widespreadhawk

just a quick review of our new cover lifter: I needed a low clearance lifter (12") and went with the Cover Valet Slide-It cover lifter...its $125 or so on ebay and installed in about 30 minutes. we are really happy with the lifter - you open up the first cover panel and fold it on top of the other panel, slide the folded panels about 3" then lift the cover up using the side of the spa as a pivot, really easy and works great when space if limited - only problem is if you mind the cover acting as a barrier, which we don't as it provides privacy from our neighbors.

Wow - this is great information. I'm struggling after 3 months to figure out a water maintenance plan for our new spa. I travel alot for 2-3 day stints so we decided on the Bromine water maintenance technique. Cant seem to go more than 6 weeks before the water gets cloudy or foams and leaves that brown residue on the sides of the spa. Anyone have a quick write up covering best practices for this method? thanks!

yeah here's an idea that may or may not be of interest to you...find out what you would want to buy new, narrow it down to about 3 or 4 different spas, then watch craigslist.org like a hawk for "gently used" spas that are 1 or 2 years old that the owner is selling because they need cash or moving, or whatever. If you get a good feeling dealing with the owner selling on craigslist, you might find a great spa in the 3k-5k range that once sold for 7k or more? Obviously, there are risk/reward factors going this route, but this might be a good option if you are a good judge of character and a great DIYer. We thought about going this route...but we wanted to buy new and get the 5 year warranty on our new spa, as we had leaks with our old one... We also looked at the MAXX line by Coleman and they had a few spas that were selling around 6k that were pretty impressive. If you haven't checked these out its worth a look? good luck!

Man - that stinks. I just had problems like this with my 1999 Tiger River Bengal. My dealer wanted $2k+ to pull it out, determine where the leaks were at, then deliver it back to us. No guarantee they could fix all the potential leaks! We ended up buying a new spa. Good luck - the foam in there makes it very difficult to find leaks but it can be fixed.

sksk... I really liked the D1 Aurora II - that one might be a good one to check out. I was not a fan of our local dealer or their prices, otherwise that was a spa that ranked high for us. Powerful foot jets, a nice lounger with adjustable neck pillows w/jets, quality build...cool control panel/touch display... this still was not as nice as the Caldera sps for what we wanted... I was not a fan of the jacuzzi or sundance spas we looked at but we were looking for serious jet pressure/hydrotherapy from the spa, and these simply didn't measure up in that category. daddyoh: regarding prices for caldera...We almost pulled the trigger for the Caldera Tahitian after a long drawn out negotiation (we live in Colorado) for $8k+ tax all the reg stuff included. We could have gotten a C45 for a penny under 6k (panel was damaged in shipping and needed to be replaced, so it was a "scratch n dent" deal) or $6.5k for brand new+tax - C45 just wouldnt fit our space very well and i wanted the extra whirlpool jet that is not offered in the C45 compared to the utopian geneva/tahitian spas. Im happy with the spa we ended up buying, but I would have been just as pleased with the Tahitian I think...i really liked caldera and thought it was the spa to beat until a last minute curveball pushed us another direction.

I sit in my spa at least once per day, sometimes twice. I equate it to getting massages which are about 50-75 bucks per hour/plus tip... That's how I justify my spa expenses... and my new spa is 100x better at getting into my muscle groups so I walk out of the spa completely rejuvenated...last spa was pretty average for massage-like therapy, but it was 10 years old. While these things are expensive, I am completely roped into forever being a spa owner!

I was very much impressed with the Caldera, and almost bought one a couple of weeks back. I had a bad experience with our Caldera dealer in regard to servicing our previous Tiger River spa, otherwise I might have bought the Caldera Tahitian from them. (We went another direction and bought a Vita Nuage) I also thought it was interesting that they have the C line of spas available for about $2500 cheaper than the Utopian line of spas. If the C45 would have fit in our location, we probably would have purchased this spa for right around $6k+tax - they could not drop a dime below $8k+tax for the Tahitian spa, that would have fit our space better. The funny thing is that they never mentioned the C line to me - I had to ask them about them. Quality wise, our dealer explained that the Caldera's are manufactured right next to Hot Springs and that they are of exact same standards quality speaking. Not sure if this is the case or not, but when I compared to the two lines I was equally impressed with both HS and Caldera. You are on the $$$ regarding wet testing. My wife and wet tested a ton of spas and both knew right away when we sat in the Nuage that it was the right spa for us. Going into the process, I figured they were all pretty much the same, and I was probably going to go the Costco route...glad I found this forum and decided to look around. What other spas are you looking into and what features do you like/dislike about them?

Quick update: Dealer is sending out a repair tech today to patch this hole in the acrylic. The hole did not go through the fiberglass backing, so its just a quick patch to the acrylic shell, mostly a cosmetic repair. The work will be reported to Vita and be on file in case there are any issues going forward. Thanks again for the replies - I was not sure if this was a big problem or something that could be fixed rather easily.

Thanks Pathfinder...definitely a rough edge going around the little chip/hole. I bet it happened during delivery as they definitely had to muscle the spa into place - a drill or screwdriver might have dropped in there or something weird? It almost look like the piece that chipped is still in there, nudged against the fiberglass? That is a good idea to get something in writing if they decide to repair/not replace. Thanks for your input/help.

man...that really sucks...good thing you have insurance but what a pain to deal with, especially on a brand new spa. We wet tested the Epic, really liked the tower jet station on the side/middle - really cool feature. Are you going to reorder the exact same spa? Good luck...at least it was just a spa and not a person that took that direct hit.

Thanks for the advice Roger - I am hoping that this is a simple repair as you suggested. I edited my post to include a link to pictures of the issue. My first thought was this is simple fix, but wanted to get 2nd opinions from those who deal with this day in day out. We got the spa for a slight discount as it was a floor model they had for the past few months... Plus it had the lights and stereo options, which we would not get if we ordered a new one...not a big deal, but kinda "nice to have's". Also, I would prefer a repair over replacement as it was a pretty big endeavor to get this into our enclosed deck...but if this is a big deal and it needs to be replaced, we will go that route. Thanks again for the advice!

Hi all, Our new Vita Nuage was delivered Friday and I was doing a wipe down of the shell before we did the initial fill to clear the dirt/grime from delivery. Everything looked good to go until I noticed a small hole in the acrylic near the footwell of the spa. The hole is about the size of a "pea" but its clear through the acrylic layer and you can see the fiberglass backing. The dealer is coming out to inspect this issue this afternoon and let me know if this can be repaired, or if it will need to be replaced with a new spa? She said she did not notice this issue when it left the showroom floor after they drained it (this spa was on their showroom floor and we wet tested the spa a couple of weeks back). My concerns are that this was damaged previously and water might have leaked inside the cabinet of the spa while it was filled with water when it was in their showroom? However, this might have occurred during delivery, then that issue is mute as we have not filled it since it was installed. Anyway - I want to get off on the right foot with this spa so Im wondering if the experts have an opinion on if this should/could be repaired or not? Any words of advice on how to proceed? I will have more information once the dealer and the service tech come out to inspect later today. Thanks for any advice! Heres a link to some pics showing the hole... Link to photos

another question for the experts... i just installed the 60amp GFCI spa panel and my city inspector came over (he is a buddy) and said that everything looks to code, except he would run a #6 bare copper ground from the spa panel ground bus to a nearby copper water faucet for added safety. is this necessary, as I grounded the spa panel from the main power supply and the spa? thanks

We just finished this process and were looking for strong hydrotherapy as well...probably our #1 requirement. We tested at least 10 different spa manufacturers, maybe more? My final list of spas came down to: Caldera Tahitian LA Spas HEET D1 Aurora II Vita Nuage I thought the Caldera Utopian spas provided great hydrotherapy, and really liked the Euphoria foot and lower back whirlpool/volcano type jets - very powerful. The rest of the jets in the spa were adequate, but my wife floated in the lounger and was not overly impressed. (I would have been happy with this spa) The LA Spas HEET has a powerful Volcano jet, but the rest of the jets were pretty standard...not overly impressed with the spa, the price, or our local dealer. The D1 Aurora was really nice, but price was high and the jets were not as powerful as the Caldera or the others we had in our final list. We decided on the Vita Nuage - no lounger but each seat provided excellent hydrotherapy and my wife basically said of all the spas we tested, this one actually felt like she just got a real massage. I agreed and we pretty much knew after about 10 minutes in the spa that it was the one for us - we also have a really good dealer so that helped in our final decision. Good luck - you will know right away what spa is for you after a bunch of wet testing...

Agreed... a big reason why they are not getting our business with our new spa. I tried to work with them to find a solution to fix the old spa, but they did not offer much assistance. I chalk it up as a lesson learned on my part.