ZaC851

Purchased this spa a couple years ago. Its a 110v spa with air switches and old school rotary knobs etc and the pump died recently so I just upgraded pretty much everything with a water pump, a new heater, new control pack with a digital panel and temperature prob to regulate temperature, which is something it's never had and also bought a couple lights as well since it had no lights originally. I decided that while I'm upgrading everything, I'm going to install a Audio system with a couple Pop up speakers since I can piece together a marine grade system for a little over $100. My main question is, can I install more jets? Obviously I know that I can but how many more is the question. I'd imagine I'll be limited by how powerful my pump is correct? I just bought a new 1HP pump but would love to add a few more jets in various places. I just don't want to add too many more which would kill the flow pressure to the rest of them. Heres a pic of my spa below but I think I have 9-10 jets total and would love to add 5-6 more such as a couple down in the foot well etc. Anyone ever added additional jets or think adding 5-6 more would be OK?.

You've got me beat. I've got a 1997 Morgan Spa. I had planned on buying a new one but when I went to a local spa place here and saw prices ranging from $8,000-12,000 dollars I quickly canceled that plan and started looking to buy used searching craigslist. I ended up buying 2 of them. I've got a 1997 model 5 person spa (110v) and the other spa (don't remember the model) is a 2005 8 person spa (220v). I got both believe it or not for $300 dollars almost 2 years ago. They were both a little rough on the outside and the guy couldn't figure out why it wouldn't heat up, and why the bigger one wouldn't turn on. Both problems were electrical that my Dad and I fixed in less than a hour. Due to the little spot where I planned on putting mine at which can be seen in the pics which is in a little hole surrounded by my wooden fence, I only had 80" of width and the 5 person spa ended up being 76" wide not to mention that I had no 220v hook up so I gave the much large 8 person spa to my Mom and Dad. it was much nicer than mine with digital controls and more jets etc but just to big for me. Besides the electrical, they only had to replace some exterior wood and buy a big cover, and replace two $20 dollar plastic jets which were cracked to get his running but they love it and has been going strong.. As for my 5 person spa, I replaced a few broken wooden panels on its outside enclosure and then stained the wood a darker color and bought a nice cover for it and some stairs (not pictured) but it had all it's original parts and worked great.. I installed 1 light in it because it had no lights. Everything else worked great with mine with only a couple downsides. One is that because its a 110 volt spa, it takes a LONG time to heat up when you fill it and I dump and fill mine every 3-4 months in the winter. It took over 30 hours to heat up the first time but it was mid 20s at the time as well. Still, thats MUCH slower than my parents 220v spa that only took a few hours in 20º temps to heat up to 102º Every 110v spa automatically shuts the heater off when the jets kick on so during the winter, you can't run the jets more than 30 minutes at a time other wise the water starts cooling off until I turn the jets off so that the heater kicks on which isn't a big deal since I never stay in it over 30 minutes. The first year I used it, it worked great, We used it 2-3 times a week mainly in the winter but it was awesome. Not long ago, the original pump started making a loud whining noise which ended up being the spindle shaft that goes inside the motor and the pumps "wet end" also started leaking slowly. It continued to work just fine and both of those problems are fixable fixable but I just decided to do a big upgrade now that summer is here. Mainly because This spa had no digital control panel. Everything was operated by something called Air switches and I had to use a pool thermometer because the spa had no digital temp gauge or auto setting that would regulate the temperature by turning the heater on and off to keep the water at a steady temp so on really cold days when it was 30º F outside, Id set the heater so that the spa temp would be how I like it (99º-100º) but here in AL we tend to have crazy weather fluctuations so when the weather would rise up to 50º F days later the spa water would end up being too hot and going to 110º + and then of course the day after that the temps would go into single digits making the water too cold. LOL. The heater control knob had no numbers when setting the temperature so you had no idea how much you were lowering or increasing the temp each time. It was just a guessing game and a pain having to do it every other use.. Now that winters over and we'll start using the pool instead of the hot tube, I decided to do the upgrades and break down and buy a new pump, new heater and spa pack with a topside digital control panel along with some more lights. I think I am also going to get a spa stereo and 2 pop up speakers while I'm upgrading since they can be had for relatively cheap.. Ended up spending more on those parts than I have on both hot tubs but I think it'll be worth it. Few pics below. Also, anyone have any thoughts on a ozonator? I'm not even sure what it does but my spa control pack as the ability to add one and control so was just wondering. I test my pool and spa water atleast 1-2 a week and I have no issues keeping my spa's water numbers in check with very little effort so if a ozonator is suppose to help with that type of stuff I won't even bother. It's easy enough as it is. Day I brought it home. The actual fiberglass shell is in great shape. After fixing a few of the missing panels, staining the wood, and buying a cover heres what it looked like New parts. Cant wait to be able to adjust the temperature and have the heater regulate the temp rather than having to take the side panels off and adjust the heater knob by guessing everytime the weather gets warmer or colder.

   I'm guessing you didn't watch until the very end of the video? You pretty much answered the question exactly. Looks like he has some sort of container and lights his fire inside of it, and then has some coils that run from the spa to inside the fire container. I'm assuming the water is sucked into the coil from the bottom of the spa which then heats the water up and shoots it back somewhere in the higher part of the spa. Cool design but having to light a fire (and keep it going everytime I want to use the spa would get old. I'd imagine you'd have to light the fire quit a few hours before you plan on using it. I would have at least bought a gas burner and put it at the bottom of the fire pit container so all I would have to do is rent a big bottle of propane like you'd use on a BBQ gas grill and have the burner heat the coil so I wouldn't have to worry about keeping the fire going with wood (maybe he did something similar, hard to tell in vid) I realize my idea is the exact opposite idea that the OP was probably going for which is building a spa without spending big bucks. asbarmarta, if i were use, in the future, id keep a watch on craigslist for old used spa's, and spa shells. When I bought mine, I've seen a few on there that was just the fiberglass shell or needed lots of work and since you've already got a box, you could easily get a used shell and drop it in and install all your jets/blowers etc into it. Thats what I did. I got my 6 person spa for next to nothing because the exterior box was rotted, and a couple jets didn't work. Either way, cool build.