J24

Anyone replace their VS series spa pack with Balboa's new BP501? Would love to replace the VS series spa pack in our spa with Balboa's new BP501 with the optional wifi controller. Looking for greater pump/filter scheduling flexibility and the ability to control the spa remotely (get it hot before I get home). It looks like a drop in replacement for the VS series spa packs. Thanks!

Absolutely I would return it. Without hesitation. If it failed to deliver the value I expected -- in terms of the experience, reliability, fit, finish, noise, etc... Costco offers this return policy as part of its business strategy because many consumers feel it reduces their risk of purchase -- especially for big ticket items. In our case, it was a huge element of the decision to buy a hot tub from them. I am almost certain nobody in the Costco organization is losing sleep over the morality of return policy abuse. If at some point it becomes an unprofitable or ineffective strategy, they will change it -- which they did with electronics (now limited to 90 days).

That helps. I have been adjusting CH first when refilling. Sounds like I should tackle it last. Here are my numbers after dialing things in after yesterday's refill: CH 130 TA 70 pH 7.6 Borates 40 CYA ~10 FC 5 CC 0 CSI -.12 Temp 103 I'd have to run the CH up to 190 to zero out the CSI. Worth it?

Of course if I attempt it myself, I'll have 4-5 others on hand to assist in whatever method I try. Looking at photos of the CXi80 posted by someone here, that baby sure looks like it would be prone to tip over with it perched on that pallet! Ken Leaving it on the pallet spreads the load and avoids point loading the cabinet sides. The spa mover I used took three guys guiding and rolling it. This is just my opinion from watching the whole affair. I am most definitely not an expert.

I think it would work if you left the spa in it's shipping crate and put down plywood boards on any grass / dirt you have to roll across. The spa mover I hired to move our Costco spa from the driveway to the backyard used something similar. Watch your roof overhang when moving it! Ask me how I know!!!

I got a ton of great ideas and advice from this forum while shopping for our first spa last year. So, I thought I'd post our experiences to date with the one we wound up buying in the event this is helpful for others. We considered and wet tested spas from Hotspring, Dimension1, Sundance, Arctic, Jacuzzi, and a local private label and wound up buying a Costco (Strong) Evolution CSXi80 online from Costco. I think we would have been happy with any of the spas we looked at. Having a family soak, a soak before bed, a soak with friends, a soak after a long hike or round of golf and a place for the kids to splash around are what these things are all about for us. I think all of them can deliver that experience. Your goals may be different of course. We are delighted with our purchase and the spa has met or exceeded all of our expectations. What we like about it: Price -- we paid $4,700 plus $150 to have a spa mover move it to the crushed rock pad in the back yard. This was a lot less than the other spas we considered from the major brands which ranged from $8,000 to $12,000 (the local private label was close at $5,500 but no return option). The price included matching steps and a tapered cover. Costco's return policy -- this basically removed all of the risk in the decision for us. You can get your money back from Costco any time you want. For $200, the local spa mover will move it from my backyard to Costco's receiving dock. I confirmed all this with the Costco manager at our local store. I couldn't find any spa dealer willing to match this (and who can blame them). Seating configuration -- deep captains chairs with two different heights (his & hers basically). Other seats at other heights including a "cool down" seat which doubles as a step into the tub. We wanted an open seating configuration because our kids tend to "swim around" in it. Large footwell -- handles 2 adults and 2 kids pretty well. Jets -- Each jet can be turned on or off individually. Also, two of the seats have neck / shoulder jets which do a pretty good job. Air control -- 4 air controls make it easy to target where you want the air Standard components -- I am comfortable with basic maintenance tasks and I found I could buy all of the parts for this spa online easily and inexpensively should I need to do work on it in the future. Balboa controls, Waterway jets, AOSmith/Waterway pumps. The design and construction is very straightforward if you are into doing your own maintenance. The cabinet configuration also makes it very easy to get inside and get to the plumbing, pumps and controls. Documentation is easy to find and you can't beat the troubleshooting and repair advice you get from this and other forums. All plastic / fiberglass (no wood) -- Strong is into "rotomolding" and thus the spa's entire construction is plastic and fiberglass. It also has a beefy plastic floor which Strong says you can put right onto a dirt surface. No wood to rot. Lights -- it has Balboa's basic LED light control and a variety of lighting settings. My kids like it. I almost always sit in the dark and look at the stars or moon. It looks nice all lit up when we have backyard parties. What we wish was different: 5HP motors instead of 4HP -- I would like a little more oomph in the jets during the short time I use them on full blast. They are pretty good as is, and if I turn off the jets I'm not using, the power is fine but if these motors ever burn out, I'll replace them with 5HP instead of 4HP. My wife is perfectly happy with them as is. We rented a house recently that had a Hotspring with 5HP jets and you could definitely feel the difference. "Volcano Jet" -- a few of the spas we looked at had a cone shaped jet in the footwell that would deliver a major foot massage. We have a few foot jets in this spa, but nothing like the "volcano jet" we tried! More flexibility programming the filtration and heating cycles -- The Balboa control unit has about a dozen different settings to control the amount and timing of filtration and how the spa handles the heating cycle. I would like the option to fine tune these settings. Not a huge deal. Usage Notes -- here are some random notes about how we use the spa that you may find helpful: BBB or "Dichlor-then-bleach" water maintenance method. I read about this here and on another forum and tried it from the beginning. What a great system. We went almost 4 months before our first drain and refill and our water looked, smelled and felt terrific the entire time. I thought we would go with the Nature2 system but after 4 months just using BBB, I am sold. Highly recommended! Drop Test Kit -- Order this or buy it before you get your spa. Having accurate test results makes the whole process of learning to manage your spa water so much easier. Ozonator -- I thought this would be a really important feature, but now that we've had the spa I don't think I'd replace it if it broke (actually it may be broken for all I know). I'm not sure I am really gaining much having the ozonoator. The BBB method seems to be the key. We have the filtration cycle set to "2" which means it filters 2 hours twice per day or 4 hours total. This has been sufficient to keep the water clean. I clean the filter cartridge every other week with a spray filter cleaner and a quick rinse. It never seems that dirty. We keep the heater set at 104 and in the "Economy" mode which means it only runs the heater during the filtration cycles. We have the filtration cycle running from 7am - 9am and 7pm - 9pm. During the 10 hours between cycles, the temp seems to drift down 1 to 3 degrees (Northern California fall/winter temps). By having the filtration / heater run at these times, the water is usually at the right temp during the times we use the spa (evening after dinner and night before bed). I opted to build a 4" thick crushed rock pad framed by pressure treated 2 x 4s. Strong says you can put the spa right down on level dirt but I opted for the rock to provide better drainage and a more stable surface. So far after 4 months and A LOT of rain, it is working perfectly. I had the electrician route the electrical conduit under the pad and we drilled a hole in the spa floor to lead the wiring up through the bottom. Easy to do. Cover lifter -- I thought I would wind up buying or making a cover lifter but at this point I don't think we will. It is easy enough to slide the cover off the back of the spa and prop it up against the side. It's low and out of the way when we slide it off. I just don't think the cover lifters look very good and many of them leave the cover standing up pretty high when open. My wife agrees. Typical usage -- I typically sit in one of the captains chairs for about the first 10 minutes of a soak with the jets and air on high. Then, I turn the jets off or on low and move around to one of the other seats and take in the view and the quiet. I mention this only because having a bunch of different hydrotherapy jets turned out to be not such an important thing for us. Same with waterfalls and lights. Nice, but not critical to the experience. Your goals here may be different. Stereo vs iPod -- I thought I might install waterproof speakers and a car stereo in the shell for music but at this point tossing my ipod on the propped up cover behind me works pretty well. I think if I had the stereo installed I'd have to turn it up pretty high to hear it and that would create noise late at night that the neighbors may not be wild about. Towels vs Robes -- Someone gave us this tip and I recommend it. Instead of towels, get everyone a fluffy terry cloth robe. When you get out, wrap yourself in the robe instead of a towel. Hang it up to dry when you get back in the house. Since you are clean when you get out, you rarely have to wash the robe and its much warmer than a towel when you are making the dash back into the house on a cold night! Finally, one of the things I didn't expect was what a nice family time the spa creates. For whatever reasons our 10 and 12 year old kids love to chat about their day when we are all sitting in the tub after dinner -- much more so than at other times. A nice side benefit we didn't expect. Happy to answer any questions. Thanks to everyone for putting out such good advice and for the diversity of opinions and ideas on this forum.

For those of you considering using the "dichlor then bleach method", here is my experience after nearly 4 months of using it with a brand new spa. I've never tried any other water management system and thus can't compare. The water has always looked, smelled and felt perfect. I just did a decontamination, drain and fill yesterday -- after almost 4 months. We typically use the spa around 8 person/hours per week. We don't shower before using. Once or twice per week this includes grimy kids. We typically use bathing suits and rinse but don't wash them after each soak. About half the time it is only me in the tub at night and I am "suit-less". We always add 5 oz of Clorox after each person/hour of soaking. About once per month we use dichlor instead of Clorox to keep the CYA level up. Sometimes we throw in 5 tsp of MPS if we have a bunch of kids soaking in it to give the chlorine some help. We used 20 Mule Team Borax to keep around 40ppm of Borates in the water. Seemed to help stabilize the pH and it made the water feel nice. At about the 3 month mark, we started having .5CC to 1CC lingering after sitting overnight. I figured that meant it was time for a drain and refill. After we got the hang of it, we only need to test the water once or twice per week. I got a good Taylor drop test kit -- one with DPD test for chlorine is critical. I found the test strips almost completely useless from the standpoint of accuracy -- especially after having a good drop test kit. I taught my 10 and 12 year olds how do test and maintain the water and this is now on their chore list! The tub has one filter cartridge and I typically cleaned and rinsed it every other week using a spray filter cleaner. Never seemed that dirty. Our tap water has very low CH and TA and thus getting the water balanced was pretty easy. Here are our typical test ranges: FC 2 - 6 CC .5 - 1 CYA 20 - 30 (hard to get a good measure at levels this low) pH 7.4 - 7.6 TA 60 CH 190 - 200 Borates 40 (test strips have very coarse measurements) Thanks to everyone here for such great advice for a newby tub owner.

[\quote]When I added the "reflectix" insulation the noise went way down to just a barely audible hum. I still hear it but to be honest, lets me know all is well when I hear it. By "reflectix" do you mean the lead lined foam noise insulation? I was thinking that would be a perfect solution in addition to rubber mounts for the pump. I think this would be an easy installation.

I think soakerguy is right. My old spa (Platinum III) had the 24 hr circ pump and I thought that it was a great system. The jet pumps would come on for five minutes every few hours. You did hear it inside the house, just as J24 mentioned. I used "spa-flush" on each drain-refill and never got any crud out of the plumbing, so my conclusion was that the 24 hour circ system works. I'm a big fan of perimeter insulated spas, mostly because of the ease of serviceability. But the downside is, I think they're louder than the full-foam models. Wonder how much work it would be to change to a 24 hour circ pump system on the CSXi80? It's on my list of things to check out once mine arrives and I get a chance to examine the details under the hood. Noise is abit of concern for me too, since the neighbor's bedroom is just on the other side of the fence to where my spa will be located. You could add a circ pump easily. The balboa VS control unit has a connector for it. The plumbing is straightforward and easily accessible. You could easily do the math between 4 hours of running the existing jet pump on low (which is what happens now -- 2 hours, twice a day) vs the electrical consumption of a 24 hour circ pump and see what the cost savings would be. 4 hours of filtration with the existing jet pump seems to be plenty from what I can tell so I don't think I'd gain much from a 24 hour circ pump in terms of water cleanliness.

That is exactly the conclusion I came to and thus we bought a Strong spa from Costco. I've owned a boat for years and maintaining something with a fiberglass shell, thru-hulls, hoses, pumps and simple electronic controls is pretty straightforward. The Strong spa has A.O. Smith motors driving Waterway pumps with Waterway jets and Balboa controls. You can find all of these parts online and even locally in some spa stores. Maintaining, troubleshooting and repairing these things is not rocket science. The Strong spa is exactly as advertised and after a month we are enjoying it very much.

We've had it two weeks. It is better than we expected. We like the size, layout, jets, power, controls, configuration, cabinet, shell, seating. The only thing that bothers me slightly is that the pump makes a bit more noise than I would like when it runs -- not from the standpoint of when you are sitting in the tub, but rather when it runs twice a day during its filtration cycle. It's not horrible, but I notice it when I'm in the kitchen (the spa is just outside near the patio). A spa with a small circulation pump wouldn't have this noise (I don't think). I'm going to change the mounts under the pumps to hard rubber which I think will kill the vibration noise. Again, it isn't a huge thing. My wife doesn't even notice it. There is my honest feedback!

This is within $100 of the best deal we got on the same model. It's a great brand and a great spa. We ultimately canceled the order and bought a Costco CXsi80 instead for about half the price. We've had it for a few weeks and thus far are glad we made the switch. I'm sure you'll be delighted with the Hotspring. We just couldn't justify the price difference. Good luck and read up on the BBB method for maintaining your spa water -- what a great way to go!