Doctor Hot Tub

Great tub for the Northern states and Canada. Keep a close eye on your chems. I am seeing more and more salt destruction to equipment. Be sure to get a piece of zinc as a sacrificial metal.

True, the main issue with that spa was it was a low quality spa from a manufacturer not known for quality. I don't see any reason to expect anything more from the St Lucifer than you got from the Sun Leak. I hate to say this...but put your service person on speed dial. What really kills me at my local costco is that everyone of the returned tubs(1 a week) get "chipped". They are not interested in donating them to our charity where we fix them up and find a home for them for someone with severe medical problems.

Can someone give some more information on the models I'm interested in? And also what i should expect on pricing for both (I was quoted $30,000 for both the D1 and H2X, not including concrete, crane, and electrical installation) Here in Wilmington I have serviced about 50 portable swim spas. Always heater or pump issues. A few have even had cracked shells. If I was going to buy one today, I would buy the D1. I am saying this with a Master H2 sitting in my back yard at my other house. The biggest reason I have the H2 was I got it at cost. If you are planing to move soon and take it with you, I would not go the portable route. You should be able to find a local pool builder who can drop a RIO swim spa in thee ground for you with the German Speck/Baud pump system for that 22k range. I would not go anywhere near a Sunbelt, ALPS or Cal Spa swim spa personally. Now as for pricing , realze that the dealer's MSRP is a 40-45% margin. Igot to say....That is a very suspect post by the "person" that had a sunbelt and then bought a Master. I wish I owned the website so I could look at their IP address.

This is never good and I have seen various problems from it. 1st and most likely is your GFI is now toast. Next your SC-30 fuse is also toast. If it's a Balboa board you most likely ruined it. A lot of the time the Neutral will now have power on your board. I have seen this about a dozen times having been done by electricians. Good luck to you.

Do remember that residual "stuff" from your hot tub will then be left in your dishwasher. As far as the detergent is concerned I am not a fan of bubbles.

Hi Doc, you are honestly being way to kind... Laughing... I know ... At this moment I need to be since we are initiating some litigation against them.

Questions: 1. In calculating the Turnover, we currently have a turnover rate of approximately 7 hours, if we are achieving the full potential of the motor. This seems awfully long for a commercial application. 2. The limiting factor seems to be the filter plumbing of 3 pipes at 2 inches each (225 GPM). Am I correct? 3. Could the filter pipe sizing cause enough strain on the motor to decrease the life to 2-3 years, or is this lifespan normal? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated since this organization cannot afford to continually replace a $3,000 motor. Should be more then enough pump. Crazy question but are you storing your chlorine close to the pump or any other chemicals in that pump room? Chlorine fumes will corrode all metal. Is the water properly balanced? I ask because if your seals keep leaking then the water is going to take that pumps windings out.

Whew! I wish you lived closer. No you will not need to bleed the pump everytime. There should be a simple little Peacock valve on the front of the pump or a screw. run your spa with this cracked open until all the air is out. Seems you have figured this part out. A real simple solution most hot tub manufactures do is run a line (3/8 inch usually) off the plumbing someplace and connect that line to the wet end of your pump. That elminates air locks. If your tub does have "slice valves" make sure they are fully open. If your water level is not at the proper place your tub's weir system could be pulling air into the pumps, so make sure your skimmer is not pulling in a lot of air. This is truly an easy problem to fix.

He's correct about the sensor being plugged into the heater. (M series are all this way) The board could very easily be damaged. They do not withstand any kind of heat very well. If it is I would tell you to look at generic Balboa boards since they will be much cheaper then you will find from Cal Spas.

I would pull the pump and dismantle the wet end. It's most likely an AO Smith pump so you could probably get parts for it at an industrial supply place like Granger. I pulled mine last week and it wasn't that difficult. I'd probably go ahead and take the motor to a re-builder and have them check it out as well. Even if you have to rebuild the whole thing, it shouldn't cost as much as a new pump. Spaguts.com can send you an entirely new AO Smith pump if you prefer to go that route. They can configure one any way you like. -Joel Cal Spas uses GE motors. Your Wet end is most likely their(cal spas) version of a waterway executive 56 frame pump. We sell them for about 65 bucks to give you an idea. If you could take a photo of it...that would help a lot since Cal Spas uses so many different pumps.

First make sure it is sand and not "scale". So check your chem elvels of course and make sure your not scaling. We use a shop vac with great success to remove sand.

Problems arise if your dealer doesn't stock a lot of parts. A few years ago(5), we had a Cal Spa customer that needed a pump. We ordered the pump and were sent the wrong one. From CA to NC, the whole process took 13 days! Now we sent that one back. Took a photo of his and re-ordered the correct pump again. They would not admit to a mistake and sent...guess what...the wrong pump...At this point we kept the 2nd pump since CAL SPAS charged us a restocking fee for the 1st pump! WOW! Now, many calls to Cali and faxes and we are then told they are waiting for the pumps to come for the manufacture. 6 months went by from the time this poor customer that lived 1 hour twenty minutes from us ended up with the correct pump (under warranty). Now it gets interesting...They denied his warranty claim after getting his pump back...we had to send it to them to make sure they got the right pump. The pump was a year old and its windings were a mess. Their reason was the seal was leaking and that is not covered of course. The small leak didn't cause the winding's to melt. The seal's leak was a drip about 1 a minute. We ended up with a total of 4 pumps. I still have 1 of those today. (now the customer was so upset he made a video, he took his basically new tub up in the air with a huge track hoe, went across some of his tomato fields where he dropped the tub about 90 feet off the side of a mtn. Next he doused it in diesel and lit it up. He then sent the video to Cal Spas. He then went and bough a Hot springs Grandee) what we found out is that Cal Spas just doesn't support its warranty centers and small dealers. I continually watch CAL SPA dealerships get started here in NC but when I go look to see if they are there the next year they are always gone. Over the last year I have run into a lot of bad boards from them in the Victory line. When everything is running, they can be a decent tub. Keep an eye on your pumps seals and watch for leaks. I had some problems with "bad glue" on joints from them also last year. Your dealer will make or break your opinion of that tub.

The older Softubs get up to 115 with a simple modification, so I am sure it has the ability to do it, but has been regulated to stay at 103-104 degrees . Anyone have any ideas other than the woodfire? I little too high mainainance ;-). Doubt someone in this business is going to tell you how since if anything does happen in time, they can and most likely will get sued. I know I will not just for that reason. My liability insurance would vanish in minutes. BTW...is that a bottle of ketchup and mustard next to the the guys in the tub? lol....

karl email me your email address and I will send over what we did for payment. drgordon@hottubdoctors.com. It is in an Excel 2007 spreadsheet format.

The cover came with the spa when they bought it. I hate the companies that sell me a cover. Cal Spas is a nightmare company to do warranty work for. I no longer do. If your dealer is new to Cal Spa then be worried since most will drop them once they wake up and the honeymoon period is over. If your dealer has been with Cal Spa for a few years then they already know what to expect when dealing with them. Cal Spa will always say at first it is not covered under warranty. Once it is running correcty it can be a good spa, although very expensive to fix. Good luck and they paid about 3200 for that spa.