billy sharpstick

i installed the ozonator today. i can't tell if it's working aside from the green light, no odor that i can detect. after reading so many posts dissing baqua, i'm thinking of going back to bromine, especially if i can use less of it. what considerations are there for switching back to bromine? how thoroughly do i have to flush it out? the old filter had a center core that held the bromine tablets. i replaced that with a larger filter that doesn't have that. what is the best way to dispense/hold the bromine tablets? does a floating holder allow enough flow to work right?

i just figured out the chlorine and baqua problem recently, refilled the tub and it has been pretty clean for all of a week and a half. last night, we piled 7 people in and lost about 8" of water. i figure about 100 gallons of our 300 gallon tub now has to be replenished. any ideas on how to do this without getting chlorine in? for now, i'm going to start filling a 30 gallon trash can and treating it first. shouldn't take more than a couple weeks to refill the whole thing!

one of their options is reflectix, that bubble wrap with foil coating on both sides. they use that for attic insulation. i can't tell, but that is probably installed inside the cover. could you make panels of that stuff and float it in the water? they have floating bubble sheets for pools. the foil lined should be even better. maybe glue two layers of it with a layer of stiffer plastic sandwiched in to make it less flexible. make four small panels that float next to each other. that should drastically cut down evaporation, condensation, heat loss, chemical effects on the cover itself. bill keiser

checked out their website. i wish i'd heard of them before i ordered my new cover which was delivered today. even if is more than my foam cover($235 compared to $395 - $100 discount mentioned on their website.) if it lasts at least twice as long and insulates that much better(they claim ten times better R-Factor Testing Results), it would be well worth it. i wonder if raccoons chew them? bill keiser

The last person to come up with some "new-fangled" idea on something to encapsulte the foam, Seattle Spa Covers, went out of business in about 18 months. I believe he left town, RUNNING fast as fast can be, and left no forwarding address was it because it was a bad idea, a poorly implemented idea, or wa he just a lousy businessman? bk

wouldn't it be possible to paint the block with some kind of weatherproof sealer, outdoor latex, thompson's watersealer, . . . ? bk

spa is empty now. i flushed out the water lines as best as i could and plan to dechlorinate and refill. there appear to be cavities under the seats. there is a grid of regularly spaced holes about 1/8" diameter in the seats. I can't see any connections to those spaces or any purpose for them. I don't recall noticing any water or air coming from them in operation. How much of a problem will these reservoirs cause if I can't flush all of the old cloudy water out before refilling and dechlorinating? bill keiser

i don't see any prior reference to this device, nor had i seen anything resembling it in the delzone instructions. are you saying that this bypass routes a small amount of water out of the main stream, THROUGH the ozonator, a long tube and then back to the main line? makes sense. this would allow the ozone to dissolve into the water with the extended contact. but i think maybe you are saying that the water is routed past the injector, through the long tubing and returned after the injector. the only bypass device i've seen is the mazzei injector with a large bypass for high speed pumping. and how can i tell if my jets are ozone ready? i don't see anything resembling a 1/4" connection on the jets. they're probably too old maybe? bill keiser

i plan on cutting the air tube just below the jacuzzi control cap, but it is tight under there and i might have to put the TEE in below the water level by a foot or so. do the jets have a good check valve in them, or will I have to worry about water gushing out if I don't drain the tub first? bs

i'm curious what people wear in their hot tubs. i always go bare. the feeling of freedom is nice. one problem i have with my tub is when visitors come over who wear bathing suits in the tub and it gets sudsy because their washing machine doesn't rinse enough. i don't consider myself a nudist. it isn't a lifestyle kind of thing, but i enjoy going nude when it's possible. i go to the burningman festival and have been to several pagan gatherings wear clothing is optional. bill keiser

there are many. just google wireless speakers. i prefer to run wiring. a little more work if you can run it through the walls, ceiling or crawl space underneath, but it is cheaper, simpler and better sound. you can also use an FM transmitter and put a cheap stereo set that has FM and CD player. that way if it eventually dies from exposure you won'd have lost a lot and it can play from the inside system or just play CDs locally. most of the common FM transmitters you get now have a pretty short range and low sound quality. you can also get a 900 mz signal transmitter/receiver system that will transmit from your main stereo to the auxiliary system inputs. same type of system as the speakers. bill keiser

four years ago we had a new spa cover made by a local company. within a few months our local raccoons had vandalized it by chewing on the corner of one side. i didn't think it was that big a deal and looked in vain for a vinyl repair kit to fix it, and finally gave up. before long, that side seemed to have gotten waterlogged and now weighs about 3 times what the other side does. it seems to get heavier in rainy season and lightens up in the fry season, but not completely. the plastic sheet on the underside was collecting water so i pierced it with a few small drain holes. i don't know if it was condensation from below or rain from above. the whole thing is now pretty much old and cracked now and we're replacing it. for future reference, is there anyway to keep critters from chewing on it, repairing it if they do, and protecting it from sun deterioration? also do they make any cover lifters that work on a deck flush mount tub? it might not matter though if it doesn't get waterlogged and heavy. bs

mine is an old Leisure Bay, or so i've been told. it came with the house and is probably 15 - 20 years old. we've replaced the heater, controller, pump and filter. the tub itself is crusted with foam insulation. (it's mounted flush in my deck so i can crawl under and access from below) i didn't know how thick the insulation actually was until i noticed a corner where the foam had chipped off. it was hardly paper thin at that point. i'm having a new cover made and it should be delivered next week. i didn't think to ask the R specs when i ordered it and the guy didn't offer any options in that regard. how do you go about adding insulation to the shell? what are the options, preferably something that i can do myself? btw, i hate working with fiberglass! bs

um, guess ya had to be there. actually not all my tub friends are fat. that was for effect.

that wouldn't work for me. the aforementioned incident where the water shorted out the tub controller was a tub about 7 x 7. over a dozen people climbed in. as the night wore on and the water and surrounding air got colder, people began to leave one by one. when we last saw the tub, there was one last person huddled in the bottom in about 18" of water. i think we went somewhat over the factory recommendations for occupancy. bk

does anyone know if you can interface a spa control to X-10 remote control? i think i can use a universal X-10 relay to break the hot leg to the heater and switch it back on a couple hours before i want the temp back up, but the jets will probably try to keep running in the meantime. if i switch off power to one leg of the power to the whole system, it might also work as long as the unit remembers what it's current temp setting is, which mine seems to do after power has been turned off and back on. X-10 is a system that uses signals broadcast over your home AC power system to turn modules on and off. your home system can be preprogrammed to turn devices on and off at preset times, or even accessed over the internet. you could theoretically log on to your webpage from work and turn on the heat or program it at a set time. or you can just pick up the wireless remote in the house and click it on. i've been thinking about this for a while, but was reminded tonight when i realized i had forgotten to go out on the deck and crank up the heat at 7 so i would have hotness by 9. bill keiser

I just ordered the Del Platinum Eclipse. I am hoping that I can just Tee into the line coming from the air cap per the delzone installation file. I just removed and cleaned the air caps. I put a lit stick of incense at the open air cap with the jets on. There is a just barely discernible stream of air sucking the smoke in but there is a lot of bubbling at the jets. I can't tell where else the air can be coming from. I just stuffed a plastic bag into the valve with the adjusting plug removed and the air almost stopped. The instructions call for a tee into the airline just below the air control cap. I am going to try this first with the air control cap completely plugged. Does this sound right? A Tee with a hose nipple is a lot cheaper than a Mazzei injector if it accomplishes the same purpose. Does anyone know offhand the ozone supply hose size so I can get my parts before the unit arrives? The other Jacuzzi air control cap goes only to a single jet that opens into a large cavity with three fins on the front and a swivel vaned thing inside that looks like it is supposed to wobble around and jet in different directions, but it doesn't move. Water is jetting from it, but there are no bubbles. I'm guessing the air hose to it is plugged somehow. Thanks Bill Keiser

i was at the local pool supply store and spotted Suncoast Chemicals Silver Algaecide, that claims to have .8% colloidal silver. from my reading about CS in the past, i have my doubts as to whether this sludge can accurately be called colloidal. CS is generally a very low concentration of silver in colloidal suspension and barely turns the water yellow. it is used as a health supplement and has been used for disinfection, bacteriacide, etc. for ages. the salesperson said i shouldn't use that because it is designed for a pool, not a spa and it is hard to measure out just enough for a spa. i assured her i was good at math and have some accurate measuring equipment. i used a spreadsheet to make sure i didn't screw up. basically i divided the weekly dosage of 4 oz for a 10,000 gallon pool by 10,000 and multiplied by 300 and got .12 oz, or 3.5 cc, which i can easily dispense with a small syringe. i'm starting with just 2 cc per week to be on the conservative side. is my thinking correct and will this be a helpful addition to my bacqua system(which i will soon be supplementing with an ozonator)? or at least not harmful? bill keiser

i have several very friendly, and dare i say it, somewhat large friends. a couple times i have seen too many people climb in at once and waves of water run out over the side. (one time this happened at a friend's house and we were grateful for the FFCI breaker when it ran down on the control box and tripped the breaker!) later on in the night, as people get out one by one, the tub has a much lower level. this seems to be a waste of water AND heat. not to mention gettting the area all wet. has anyone ever figured out a way to have this water temporarily drained off into a reservoir barrel and later pumped back in? i figure that once the water gets to the top of the tub, a person of 160 lbs displaces 20 gallons. a 55 gallon drum for example, would hold the water displaced by three people. i even have a hole leftover from when i replumbed my tub and moved the filter to a location off the deck that could be used for an overflow drain. bill keiser

my tub has a cloudiness since i refilled it last week. i put some clarifier in it two days ago, but it hasn't improved. it never occurred to me that the fresh chlorine(i can barely breathe when filling it from the light spray of it in the air!) would interact with the baqua chemicals. (several years ago a friend of mine refilled his pool with the same tampa tap water. when he tested it it to see how much chlorine to add, it was so high it was over the range of his test strip!) so, is there any hope in clearing up the cloudiness i now have? at first there was a bit of white specs floating around until they got filtered out. i attributed this to the fact that the tub had sat unused for several months before this refilling. i don't have anything that i would call "goo", though. bill keiser

the only time i've had a problem with foaming is when i let people in the tub wearing clothes. barbaric behavior in itself, but most washing machines don't rinse out all the detergent adequately. bill keiser (who will never be caught with his pants up in a tub!)

how come they are anywhere from $14 to $157? bs

okay, i found one on ebay, a pretty red one. I don't have room after the heater. it goes right to the filter. how about past the filter outlet? Do you have access to your footwell jet lines? not sure what they are, but i have access to everything that is there. am i correct in thinking that the injector should be spliced in to a water (or air?) line that attaches as low as possible to the tub? there are four jets in the tub that air and water are hooked up to. they are about a foot below water level, though. i'm not completely sure how the plumbing works in this thing. there is a drain in the very bottom of the footwell, but i don't think it has any jets that low. there is also a largish opening with a swiveling jet with some movable vanes in it. i'm not sure what function that has either, but it is fairly low, about a foot from the bottom. i'll take a closer look tomorrow and take inventory of all the jets and whatnots. bs

okay, i found one on ebay, a pretty red one. I don't have room after the heater. it goes right to the filter. how about past the filter outlet?

I am ready to buy a Del Platinum Eclipse CD ozonator. I am not sure what additional parts I will need to install. I have a 300 gallon Leisure Bay spa with Jacuzzi jets(There are two plastic air control knobs with the name on them). The spa came with the house and is probably 15 years old. The controller and heater unit has been recently replaced with a Nu Wave MM2 unit. It has a mini J&J plug for the ozone power that has 120 volts to it. The unit is mounted flush in a wooden deck and I can crawl under and reach everything. I think it has a 2 speed pump but I'm not sure how to tell for sure. When it is heating, there is a gentle flow of water and some bubbles from the jets. Sometimes they kick in to high speed and a stronger flow comes out. (Also when I manually hit the jets button) I can hear the pump kick in to a higher speed. That leads me to believe this is what is referred to as a two speed pump. (duh) There are some kind of plastic fittings at the jets where air from the Jacuzzi valves and water from the filter are mixed. I need to determine where to install and what I need for it. Hopefully it will just need a venturi thingie that I can drill and clamp into one of the tubes.