Nigel

Artic Spa Summit. For a while i was having endless problems with my spa but apart from pump one having to be replaced the other week i have had a great winter with my spa, very little maintaince. Last year we were having problems with the calcium build up around the electrodes so James advised me to use Best Defence and gave me directions on how much weekly to use and for the past 4 months my spa has been great. I have now ran out of Best Defence and my local retailer didn't want to sell me any. Instead they fobbed me off with a half used free sample of "Scale Free" Stating this is better! Is anyone else on this? They told me to just use half an oz every month. OK, so last October they were pushing "Aqua Finesse" on me to cure all my problems, stating it was the best. and now the Scale free.... what next? Need some feed back. If my Best Defence was doing the job why change it? why not sell it to me? Getting frustrated again. Nigel

James and Budge James, i am in Cambridge. They did the refit about 4 weeks ago now and everything is perfect, water looks great no foam and everytime i lift off the cover i see the Onzen working, it's great. I hope i don't jinx myself but we are really enjoying the spa now. I have followed your reccomendation for weekly care, 1 cap of refresh and 15ml of Best Defence per 1000 litre instead of Aqua Finesse and it's doing it's job. No problems like i use to have. As for Aqua Finesse, a very expensive suppliment to the spa i could do with out. Budge, So happy you finally got your sorted out, it's been a long year for the two of us, but light at the end of that very dark long tunnel finally arrived. Nigel

James I did the refill Saturday as per your way, last night i have a very very good bromine reading, the first time i have had one within 24hrs of a refill!! Things are looking positive! I will keep you posted how it goes, i am now writing a journal on everything i do with the tub. Thanks James, BMR, All of the six you mentioned i thought the same. Nigel

Thanks James.

The Artic stores just don't have a clue. I was in my local one the otherday to buy some salt, i came out $300 worse off. They told me this new Aqua Finesse would fix all my troubles. I am at the point that i will try anything, but upon getting home with my $169 box i thought to myself why should i be doing this? i was sold the spa on the basis that i would have to do very little to it and now they are trying to sell me very expensive solutions. I returned the product 2 days later and was met with a somewhat hostile and argumentative sales person. After reading some of the other posts about the service calls i find the service appaulling from Oakville. You call and tell them you need a tech to come out, they charge you right away but yet can't give you a time of date until the night before and even then they won't give you a time. How hard can it be to schedule a date and time for an appointment? instead it's we will call you in 3-5 days! btw, i still like my spa....... when it's working. Still beleive i bought a very good spa, just not sure about the system.

bobabooi, I am sure you will have some good times with your spa. My first 2 months were a nightmare, conflicting info from the dealers etc.... I did get about 3 months of no problems out of my spa over the spring into summer, it was great. But it came to an end. Mainly due to an elctrode isssue which is being worked on. Like yourself, i believe and still do that i bought a very high quality spa, but Onzen does test the patience somewhat. James, It was great chatting with you today, that really did mean something to me as a customer and i appriciate your time and i look forward to resloving the issue in the coming days and get back to relaxing. Nigel

It's been a while since i have been on here, but i retrieved my password and can now once again question Onzen and artic Spa. Today i drained my tub as once again it had gone to the dogs. I have refilled the tub half with normal tap water and half via my water softner. As i needed more Onzen salt i popped in to my local Artic Spa dealer and found once again the whole set up of running an Onzen system has changed again. I came out of the store $300 worse off, though i do hope it works! I was advised to purchase the new Aqua Finesse to add to my Onzen salt, no more excess chemicals i was told. I was also advised to purchase a new filter, a filter i was origonaly told not to buy 12 months ago. So i now have have the Pleatco Pure filter. Upon the refil, i was advised to add 6 cups of Onzen salt to the tub, then the usual 2 caps of down every 2 hrs for 6 hrs. Once my PH and ALK are fine, add the Aqua Finesse and all should be good. My question is, if this is the new way forward, how come Arctic don't contact customers to let them know? I have had my spa for 13 months and still the setup and what to do keeps changing. Secondly, The Electrode looks like it has a calcium build up on it one again, i have already had 2 replaced, is anyone else constantly having the same problem, The store told me to contact the service people and they may tell me how to clean it? The store advised that this new Aqua Finesse will help control the calcium and i would no longer have to use Best Defence. I have a Sumit Spa, is anyone else using the Aqua Finesse? Nigel

I hope i dont have to wait 5 weeks for a part. I have a feeling they have a had a few of these, when i called customer serice last year they were quite pissy to say the least but this time they were much nicer and it was if they knew what the problem was. regardless it's still frustrating. Hope they come soon. Nigel

Im back! What a long winter, i think i spent the whole winter fighting my tub. Before the winter set in, a sevice tech fixed my incorrectly installed valves and everything worked.... for a while. For the last few months i have not seen any of that mist coming from my footwell, i still get lots of bubbles when the pump is on and the Onzen system is on but onceagain it's not producing any sanitizer. I have had several water tests done and each time it's add 2 caps of this and 2 more later etc... When i do the trouble shooting, shut it down and restart with the FD at 0, the footwell lets out a singular bubble every two minutes. I keep reading that these tubs are easy to maintain but i beg to differ, for about a month after the last repair the reading were great but for the last 5 months no bromine reading what so ever. Constant foam, brown yucky stuff etc... I drained and refilled last week, salt levels are good, AK is good, PH close enough to good and already starting to get a film and still no bromine. I give up! can we return these things? I shake my head everytime i am in the store and hear the sales pitch of how easy it is to maintain. If only!!! I am now at the end of my teather. One good thing, when i called customer service this morning they were very good, much better and more organized than last time. Nigel

Hi Budge, My Onzen system never worked from day one but after 2months the store never picked up on this, even after all the water tests! Eventually we called Onzen and they ran me through some tests, i then placed a service call, argued the $90 charge!! Tech came, found the problem quickly, the valves were installed in correctly, they were sucking and not blowing, that caused the Onzen generator to burn out. Once replaced everything has been great, the spa has been brilliant since we had it fixed and refilled (now over 4 months ago) Nigel

Tom, Now i am really confused. I refilled my tub about 4 weeks ago with the previous suggested amount, 1.5kg of salt for my fill. Once my spa was fixed i maintained what i thought was good levels until now. I took a sample to the store, they said my salt was high, they told me to drain aboout 12" of water (depth) and refill to dilute. Since i have done this and added the 'down' as they reccomemded i am now getting no bromine reading what so ever! What i am confused about is that i used approx 1.5kg of salt and now it's reccommended i use 2.6kg, but i 1.5kg my salt was high. Nigel

Brad, You might be over doing the refresh. Everytime we use the Spa now all we do is add 1/2 teaspoon of refresh, put on boost cycle and for three weeks now we have maintained very good levels. Plus once a week a throw in half a cap of refresh and a cap of the nice blue smelly stuff. We are chauffed to bits with it now. In over three weeks i have had not put anything in except for the above. Nigel

Open up the door where you Onzen is located and check to make sure the pipe coming from it hasn't gone flat. They placed my valves on back to front which created sucking rather than blowing, hence no Onzen. Nigel

This is getting ridiculous, what has happened to the moderators? These need to be deleted ASAP. before someone clicks on something that does harm to thier computer.

BMR, I am wondering if the bleach is causing it when mixed with other chemicals. We were advised to use nothing when cleaning it out, a thourough rinse and wipe down. As for the salt being the wrong type, anything is possible, my Onzen was installed incorrectly. It is Natral Onzen Salt, Bromide Salt Blend that they have given you? I am at a loss, i do have the business card of the tech that came to my home, if you want i can PM you and i can give you his number and name and see if it was him for sure that came to your place. Are you getting lots of bubbles coming from the Onzen output (in footwell) when turned on? And when off, are you getting a large bubble every 6-10 seconds?

we used our spa yesterday and we noticed a big difference in the quality of water, it had a soft texture to it, left the skin feeling soft and it felt good and for the first time i actually relaxed in it. I just hope the install error (valves) havn't put any long term damage to the Onzen system as a whole. Early days though, but if the last 48 hrs are anything to go by, things are on the up.

BMR & Everyone else. My Spa is fixed!!!! And yes it was in serious need of attention. BMR, not sure where you are located but if you are in Ontario i hope you get the same guy we got, FANTASTIC! Within seconds he found that the valves for the Onzen system were installed back to front, they were sucking rather than blowing. He was suprised my tub wasn't green. So, the people that assemble our tubs missed a major thing, he also mentioned they should of caught this during the testing, which they didn't. Next, the Electrode was burnt out! that had to replaced. Once all that was done he did a few other things to the spa that we hadn't noticed that should of been done at set up, but he did it and got us up and running. We have never seen so many bubbles coming from the Onzen system. He even mentioned that the install guys should of picked this up, the lack of bubbles. So for the past 2 months we have been operating a poorly asembled Onzen system, wasted hours traveling to the store, lots of frustration and all it was, was poor Quality Service check at the factory. Arctic Spa needs to get on top of this matter, this is clearly a factory problem. It would be nice to recieve an appolgy from Arctic for sending me a faulty system and for my time and frustration. These problems should of been picked up by the store themsleves after a dozen or so trips with water samples. Instead all they say is buy this and add more!. The Technician spent some good time with us, explained a few things and gave us some good advise. This technician was our saving grace, we were so close to losing it. For two months we were made to think we were stupid and clueless when all along there was a major problem. With that said, i still believe i bought a very good quality product but the back up service / customer service needs to be re looked at. I will let you know how my tub is looking over the coming days. He has me set at CP3, said i should not need to go higher for the two of us. Nigel Much Happier! Note, future buyers, if you buy an Arctic Spa make sure they explain everything to you and at set up make sure everything is checked over. The delivery guys were rush rush GONE!

Was wondering the same thing myself. Anything from Nov. 3 to the 9th is gone. Had some good advice for some bad problems. I wonder whether they have pulled the posts due to the amount of advise, conflicting advise. May be easier for them to delete those messages in order to stop confusion and one hope someone from Arctic may post an upto date guide for the Onzen with all the meanings of each setting on the spa.

Good news! Arctic called me, a service technician will be coming out on Wednesday. So i hope from Wednesday onwards all my posts will be of the positive nature. Once my onzen cell is replaced / fixed i hope i can enjoy the spa just as the sales pitch says. "save you time, reduce the need for chemicals, and allow you to enjoy soft, sparkling water with a minimum of fuss." I really do hope it works, i do believe i did by a very good quality spa, with that said, i wish i had done more research on Onzen first. If all goes well, i expect to be using by the weekend.

These are the words that are on Arctic Spa's website. "The future of water care is natural, and easy on the environment. Arctic’s ONZEN™ automated water system combines patented ozone technology and natural sea salt into a single system that will save you time, reduce the need for chemicals, and allow you to enjoy soft, sparkling water with a minimum of fuss. 2 months into this and i'm still going through a load of chemicals, endless fuss and as for time saved, very much time lost. Day 7, still awaiting for my Service call! still awaiting for the store to call me. Still awaiting to relax in my spa. Nigel

Its funny how you mention that, because when i was looking into purchasing a spa, the store sold it to me based upon the fact that all the kinks had been ironed out and they now have it down to a tee and Onzen is the best way to go. Oh boy how i was caught up with the sales pitch. Great quality spa, frustrating contents.

BMR, like yourself, my posts and ID had been removed. Strange or coincidence? Nigel

First off, whats going on, I see that all my posts have been deleted and i could no longer log in. Secondly, i see that Budge's posts have been deleted. Is this true or am i missing something. I hope no one is censoring our opinions. The last message i got was from Tom on Friday afternoon and everything seemed ok, except that my tub is still not fully working. Just noticed that a lot of postes dated from Nov2nd to current have dissapeared. Question. With no Onzen working, how often should i put 'Refresh' into my Summit spa? I have not used the Spa now for 12 days and the water is starting to create a film around the sides. Any suggestions.? Nigel