JerimiahR

I'm impressed with the guy's honesty. Very nice looking Cottage by the way. Should be a very nice set up.

I'm guessing you should probably determine the brand, model, and year of the spa first. Might help you with getting any assistance with diagrams of anything in relation to your particular hot tub. Generally speaking though, I doubt you'll find detailed diagrams showing you exactly how to rebuild the frame of the spa itself. That's not something that's really done much in my experience.

Disclaimer: I sell, love, drink, and am passionate about the Hot Spring "Koolaid." On the note of tent sales, etc: If it's your permanent local dealer, I don't think it's a big deal. However, there are a lot of traveling hot tub sales these days. Buying from them could still mean a good hot tub, but it could mean no local service at all. So be very, very careful there. In the end: Buy Local! Hot Spring, Tiger River, Caldera (as previously mentioned) are great spas, all backed by Watkins Manufacturing, which is backed by Masco Corp. That really does mean something, as was suggested further up. This is a manufacturer that is very solid right now, and is run by extremely good people. I've met several of their regional reps, marketing folks, etc. Very above board group of folks who run and operate this company. I'm not going to enter a bunch of sales pitch here, but I really do believe Hot Spring makes a better quality spa, which will be easier to use, and more energy efficient than about everything out there. I base this on specs, personal experience, and electric meters which we've placed on customer's spas (both ours and competitive brands) in a cold climate (Montana). Lots of folks say to let your butt decide what's best. However, I think your brain has to narrow things down first. It's just like real life. Just because it feels good, doesn't always mean it's good for you. Your Questions: 1. Not 100% apples to apples. Each manufacturer has different ideas/theories on many things (insulation, circulation, filtration, etc) It's fruit to fruit though. 2. Not that I would add. 3. Warranties are not all the same. Read the details, some include or exclude certain things that others may or may not. 4. Often times it's heaters. Second to that, it's pumps. I like Hot Spring's use of Titanium heaters & 24/7 circ pumps to save energy and wear & tear on your larger/more expensive jet pumps. (not to mention quieter) 5. Many will tell you it is.... but I disagree. 6. Watkins Manufacturing, makers of Hot Spring Spas 7. Spa depths can vary from as little as 29", to 33", 36", 38", and deeper depending on over all size and models. 8. Foot massage is all about the user. That's a preference you'll need to determine by sitting in a few spas. 9. Ask about your dealer. Learn some more about what they do, how long they've done it, where they service (in case you're out of town).

If it's a 2005 it's probably a "Vista" model. The "Landmark" was only made until 2003. In 2004 it became the Vista, and the interior was remolded. Otherwise it's basically the same dimensions on the outside, 8'4" x 7'7" x 38". You can check the serial number on it if you wish. The "Landmark" models began with either an "S" or "SQ". The format should be something like SQ#A####. Each # equals a number. The letter after the first # designates the year it was made. A = 1999 B = 2000 C = 2001 D = 2002 E = 2003 F = 2004 G = 2005 The fact that the dealer called it a Landmark doesn't cause me any suspicion. The model designator in the serial number for a Vista is "SS". When you have options of S, SQ, or SS, it's a very honest mistake. In fact often times when you order a cover from Hot Spring for that spa, the label on the cover will say Landmark/Grandee. The Landmark changed to become the Vista, and the Grandee is the exact same dimensions but different interior. So Landmark & Vista are essentially synonymous, they just technically refer to different model years. As far as the price goes, I'd ask about what is included and what is not. For instance, for the $6,000 is the dealer willing to give you an in house warranty to cover any potential problems in the future, and if so for how long.

Buying a hot tub is something that really should be done in person. I would strongly caution anyone who was going to purchase a hot tub online. Communicating with a local dealer by email and such is fine, but you'll very rarely find hot tub prices given out on dealer websites. Pricing varies quite a bit throughout the country, continent, etc. This may sound like a bit of salesmanship to some folks, but I'm going to be very honest. If I simply put prices on my website, and let people decide whether to buy my spa purely based on the picture and a price, I'd really be doing them a HUGE disservice. There is WAY more to buying a hot tub than simply, "Looks pretty. And it's cheap." Some spas are worth spending money on, others aren't worth picking up for free. Lots of things vary from brand to brand, and your dealer can make a big difference too. Not to mention the fact that not all seats were created equally. You really should sit in the hot tub before you buy it, even if the spa is empty. Make sure you even like it before you go spending your money on it. Find out why that brand may or may not be popular in your area. Anyone can set up a website with pictures and prices, but not just anybody is going to provide you with long term professional service on a product you'll likely spend over $6,000 for. For cold climates like yours, I recommend spas like Hot Spring, Caldera, Sundance. Purely because the increased insulation and good electric efficiency.

We've used several brands/models over the years depending on what we could find when we needed them. However, we always use submersible pumps that allow for a standard sized 1.5" vinyl pool hose to attach to them. Works very quickly. Allows us to drain even the biggest spas in 15 to 20 minutes. Much more efficient for providing Drain & Clean services to our customers.

If it's leaking above/near the light, it could be a light lens that's cracked, the seal around the light lens is bad, or the shell of the spa (worst case) could be cracked along where the light lens is sealed. Although I don't do these repairs, my warehouse manager has repaired several of these over the years. So I've heard of it happening a few times. Ultimately, you may have to drain the spa to make the repair. If you just need to reseal the lens, or even replace the light lens, you can probably pick up the parts from your local Hot Spring dealer and do it yourself relatively inexpensively. Though I'm not sure how much labor is involved as I haven't done this repair myself.

Maax is a long time manufacturer, as was stated before, that formerly sold their spas under the "Coleman" name. So it's no surprise you had not heard of Maax before. Over all a pretty decent hot tub, however can be a little more expensive in a really cold climate as it uses perimeter insulation (as do many other brands). Welcome to the hot tub family! I'm sure you'll enjoy soaking often.

From a mechanical standpoint, a Limelight is a Hot Spring. Same pumps, heater, circulation system, circuitry, etc. So as far as mechanical reliability, you're right on target. However, the Hot Spring models (which are obviously more expensive) have more insulation in them and come with Ozone as standard features. For $6,500 though, the Limelight Flair is a great option. If you don't need as many jets, lights, or seats, you could consider the Tiger River Sumatran. It's a 3-4 person spa, and is really popular in my market. The Tiger River uses the same filter and controls as the Limelight, but has the same structure and insulation as the Hot Spring. One step up from the Sumatran would be the Bengal that Mikey mentioned.

pH can drop for a few reasons. However, since you keep adding pH Increaser to no avail, I'm curious as to whether you've tested your alkalinity. If your alkalinity is low, your pH isn't going to go up and stay there. Test that and see if alkalinity needs increased. Depending on the other chemicals you're using (like Bromine tablets for example) you may find your pH drop on a regular basis.

No, they don't all leak. I have a 20 year old Jacuzzi that has never leaked. There are two main reasons that a tub springs leaks, either it's a poor quality tub or the tub has been abused chemically. John Or most commonly in my climate, they are improperly drained and left 'empty' during freezing season without being properly winterized.

The water being a milky white, do you also get a lot of foam/bubbles when the jets run? I often find that new hot tub owners build up quite a bit of soap/laundry detergent in their new spas which can cause this sort of issue. Rinse your bathing suits, don't wash them after each use. Also, what we recommend to our customers in my market, with the Envoy (using Ozone & AG+) is the following: Add 2 tsp of DiChlor (chlorine) for each person immediately after soaking. Run the jets (clean cycle) for at least 10 minutes. Weekly, shock the spa with 2.5 TBS of DiChlor even if you don't use it. Our experience has been that this gives people a very simple routine process, and keeps the spa nice and clean. It also allows the person to take advantage of the low/no chlorine residual during your soaking experience.

Your years of experience as a lawyer taught you well to be skeptical. My former background brings me the same levels of skepticism. From a professional standpoint, I think a salesman has a much better stand to talk about why you want their product. Not why you don't want the competitor's brand of spas. It has been interesting selling the Hot Spring brand in my market. Particularly because all of my competitors sell directly against me. Not each other, but against Hot Spring. I think customers pick that up when they're shopping. If every brand of spa they look at, is directly competing with Hot Spring, it can tend to suggest to a shopper that Hot Spring might just be the dominant force in the market. Now each market is different obviously. Ultimately though, you need to buy a hot tub from a dealer you feel you can trust. They're the one that will be helping you with any potential problems in the future. Plus I think we as consumers should financially support the good guys, not the guys we really don't feel great about. So choose your spa and your dealer.

This is something I hear pretty commonly. The vast majority of the time however, it's not really an actual reaction to the Chlorine, but a possible lack there of. Bacterial problems in the hot tub can cause a rash, which looks a lot like someone breaking out from an allergic reaction. Bromine Tablets as Chem Geek suggested, dissolve very slowly so you're not talking about much Chlorine being present. However with granular bromine, as much as 82.5% of the granular bromine is actually Sodium Dichlor (hot tub Chlorine). I'm by no means trying to tell you that you are not actually allergic. However, I have many customers who think they are, and are very likely not, considering they routinely shock with granular bromine without problems. I often wonder about actual chlorine allergies though, considering almost all municipal water systems use Chlorine to sanitize drinking water. You're almost certain to have at least trace amounts of chlorine in your tap water by the time you drink it. I'd imagine there would be some kind of reaction to chlorinated drinking water in folks who were allergic, yes?

So called "dealer agendas" aside, I personally feel the Hot Spring Spas is a much better quality product than Catalina. And I think just about any hot tub dealer (regardless of their brand) would probably agree with that. As for the salesmanship of your Catalina dealer, I can tell you with first hand experience what he's talking about is not a filtration or water movement issue. If you let any hot tub sit long enough, without proper sanitation (regardless of whether a big jet pump cycles or not) you're going to get bio-film build up. That's the "slimy" stuff your Catalina dealer is referring too. I have 5 to 6 hot tubs filled and running 24/7 in my showroom (all Hot Spring brand with the 24/7 circ pump) on any given day. And they are not used regularly. Never had a problem with slimy build up in them. Hot Spring has been using their circulation pump for a very long time. If it was truly such a problem, they wouldn't be where they're at right now. I can confidently state that the Hot Spring Spa dealers here in Montana dominate their markets. They are a fantastic product. What you ought to do, is refer to your 8 year old Hot Spring Spa. If you've taken good care of your water, have YOU noticed it has this awful tendency to accrue slimy build up on the seats? If you are getting slimy build up on your seats, the spa more than likely is simply not being sanitized properly (i.e. not frequent enough Chlorination). Bio-film is developed by bacteria as it grows. Without bacterial growth, you won't get all the bio-film slimy build up you're seeing. Unfortunately, it sounds to me that the Catalina dealer is disparately trying to come up with something to use to compete against Hot Spring. EDIT: By the way. I don't know how you took the dealer's statement. But his comment about being asked to take over the Hot Spring dealership is a little questionable in my mind. Kind of a cheap shot / below the belt kind of statement. Whether there is any truth to it I have no idea. But that's now how I choose to do business.

Surprised you don't have a Hot Spring dealer? I'd suggest them first. Fantastic spas in cold climates. We do very well with them in Montana (US). Of the spas in your list however, Sundance would be my next option. They are a fully foamed spa with good reliability and energy use over all.

GPM and HP are statistical, idealistic, theoretical numbers. They in the end mean nothing at all. Sit in the hot tub. Feel the jets. Not every spa with a huge jet pump is worth a darn, let alone has decent jets.

Hot Spring & Caldera are excellent examples of what you're looking for. Outside of those, my next recommendation would be Sundance.

Very picturesque setup!! I love it. The Pearl/Espresso color combination is great too. Good choice on the Espresso color to match your area.

Seriously?!? Options: 1) Tear out a wall to remove spa, rebuild wall. 2) Destroy hot tub & remove in pieces.

Pay close attention to the density of the foam. I've seen some covers sold online with 1.2# & 1.5# densities. Most major hot tubs will come standard with 2# density foam cores. The denser the material, the better it will insulate.

Congrats on the new hot tub! Can't wait to hear about your soaking experiences.

Ultimately all rebate programs bank on the fact that not 100% of people actually go through the trouble (or remember) to claim their rebate. From what I understand about these gas/grocery rebates, they really must either make it very difficult on purpose, or have high hopes that people don't go through with it. From what I've been told, the 'rebate' is pretty cheap for the retailer to purchase. I honestly don't know how these companies can support themselves long term. Purely as a hypothetical, if the dealer buys the rebate for $200, and the customer 'saves $1,000' it would mean a literal loss for the rebate company of AT LEAST $1,000 (which is really more because of their costs to operate). The only way they could possibly make any money, is if they collected $200 from the retailer, and then never had to fund any of the rebates. Unless they somehow get a kick back from the grocery stores or gas stations in some manner for helping them attract business or something. Of course it looks good on paper, because the customer feels they're saving $1,000. Yet the dealer is really only giving up $200 to make the customer feel like they're saving $1,000. I have not participated in one of these, but they simply sound too good to be true. I have sent in rebates for many products I've purchased over the years (mostly electronics). And some companies are better at paying than others. I've waited as long as 3 to 4 months to get $30 rebates sometimes. Even in these cases, I've always bought reputable products from reputable/major companies.

I looked into these a couple weeks ago. From what I've gathered, they are a pain in the butt for the customer. I've also heard some of these 3rd party companies that actually offer these deals to the retailer are actually going out of business. Sort of like the companies supporting the gas cards that were so popular last summer when gas prices were ridiculous. Apparently many of the companies who financed those deals have/are going bankrupt. I talked to my dealer's owner about these programs, and he was familiar with them. Said it costs the retailer a couple hundred dollars to offer the customer a rebate for gas/groceries that could easily be over $1,000. So for the retailer, they 'save' the customer a lot of money, but it only costs them very little. The trouble comes in when the customer realizes how big of a pain in the butt it is to actually 'save' that money through the rebate program. My owner refuses to do them because he didn't feel they were really of benefit to the customer. Only rebates I like are "Instant Rebates" or the Staples Easy Rebates. To bad I don't shop at Staples more often. Their rebates are super simple. Take your receipt home, get online, punch in the code on your receipt. Bam, you're done. Wish all rebates were that simple.

$9,800 sounds like a very good price to me. As far as incentives go, Hot Spring as a company doesn't offer incentives. Thankfully the Hot Tub industry doesn't work quite like cars do! Though over the lifetime of owning the spa, owning a Hot Spring versus something else will probably save you a lot of money anyhow. Better energy efficiency, and greater reliability in my experience.