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d1 wayfarer

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  1. HEHEH - I think I could write the book on shopping for a spa. One good thing about taking a couple months to research was that I could stop into a store and felt like I could read the salesperson's knowledge pretty good. Our final three spas: 1) D1 Wayfarer - bought this one at a great price/ great knowledgeable dealer w/ good trust relationship / BBB A+ rating. 2) Caldera Martinique - great spa, great relationship with dealer, but in the end, they stuck to a price and the D1 dealer threw in an electrical panel (since he knew Caldera would offer that), extra filter, great starter package and knocked a couple $$$ off for cash sale. 3) Sundance Hawthorne - Quite a bit more than 1 and 2 so eliminated to avoid our budget going up again. We also looked closely at a Limelight Flair floor model (too fancy), and the Marquis Resort (no circ pump). I do not think we would have been unhappy with the Caldera.
  2. Thought I would detail our recent Dimension One Wayfarer purchase and hope it might help someone else. I was surfing this board almost daily for some time before deciding to pull the trigger. I copied a ton of info from websites and compiled a list of things to consider. We have two kids age 6 and 4 so that was a large factor in our search. We started with a list of every single manufacturer of hot tubs and then eliminated as we went on. PRICE First up was the talk about price. Wife and I started our search thinking we would spend about $4500-$5500 on this thing. Ended up around $8000 by the time the tub was in the back yard. ENVIRONMENT Second was the type of environment we were looking for. Seems it was either A) Recreational – used for having friends over and to get a hot tub with some cool swirling water. These were lower cost since they seemed to skip some of the more essential functions of massage therapy. Therapeutic – The spa and its jets were manufactured to assist with muscle tension and massage. We talked about not being huge entertainers so the pictures on some brochures of multiple couples out on the back deck didn’t sway us. In reality we really thought if anything we would have one couple and their kids over and it would most likely be either the wives and kids in or the men separately, but seldom together. As a result our next decision was size SIZE Our deck and yard could handle either an eight foot or seven foot. We really decided to look more at water size than dimensions. I did not want too much water for chemical and refill reasons. In the end we went with anything under 425 gallons. 8 foot or 7 foot was no longer important to us. ELECTRICAL Next I took over the search on electrical. Thought we could make out like bandits since our home had an old Polynesian hot tub hooked up when we moved in (we got rid of it long ago). Problem I would find out was that the electrical panel was 40 amp and used 8 gauge wire. Which looked good at the time, but when we made our final decision, Dimension One’s warranty required 6 gauge wire. So that was a large unexpected cost to re-run the whole thing. Wish the dealers would have warned us about electrical. None of them said anything about this “hidden” cost. After all re-run and inspections, this added a nice chunk of change. LOCATION Once we began receiving brochures, we saw all kinds of cool set ups and outdoor settings that we started dreaming of. Deck, cement pad, or crushed stone. Lots of looking through this board to get thoughts. We ended up going with a cement pad which was another cost. This caused us to put things on hold until we saved up a few more bucks. Our hope of spending $4500-$5500 needed to be increased. The cement truck further left some ruts in the lawn and needed another few dollars to fill and re-seed. The location we selected and set the pad on was perfect, but we should have waited till we selected the spa before determining the exact placement. In the end, I thought I planned everything out well, electrical in to the tub would be hidden, cover lift goes to the wind and acts as a privacy barrier… but wait, the controls are on the other side. Bummer!!! So now our controls are on the opposite side of the deck, which we just shrugged off as not as big a deal as it was when we found out. The controls, exterior steps, cool seat or interior steps, electrical input to the tub, lifter opening should all be known before finalizing things. We kept the tub close the back door to help us monitor the kids when they get older also. I put a lot of thought into the wind direction, and use in the winter and how much snow would turn to ice when exiting. PERMITS Our township required both electrical and a hot tub install permit… a couple more dollars to add to your mix CABINET No brainer for us here. We both agreed we wanted a synthetic panel around the tub. No wood. It was nice being able to select color of the shell and the cabinet. FULL FOAM vs. NON FOAMED – I know this has been debated and lots of messages on this board relate to this. I think I took a week on this decision alone. Lots of reading online too. We are in Michigan and elected to go with full foam. We actually bought a foam product called volara to act as a floating blanket to help create another layer of between the water and the cover since we really want to use this during the winter. Problem is it comes in 60” so there are some small gaps on the sides. Tried the old pool bubble wrap type, but found the call for heat and jet coming on would push it aside and it would not stay in place. Found lots of info on covers during this stage and R factors. It was my belief that more important than the full foam or not was the cover. Seems testing shows most heat loss is from water surface not through shell, but through cover. WARRANTY I did a ton of research online about warranties and eliminated a few manufacturers at this stage. DEALER Some know their stuff and some want a sale. It was easy to determine who was who for us and we were able to eliminate more here. SHELL Eliminated some more here as we decided on the acrylic shells. SEATS The tub we wanted needed to have a "cool seat" or steps that our 4 year old could use. She calls it her seat and it is perfect for her little frame. Checked with our pediatrician and we turn down to 99 degrees when we know they haven't been in for a couple days. They basically "swim" but it is the greatest thing in their world right now. Click up to 103 when we're getting out and its up to temp by the time they are in bed an hour or two later. LIGHTING Some models we looked at had all the led outside lights and we just didn’t think that was a big deal for us. Some had them in the tub themselves too. The one thing we ruled in was to have the spa light an LED light that was changeable. We are happy we got that. The wife likes red, I like blue and the kids like the rotate varying colors. Glad we got a lighter color interior cause it really shines at night. I wonder if we had gotten a dark blue interior color if the light would reflect as much. Ours is a speckled sand/white. HEATER AND PUMP By now we were narrowing a search down to about 10 tubs. This step eliminated us to a core group. We elected to go with two pumps and the tub had to have a circ pump. I looked at it like this: a circ pump = 1.25 amps where a jet pump pulls = 14 amps. So circs running 24 hrs = 30 amps where jets on a minimum of 2 times a day for at 3 hours = 84 amps. I like the idea that the water and chems are constantly being circulated, filtered, and mixed, not just twice a day or if the heater is running. OZONE Looked at the two types of ozonators A) ultraviolet lamp and corona discharge. There are a bunch of messages about these two also but our decision was to just have ozone. We would let the dealer/manufacturer of our final selection tell us which will be installed. CONTROLS We wanted to be able to control pressure. Our tub has every single jet control from anywhere from full off to full on and anywhere in between. That was huge for us JETS The number of jets was somewhat important at first… we found we wanted a bunch, but in the end, our final five tubs all were pretty close to each other. We did want varying jets (i.e. some to do the back, some foot, some swirl, some pulse) We knew we wanted the waterfall feature, so eliminated a few others here. Problem is on our tub it runs off the jet so it never turned out to be the tranquil waterfall we thought it would be. Some models do run off circ pump and would have been better for us there. Never realized this until it was already installed. MAINTENANCE COSTS We talked about costs on a monthly basis… increased electric bills, and chemicals. They again seemed pretty comparable with our top five models. WET TEST This was the best time. Felt really weird doing it in the stores, but we are so glad we did. We tested on the same day and are really glad we did it that way. The final tubs on our list were comparable on paper, but totally different from the wet test perspective. Hope this helps someone.
  3. My pH is again at 7.6 today. This is the first time in the month we've owned that pH tested below 7.7 for three days in a row. Never had that before. this must be where our tub wants to be. TA 40ish, PH 7.7, CH 175, borates 44. So is it that some people will not be able to balance water to thier target? My dreams were to get this tub, peg everything (TA, CH, pH, borates), and sit in totally balanced water.
  4. > 1) Do you use dry acid or muriatic acid? > 2) What product did you use to add borates to your tub? > 3) What test do you use to test your boron (borates) level? 1) I started with only the ph minus. Then got some muratic acid and began using both every other application. I would put a tsp of store bought pH minus, then four hours later would add a little muratic, then finish the night with another tsp of pH minus... then do it all over again the next day. 2) Borates I used the 20 mule team and muratic acid at about week 1-2. Added half recommended by the pool calculator and then waited a week to add the rest. 3) I brought a sample in about every week and a half. My dealer's test gives a "silken" rating of the test water, which I guess I just assumed is the borates. It was 23 to begin and now sits at 44 after a second application.
  5. Fellas, He is having same issue I did with a new D1. I lowered TA, the acid to lower PH, then TA tanked, so Baking soda to raise it, then PH 8+, then more acid, pH always 8+, more acid... I went from 120TA to 40 to 100 to 40 again twice over two weeks. It did get very frustrating. I even thought I had a defectively manufacturered tub that would never be able to keep PH below 8. Another message somewhere said to quit focusing on TA and worry about PH only. I did that and now have a PH that varies day to day between 7.7 and 7.8 and the TA is 40-50. I even went out to try to raise the CH off the 150 I pegged it at to try to account for lower TA, but that didn't seem to do anything. CH now at 175. After about week 3, I quit worrying about perfect water and the last week or so the tub has been at: Bromine 3-6 Ch 175 TA 40-50 PH 7.8 Borates 44 I am calling that good, though I am looking forward to a first water change to try this all over again. At least my water is crystal clear and no problems so quit worrying has been good for us since we are using it every other night now.
  6. Sounds exactly like our problem with a brand new Dimension One Wayfarer. Waiting to see what the others reply to you.
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