Boetta

I have had onzen for over a year now, and my experience is this: Our normal use, 1/2 hour 2-4 times a week me and my wife. Do nothing. Onzen set to 4 hours pr. day. I do not shock the water. More heavy use - set the onzen to 8 or even 12 hours. I only shock the water when if the water start to look cloudy or ORP is very low. Party - I prefer shocking with chlorine granulate, 1 tsp pr. person pr. hour, or just throw in a cup or two, after use and I try to remember to start the Onzen system before closing the spa. After some weeks use you will notice more foam, start all pumps, shuffle foam out of the spa and the water gets great again. I do nothing to my PH, except when we have not used the spa for a long time when PH-down is needed. When we go on vacation or leve the spa for a long time, I set the Onzen to only 2 hrs a day. Onzen is by far the easiest way to keep the water safe and clean.

The chemical use is the same in any spa you buy, except if you have a saltsystem in the spa. You will need Chlorine or Bromine as a sanitizer and PH up/down to adjust your PH. Arctic also offers saltsystems in their spas, then you only need to adjust the PH down if the spa has not been used for a long time, and no additional chemical use. The filters will not sanitize the spas, they are there to pick up "big" particles. any dealers will try to sell you a bunch of different chemicals, but you really only need a sanitizer and ph adjust.

Hi, I do not know the Clearwaterspas much, but this sounds like the pump that circulates the water has stopped and probably needs to be changed or fixed. The heater will then say it is not get enough water and the temp sensor on the heater may say "overheat". It is not the sensor in the water It is probably no leaf or the jet that came off.

I would guess the low speed condensator in your pump is broken. Easy and cheap to change. Good luck!!

Yes I a must admit I'm completely sold on the Arctic way of building the spa ! I would say if a spa needs a winter kit it is not espacially made for cold climates, Arctic has no winter kit and no vents, neither any summer kits. Arctic insulates as a house, insulation on the cabinet walls not the shell. It is not true we do put as much insulation as we can in the walls when building a house here, as 4-5 inches will be enough to keep the cold out, so why put in 20 inch? We put the insulation in the walls and double in the roof, we do not put everything in the basement. Snow will break covers, we had about 3 meters of snow last year, and spas in two of the cabins in this area broke their covers, I agree with Roger, at least buy an upgade. I would prefer to have walked on them to be sure they can take the weight. As for the floor under the spa it depends on what you put it on, I bought my Arctic with the glassfiber floor unde so I did not need to make a foundation, but put it right on the grass. If you already have som kind of foundation, you probably will not need that. I have upgraded once and are now thinking of another upgrade, do not know how many people do that, but new stuff is coming all the time. I still will advice you to open the cabinets to see what you buy, that can't be too much to ask?

Hi Shawn, I'm an Arctic spa owner and know very little of the Cal Spas, but I do live in a very cold climate and I checked a couple of things before deciding. Are the pumps, heaters and all the other expencive stuff inside the insulation, not in a vented engine room? If you the breaker goes, and you are not there, how well is this equipment protected, will it get heat from the water or will this euipment be the first to freeze? Walk on the cover with some of your friends, if you can't, the snow will break it. (thickness is not always the same as strength) If you are putting it outdoors on the ground, be sure to have a good floor under it. I also liked the ability to upgrade to more pumps and more jets or new technology if I wanted later. I got dealers to unscrew the side panels of their cabinets, so I could use my own common sense to decide what seemed to be the better way to build for this cold climate. I'm sorry I never checked Cal spa for you, but it seemed to me then putting a Californian spa in this climate did not make sense, but who knows? So my advice is to not listen too much to the sales guys, unscrew and decide on what you already know about insulating and building for cold climates.

I would think twice about doing that, Matthias. You will get no support from the local german dealers and will probably have to pay them big bucks to get them to do any service for you, as they will not cover your warranty.

The peak system is not just a new generator that makes more o3, it is a pretty large system, with it's own pump, mixing chamber, off gas chamber, suction and a lot of hoses. To see the details you must go to www.arcticspas.com and to the document library where you'll find the Peak Ozone guide. I do not know all the chemical details, but that is my experience by upgrading from Arctic Ozon to Peak ozone, which was this threads question. Much, much easier to keep the water clear without the use of a lot of chemicals. If it is worth the money depends on you wallet, but you are able to upgrade later, which is one of the reasons why I bought an Arctic, I like to upgrade with new stuff coming. Btw. I do not use a floater anymore.

That is completely true, Roger, you still have to sanitize the spa properly and of course it all depends on the load of bathers. What I should say is that [b]we [/b] reduced the chemical use about 80% and uses very small amount of sanitizers. We mostly use the two-three persons 2-4 times a week about 45 minutes in average and very few new guests. As for measuring. I still check the bromine level, but now I do not need the same amount to get it to stay on the correct level, as the Peak Ozone kills much more nasties than the AO, so the bromine does not have to take care of all itself. The Peak system also runs much more than the AO system. For the upgrade, it was done in about one hour, and this is what I remembered they did, you better call Arctic in Canada or another Arctic dealer for details: They drilled one hole for the Peak output on the wall in the footwell, and put on the output jet. Cut the Arctic Ozone output PVCpipe and connected the suction hose to this. This now becomes the Peak suction. Then there was to put in the Peak pump, generator, all the other hoses, mixing chambers and stuff inside the cabinet, connect the pump and the ozone generator to the electronics, program the electronics and it was up running. As for the price: I payed listprice for the Peak system + the manhours and transport they used. It is definately duable, so get your dealer to learn how, Turbottt1 !!

The Peak Ozon generator reduces you chemical use a lot! I have tried both. The Arctic Ozone is the entry level ozone generator about the same as every brand has. The Peak ozone is much more powerful and I would say reduces your chemical use about 80%. You do not have to decide to go for Peak now, as it is pretty easy to upgrade from Arctic Ozone to Peak (I did that). My advice is to try to get a good price for a possible upgrade into your deal. It is alway easier to get a good deal before you buy the spa.