer this guy $3500 or less, I bet nobody is beating down his doors to buy it. Most people have no idea how to move one of these. He will soon realize that hot tubs do not resell for anything close to retail.

http://raleigh.craigslist.org/for/696767643.html
Looks like a good deal.

http://raleigh.craigslist.org/for/691364766.html
This one has a ton of jets which is nice, and a motivated seller.

http://raleigh.craigslist.org/for/652627647.html

The people that are moving are the best ones to buy from, especially if they have a late model tub and need to get rid of it. The people I bought mine from live downtown and were about to have their house torn down to build one three times the size. (it was on prime land) It was going to be easier for them to buy a new one afterwards than store it and move it back. Plus mine is kind of a base model and they probably decided to upgrade.

My only regret with mine is that it is not deeper and does not have more shoulder jets. When I move I am gonna leave it and buy a better one.

6/5/2008 10:04:03 AM

^oh nice that first one has a subwoofer. When are they gonna start putting oleds in hot tubs?

6/5/2008 10:17:12 AM

i'd be a little weary of buying hot tubs from random people on craigslist.


I'm sure the prices are rock-bottom, but you are risking a lot here.

I'd rather buy new from a reputable dealer and get a good warranty so if there are holes/leaks or any shit goes down with the pump i'm covered.

6/5/2008 11:22:59 AM

Quote :

"nsane like too much, or insanely cheap? i don't think that's too much at all. It's a luxury. Think about everything else you spend more than $50 each month? cable is insane. no way TV should be fucking that expensive. "

I felt it was very high.

I dont have cable TV.

6/6/2008 4:51:15 PM

so the gf is in the market for one of these

where is the best place to shop for them?

6/6/2008 5:12:20 PM

I'd try out Rising Sun Pool/Spa on hillsborough/western intersection. I usually shop for chemicals there.


not a bad place.


I've heard jacuzzi brand isn't that great, so maybe avoid that one. The others all seem to be pretty good though (Sundown, Hot Springs, etc)

6/6/2008 5:40:13 PM

How much it will cost REALLY depends on what you get. There's a HUGE difference in quality out there.

My family has been in the hot tub/spa business for the past 25 years (actually oldest in NC). We've carried a lot of the bigger brands but now we only carry Watkins (Hot Springs, Tiger River, Hot Spot, Limelight, etc.). The others just were never as good (there are competitors that are as good but we don't carry them due to territory issues since we've got 4 stores).

A GOOD spa will run you $20-50/month depending on the spa (i.e. that HS Grande posted above is a BIG bitch & you will pay more. Something smaller like a Solana HS Jetsetter (3-4 person vs. 7-8 person) will run you $20/month usually. The absolute shit that you find at places like Home Depot & a lot of "Pool & Spa Warehouse" places will run you a LOT more. Most of them aren't fully insulated (and some will have covers so that you can't tell or foam a board on the bottom so that it looks like they are) or will use much lower quality foam (amazingly, there's a difference although not as much as one that isn't fully insulated).

For the cheapest difference, you need to cut the operating cycle down to it's longest setting (varies, some don't even offer that option), keep the temp reasonable (100-104degrees doesn't seem like much of a difference but it can add a few bucks), & keep the filters clean. We usually recommend people clean their filters at least once a month & replace them every couple of years (depends on the filters).

You might want to check out http://www.poolspaforum.com for some good info. Lots of owners, industry reps, & experience there.

[Edited on June 6, 2008 at 10:44 PM. Reason : .]

6/6/2008 10:44:04 PM

Good Info, thanks for the link too

6/7/2008 5:32:27 PM

So I've been doing some more research and it sounds like getting a hot tub with a circulation pump is vital to keeping the monthly bills down. the cheapest one at that spa place on capital in mini city (rec warehouse) that has a circ pump is like $6700 The guy said that anything below that in price will cost at least $40-$50 in bills every month.

Does that make sense...you HAVE to have a circ pump if you want your bills to be reasonable? ($20ish).

7/1/2008 9:20:43 AM