Maintenance schedule
For reference:
- 2oz is roughly the inside of the cap of one of our chemical bottles. If going for less, eyeballing is typically fine.
- It's a good idea to check the chemical levels using a test strip more than just once every Saturday—at least while the ACE systems is broken (see below) I try to check sometime in mid-week (Wednesday) and to adjust accordingly.
After Each Use
- [Touchscreen] Press the power button to turn off the jets and lights
- [Touchscreen] Press the clean button (a water droplet with a circular set of arrows within it) and press the button to confirm and start it
- Place half a teaspoon of "spa sanitizer" or chlorine. (sodium dichloro-s-triazinetrione dihydrate) into the tub
- Close the lid carefully (with the jets on)
- Verify that you turned the light by looking at the downforward facing lights in the corners.
If the last time you tested the water with a strip it was high, you might be able to skip adding chlorine.
Each week (Saturday)
- Open the top fully and turn on the jets.
- Place the spa net right over the intake for the water into the filters in the left corner of the tub closest to you. Once the jets are on, the pressure of water rushing in will hold it in place. This will cause the net to capture any bigger chunks before they are sent into the filters where they are much harder to get.
- Add ~2oz of "Spa Shock" or "Oxidizing Shock" to the tub with the jets on. This will kill/destroy anything in the tub. It's important to do this once a week. Wait 5 minutes.
- Check the levels using one of the 4/5-way test strips. There are instructions for using them on the bottle but it's pretty easy. Submerge for a 5-10 seconds and then check against the key on the bottle. Make sure to close the bottle before you get your hand all wet.
Based on the results from the test strips, you might need to adjust things. In each case, add no more than 1oz at a time to the running jets and then give things five minutes. Then retest with a new test strip.
Adjust accordingly by adding the following order in which they are listed on the test strip bottle (top-to-bottom):
- Sanatizer/chlorine
- Alkaline increaser [almost certainly not necessary; if it looks close, skip it]
- PH increaser/decreaser
Typically once you've done this (or maybe even before) there might be some scum that has collected along the edges of the water. The shocks sort of "releases" organic material into the water in this way. Use the magic eraser style sponge to clean that up. It comes right off.
Once you're done, you can out any leaves and/or gross looking foam with the spa net.
Each month (last weekend of the month)
Clean filters (TBA)
Every 4-6 months
Drain and refill... (TBA)
- Last time was last July.
Things to know
Flashing lights
On the front of the tub, there are two lights. The solid blue light means that it's on. The green light will be solid if the tub is functioning well and green if it needs intervention.
Because of the current issues with the ACE system (described below) the green light is always flashing. This is OK.
Salt Water Tub & ACE system
We have a salt water tub but the salterwater system is currently broken.
There is a system called ACE built into the hot tub. It includes a module with a series of chips that is placed down the intake tube that runs inside the filter farthest to the left. It includes both a salt sensor and hardware to do electrolysis which converts the salt in the tube into chlorine. You can control the amount of electrolysis (and the amount of chlorine) through the digital display when you click the water droplet button.
The ACE module costs $1100 to replace so we have opted not to do that right away. What this means that we have add chlorine regularly. If we do this, the tub will work fine.
