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Hot tubs covers are not waterproof. After winterizing, you really should lay a waterproof tarp over the cover. If subject to heavy snow loads, I also recommend putting a sheet of thick plywood over the cover to hold and spread the load. Hopefully, you won't have freeze damage. John

The heater in question does not have unions. It has integral barb fittings. To the OP, just replace the heater. Patch jobs tend not to hold and any leaks could be dangerous to the electrical/electronic components. John

Besides issues with Dreammaker tech support, Balboa has curtailed production on many non-M7 boards. John

Yup, that's a Vico. Have fun getting that impeller off if it has been leaking that bad for awhile. It even looks like the front of the motor is well corroded. The Vico's use the PS-2136/AS-2136 shaft seal, but I'd also replace the o-ring that goes between the two halves of the pump. That's going to be in poor shape too, most likely. John

You did not specify the year of manufacture for your J365. That is important because it had two different controllers, depending on the year of manufacture. Look at your topside. If it has 10 buttons, you have the older, high end controller. If it has half that number of buttons, it is the lower end controller. In approximately 75 percent of the cases, a watchdog error is caused by a failing temp sensor. The other 25 percent of the time, it is caused by a bad board, power problems or even a bad Dallas time chip on the higher end boards. Technically speaking, the error itself simply means that the board has detected a situation that is hazardous to the equipment. Troubleshooting involves ohming out the temp sensors to see if one is bad, plus removing the sensor plug from the board and plugging the Jacuzzi sensor test plug in its place. The test plug mimics 73 degrees back to the board. John

Well, if you are going to be the guinea pig, I'd suggest starting where every potential hot tub purchaser should start, the Better Business Bureau: http://www.bbb.org/western-washington/business-reviews/spas-and-hot-tubs-dealers/clearwater-spas-in-woodinville-wa-27028748 Paste that link into your browser and you will find two immediate problems. First, their BBB rating is not good, unless you consider D+ to be good. Second, take that 35 years in business statement with a grain of salt. The BBB records indicate that it is 15 years old. Personally, I find it very troubling when any manufacturer or retailer tries to overinflate their resume. Finally, they probably do not produce a lot of tubs. I punched my zip code into their "dealer locator". They gave me dealers from Ontario to North Carolina, and there were only about a dozen dealers at that!! I don't know, maybe they have more dealers on the West Coast. Any good reviews I did find on them were from web sites that manufacturers pay for a rating. Yes, there are a bunch of web sites that will give rave reviews for a particular brand if the price is right. The more the manufacturer pays, the higher the rating. Get the picture!! John

Do you have an air blower?? If so, check out the air injectors. Coleman tubs of that vintage with air injectors were well known for cracked air injectors. John

Not all hot tub dealers handle all warranty repairs in house. About half the dealerships that I subcontract for also pay me to perform their warranty repairs. John

I'm working on an Artesian made (May Manufacturing) hot tub for a customer with the "Island Spas" brand name. So, they apparently have a few different names now. John

I personally order nothing but the Roberts Hot Tubs Extreme Cover with 1.5 lb density foam and ALL options for my customers. The Sunstar covers are OK. I believe they are made in the same plant as the Softub hot tubs. They are nowhere near the quality of the Roberts Extreme cover however. Not even close. John Hello Tom, There is a dealer right in Syracuse, I would recommend contacting Tarsons and talk with Jeff or Andrea at 315-458-8800 or stop by at the store.They may have a cover in stock that will work on your Diplomat. Tarson Pools 6061 E Taft Road Syracuse, NY 13212 Let me know if they can help, or if you need another option. Thanks, Dennis 315-458-8800 Thanks so much for responding, both of you. I called Tarson and spoke with a Phil there. They don't work directly with Dimension One; they use my dimensions to order a cover from sunstarcovers.com. A little pricey but I'm not going to sweat it if its worth it, if that makes sense? Have you heard of sunstarcovers.com? Phil indicated that the replacement would be better than the original I got; I will say that 7 years to me was a pretty good run. One of my concerns was will the weight of the new cover buckle the metal SuperLift2 I use to lift the cover off and drop it off to one side. My preference would be to have a company say "Oh, a 2004 Diplomat. Here are the dimensions for that cover per Dimension One" but I guess it doesn't work that way. I'm obviously a little worried about screwing up the dimensions (rounded corners and all) and having a heavy, expensive mistake on my hands. A final question -- do you think I should I call Liverpool Pool & Spa? They installed the hot tub but dropped the D1 line a few years back. I appreciate your patience as I muddle my way through this..... Tom Smith

If you keep testing that way, you'll cook the board, GFCI or both. Get a megohmmeter that goes to at least 20 megohms in order to ground fault test. I use a 40 megohm meter myself. You'll need to disconnect each load and properly ground fault test. Circ pumps and air blowers are common culprits on that particular tub, but be vigilant by also checking the jet pumps. John

Personally, I only purchase hot tub parts either from the tub manufacturer or, in a case like this, solely from Horizon Pool and Spa Parts. Unfortunately for you, Horizon only sells to the trade. On the other hand, there is nothing special about these relays. I'm sure you could also obtain them from Mouser or Digi-Key, and they do sell to the public. John

A professional opinion would depend on an actual examination. The Caldera Geneva from their Utopia series tub line is one of the finest tubs on the market. The problem is whether it has been abused chemically or not. If everything runs great and there are no signs of leakage/damage around pump seals, jets, circ pump, etc, then it retains good value. On the other hand, if there is leakage or staining in those areas, then value plummets. Can you post some pics for evaluation?? John

If you have no error codes, then you are on the right track about a bad relay. The contacts burn up over time. A pool/spa store can send that out to a rebuild service, such as Horizon, and probably rebuild that for a couple of hundred. Alternatively, find someone local who can competently do solder/de-solder work and simply buy the relay. The relay is a few bucks. Be sure they PROPERLY re-coat the board with conformal coating. John

This is perfect advice. Any properly plumbed, equipped and engineered tub should skim through the filter, even on low speed, assuming no restrictions caused by the filter. John filter cycles aside my first questions would be re: the parts in bold above...if chemicals are "on target" why would you have floating scum in the spa? and by on target do you mean just TA, pH, and Calcium Hardness or are you including your sanitizer as being on target as well? Reason I ask is because rule of thumb is, if the water is stinky, cloudy, slimy it usually relates to low or no sanitizer in the water (not always but usually) With the exception of a few cases where I've let the total bromine get to 0 (2 days within the last 30) the TBr, TA, pH, and CH have been relatively good. My recent measurements over the last 3 days have been... TBr TA pH CH 10 80 7.6 100 10 80 7.6 100 5 40 7.6 100 Ever since I filled the spa, the CH levels have been at 100 and haven't moved. Neither has the pH level of 7.6. About 3 days ago I shocked with Brominating Concentrate (Sodium Bromide) to get the TBr levels up. I figured some of the scum was caused by the TBr levels dropping but I was hoping the filtering, along with sanitizer, would help clear that up - it hasn't yet. I'm also beginning to think my weir skimmer is floating too high and the filter suction isn't enough to pull it down during the filter cycle. Is it possible to get air bubbles inside the weir assembly such that it floats higher than it should? The skimming system on a tub is only there to remove floating particulate matter (leaves, hair, lint, etc.). Scum is accumulation of dissolved organics on the surface of the water. I bet when you turn the jets on with air, you get some nasty film / bubbles. This is because you are greatly increasing the surface area of the water by adding billions of bubbles that carry the dissolved organics in your water to the surface. This is called protein skimming in aquarium / pond hobbies. What you need is better sanitation, NOT better filtration / surface skimming. I'm not a chemistry expert, but I'm taking a clue from your shocking comment above. Bromine in a hot tub is useful when it's in the form of hypobromous acid. It is the addition of an oxidizer (NOT adding more bromine) that generally makes this form available in a tub. The oxidizer is typically either MPS or a form of chlorine. If you aren't adding one of these (and your note above says you're "shocking" with "brominating concentrate" so I worry), you probably haven't shocked your tub sufficiently to burn off the scum. I'd study up on bromine sanitation methods, and the role that an oxidizer plays.. That will probably solve your problem. It has nothing to do with "better" tub or design as Roger pointed out. This is pure chemistry. Enjoy your new tub! All good advice above. Now do this simple test. Remove your filter and put the skimmer assembly back in place. Make sure you don't have anything in the water that can be somehow sucked into the pump. Now run the pump on low speed and see if the water gets skimmed. If it does, this indicates to me that you have already plugged up your 45 day old filter and you should try a good cleaning and even some filter cleaner to bring it back to normal. If nothing changes in the skimming action then it isn't a filter problem. In any case, scum is bad and needs to be dealt with. Good luck.

There are a few potential issues with your selection and recommendation of NM-B. First and foremost, NM-B is not legal for the outdoor portion of a hot tub wiring run as of the 2005 NEC, even if it is in conduit. It is legal for the indoor portion of the wiring run provided that it's use is also allowed for other reasons. Another big problem with NM-B is that it is a 60 degree C rated wire, while many hot tub manufacturers require the use of 75, 90 or even 105 C rated wiring. Even NM-B stamped as 90 C must be rated per NEC as a 60 C conductor for purposes of wire sizing. Any higher rating can only be used for de-rating purposes. Therefore, any use of NM-B is illegal if the tub installation instructions specifically state a requirement for a higher rating. I didn't bother to actually calculate the conductor "fill percentage" for your NM-B 6-3 w/ground in your recommended 1 inch conduit, but suspect you are probably in violation of the fill percentage rule. You should probably re-examine this in your own installation, as it has important ramifications with regard to potential overheating of the conductors. John

You may or may not be able to use it. The circuit must be dedicated, of the proper ampacity and GFCI protected. It's probably GFCI protected OK, but it may not be dedicated or have the correct ampacity. John

Read the voltage and amperage off the motor tag and we can calculate the horsepower. It's probably no more than 1.5 HP given the 1.5 inch plumbing. Oh, and make sure there is a double pole GFCI somewhere on the electrical supply side. That single pole on the pack doesn't cut it. John

For sake of clarity and so we do not get an unsuspecting consumer into trouble on a Hot Springs install, not all of the HS tubs have the heater on the 30 amp GFCI. The larger tubs with two, large HP jet pumps have to have the motor circuits on the 30 amp GFCI, so HS puts a 4 kW heater in those tubs and assigns the heat circuit to the 20 amp GFCI. John 30amp operates the heater + other functions and the 24hr. circ pump is operated with the 20amp...if your heater should fail in the middle of winter it should only trip the 30 allowing the circ pump to operate and circulate the water preventing freezing...it is a unique setup and that is why every new spa comes with the appropriate panel

Yes, Hot Springs has a reason why this is a requirement in their installation. The NEC and, I believe UL1563, require hot tub motor loads to be appropriately fused separately from the other components. Hot Springs does not have fusing on their control board for the jet pump(s). Other controllers, such as Gecko and Balboa, have those motor circuits protected on the board with various size fuses, typically SC-20, SC-25 or SC-30 for jet pump circuits. John

The three flashing dots usually mean that the pressure switch is not sensing proper water flow through the heater, although on some models it can also indicate a problem with the high limit. If your pump is at least circulating water, you will not freeze. John

If it froze as you suspect, I'd check motor fuses. John

3/4 inch hose. John It is a 2001. I've had good luck with it. How do you troubleshoot the circ pump with no water in the tub? (was -20 last night.....) You take it out and set it next to a bucket of water on the work bench. Hook it up to electricity with some jumpers and pump water in a cirlce out and into the bucket. You'll need some flexible tubing. I think that's 1"???? Make sure the bucket and the water are clean. You may have to give the water a boost to get it going. I fill the suction tube up then start the pump and drop the hose in the bucket. I also vice grip the pump to the bench.

Have the tech try a couple of things first. Check to see whether your tub is equipped with regular lighting or LED lighting. If you have LED lighting, try disconnecting that first. They had some issues with those from that general era. If that is not the problem, plug another aux panel into the IQ2020 controller and simply hang it in the equipment compartment for a trial. It is possible that the new aux panel is defective. It's rare, but it does happen. John

In addition to the instructions you have given him, he must also remove that white jumper that is connected to the "Red AC" section of the board. Failure to do so will probably result in damaged wiring or a damaged board. The conversion instructions from Balboa should be inside the front cover of the control box. John cool, so that wire you were talking about isnt needed for this control board then? I just hook in the 220v wiring where it says and then flip that last dip switch and I'm good to go? yes yes what would you recommend for wiring? I was going to use 6/3 outdoor wiring ($$/foot) since the manual states 50amp service in 220 mode. thats what you need, suggest an outside dissconnect, home depot has nice spa boxes for this oh yeah, since apparently leisure bay went under, just out of curiosity, how hard is it to get replacement parts for this tub? I'm pretty sure if either motor goes out I can just get another from grainger by going against their cross reference system like I've had to do for industrial washing machines in the past. parts are easy, the only difficult one is if you have crossfire jets my concern is the control board and/or the display board as everything else looks pretty generic inside. if the board goes bad, in most cases it is better to replace the entire control system. It does not cost a lot more than a board and has a better warrenty. thanks for the help by the way!