pkillur

New wiring is like 200 bucks, 300 max. How expensive is your house if it burns down, or how expensive are GFCI's that keep flaking out because of too much load? Furthermore, as a "do-it-yourselfer" myself, there is nothing more agravating than working on your hot tub, being in strange awkward areas working on stuff and then the freakin' thing doesn't work! Remember, you can do it right the first time, or you can do it right the second time... Also - what guage is your wiring? It is conceivable that if you've got a longish run they MIGHT have run 6ga wire (but highly unlikely). Also, check your panel that it can not only take the breaker, but also the load from the hot tub. As well, make friends with your electrical inspector and find out the rules / regs for your town. State or County probably won't do it - you'll need to talk to your LOCAL guy - E.G. I live in Parker, CO. It's in Douglas County, but Parker has far stricter rules than Douglas County does. 5-10 hours of research and reading will save your wallet lots and keep you safe in the process. If you're going to do it yourself (I did the wiring, just not the hookup) there is an EXCELLENT tutorial on spadepot.com that's animated and explains how to do stuff. Another hint - if you've got any size worth of run (50+ feet) I found it was much cheaper to buy Romex in pre-cut lengths and then strip out the wires and put it into liquitight whips. Once again - caveat emptor - make sure you're getting the right stuff at HD and ALWAYS get an electrician's buyoff. Preferably one who's a little bit scared of water and might not be the first pick from your dealer. 1/8 ounce of prevention is worth 200 pounds of electrocution in your hot tub! OK, OK, I'm putting my soapbox away now...

Roger says "3M scotch pads" - I use like 1200 grit sandpaper, only because I have a ton of it left over from another project I massively misjudged need for! Scotch pads are the white / blue / green things on the front of mops. They're very non marring. In the two tubs I've owned, only the pumps and "replacable" items are screwed in. Everything else is glued into place (which is probably better considering jiggling and pressure develop every time you use your spa). If your spa has a little pinhole leak, you are going to really want to use plast-aid or some kind of epoxy. Especially with a fullyfoamed cabinet it'll be a PITA to get the pipes dug out and then replaced. Just my opinion from someone who loves me some plast-aid (and they're a local Colorado company so I'm probably biased).

So I didn't hear back from anyone,but I finally found something on this that helped me. Someone posted somewhere that if you're getting garbage on your topside readout pull a cable modem trick - leave it turned off for 5 minutes. I feel so incredibly dumb as an engineer to have missed the flashing light bulb (steady, actually) that there could be runaway processes running on the PCB!!! Left it off for 10 minutes or so and all is well again.

How much was one of those things installed? That is a really cool idea, I've never heard of it before, but that is an awesome idea - I could even install it despite my HOA's ridiculous "No Permanent Buildings" rule too!

Turning the GFCI off doesn't make it go away. The odd part is that everything works, and the water temperature appears to be right at where I set it at. Does this mean it's a error code 8? Normally I see nothing just ER(fill in number). I'm not really sure if it's messed up or not - it appears to be acting normally, but when I try and adjust the temperature the display doesn't change.

I would think it depends on where you're at geographically / how cold it gets. I would definitely (if it were me) superchlorinate or add a bromine floater or something. Logistically I've never had a spa sit for so long, so I'm sure someone else has more info on that. I can tell you that it took a flush or two to get my spa back to ship-shape after it sat at my in-law's place dormant (but at 104) for a few months. A super shock + spa flush got it back on track in a day with two refill + heats. Also - do you have ozone? You could put a floating blanket and that (at least anectdotally) keeps the ozone on the water a little longer.

If you're sure that nothing else got into it, you should be OK to shock it I would think. The other guys can chime in if they think it's bad (I'm still a little bit of a noob), but I shocked some water when mine went down to 0 PPM for a few days as well.

I was hoping with those 10 inch, pneumatic tires, I wouldn't have to go the plywood route... but who knows. Thanks for the warning regarding the overhang. Ken NO - use Plywood. Figure out how much you need and buy / borrow 25% more than that. We had an awful time moving ours on *FOZEN* landscaping with 10" pneumatics. I think you might be able to find someone to move it through Costco for 200 bucks. Trust me, unless you have some really awesome relatives or friends, it's so not worth it. I completely regret not paying to have mine moved. After I figured out the cost of renting the spa dolly + truck + gas + food for teenagers it was almost as much as just saying "move from here to here".

I was hoping with those 10 inch, pneumatic tires, I wouldn't have to go the plywood route... but who knows. Thanks for the warning regarding the overhang. Ken NO - use Plywood. Figure out how much you need and buy / borrow 25% more than that. We had an awful time moving ours on *FOZEN* landscaping with 10" pneumatics. I think you might be able to find someone to move it through Costco for 200 bucks. Trust me, unless you have some really awesome relatives or friends, it's so not worth it. I completely regret not paying to have mine moved. After I figured out the cost of renting the spa dolly + truck + gas + food for teenagers it was almost as much as just saying "move from here to here".

I would have another electrician come out and replace the standard with a GFI. I'm a sometimes hack engineering type who probably takes more risks than others - and I wouldn't dream of removing the GFI. It's not going to trip for no reason - I'm wondering if dudeman has limited hot tub installs and one of them had a bad brand of GFI maybe? I've had two and never had a GFI trip that wasn't inevitably pointing to bad hardware.

I enjoy spadepot as well. They answered a ton of questions as to why their spa cleanout product was superior to swirl-away, including finding an MSDS for it for me and answering a gazillion questions. My only gripe is they don't recommend drop kits and told me to use guesst strips, but hey, everything else has been impeccable.

Queue the chorus singing Handel's Messiah, ChaiSTi - I owe you a beer the next time you are in Denver... Turns out the saga is this: My dealer had a tech who was some kind of carnie that just went and got whatever parts instead of waiting for the right parts for the job, that's how I got the valve. Turns out it's NOT a CMP valve, it's a pentair valve that is actually manufactured by American Products (???). The valve is here (http://www.uspartscenter.com/divertervalve3-way.aspx), the guy who works there Rod spent probably way too long helping me with my meager order of two diverters, so I figured I'd commend them and spread a little sunshine their way for going way beyond normal customer service!!

OK, so here is the prognosis after I put in my ghetto specials to test - Not great but way better. I still get a ton of water through the shaft of the diverter though. One it blows almost the whole thing off (which sucks because it's the lounger which is my favorite) and the other one blows out the handle. Is it possible that I have my ghett-O-ring (sorry couldn't resist) cut to the wrong size? Also, I have two round o-rings on the shaft of the gate - one below and one on the top of the shaft. Any thoughts? OK, I've checked with 3 places now, only the original link has it, but they're not willing to break out the parts and sell me the caps and o-rings. Maybe a new approach here - what does the o-ring assembly on diverter usually look like? Having not taken them apart before I'm not sure, and clearly, my units don't have original seals. What I have right now is: top ---\ handle O - little o-ring that was on the top of the diverter - in the handle shaft. ------ cap O - little o-ring on the underside of the cap - in the handle shaft. () - Huge o-ring I manually cut that fits inside the top of the diverter. It is pictured in the last picture above inside the top of the cap. Am I missing an o-ring or gasket somewhere??

OK, so here is the prognosis after I put in my ghetto specials to test - Not great but way better. I still get a ton of water through the shaft of the diverter though. One it blows almost the whole thing off (which sucks because it's the lounger which is my favorite) and the other one blows out the handle. Is it possible that I have my ghett-O-ring (sorry couldn't resist) cut to the wrong size? Also, I have two round o-rings on the shaft of the gate - one below and one on the top of the shaft. Any thoughts?

I can't figure out how big the caps are though, technically I suppose I could order them and return the ones that don't fit...

I finally got them to come up, but I'm still not seeing this thing in the PDF's - I emailed them and included a link here, hopefully they reply back quickly - thanks for finding them.

OK, I called the site operator, and they said that it's probably a part made by CMT (CNT?) and that they have the replacement valve assy for $25, but they only sell the cap-lid-handle-oring assy (listed in the link above) for $70. The guy is saying there is no part number on the lid/gate/handle unit, but the valve body itself is stamped with part number 51250442 - Does this manufacturer sound familiar to any of you? you have a waterways diverter. I look at my distribators there is no seperate parts available. Here is link to the catalog http://www.waterwayplastics.com/catalogs/2...0_spavalves.pdf make sure you look at correct size 1 inch or 2 inch I don't think that's it - it's way larger. The cap is like 4 5/8", the threads are at 3 7/8", and the gate is 3 1/4 inch. If you look at the gate, it's just goofy looking compared to a waterway - it's just a huge tube with half of it basically molded out. As well, there are a bunch of molded / punched out on the top, unlike waterway's "wave" diverters. Maybe I'm just not seeing it in the catalog, but I've literally looked for hours (as did the WindRiver parts dude) to try and find it. I'm pretty sure it's the part made for Sundance by CMT. I'm just trying to find someone that sells just the cap and to o-rings for it. You can tell it's a different one because of how the handle looks - unless there is something that I'm not seeing in the PDF.

OK, I called the site operator, and they said that it's probably a part made by CMT (CNT?) and that they have the replacement valve assy for $25, but they only sell the cap-lid-handle-oring assy (listed in the link above) for $70. The guy is saying there is no part number on the lid/gate/handle unit, but the valve body itself is stamped with part number 51250442 - Does this manufacturer sound familiar to any of you?

Alternatively, you could try listing it for 100 bucks on craigslist and let people talk you down on it. People don't see any perceived value in something that's free on craigslist - at least that's been my issue with old couches and such. You let them talk you down to nothing and you've got it moved. Just a thought. Also, you could look into seeing if there is a freecycle list for your area, you might find more do-it-yourselfers on that.

I found this guy here (http://sundance.spaworkssupply.com/store.php/products/diverter-lid-kit-wcap-knob) but it's 70 bucks, and I just need the top. The weird part is that it says sundance but then it's on a jacuzzi???

Big pair on channel lock pliers, water pump pliers. It should unscrew you just need mor leverage when you get the cap off, the part that is inside is still going to be stuck. take a pair of pliers and pull it straight up. don't try to turn it coz it won't turn. wiggle it and jiggle it straight up. don't lose the 2 orings that will be on the stem or the big oring that might come off with the cap. make a note which way the internal part is seated in the body coz it has to go in the same way. shingle shake from your shingles and little tiny stones work their way between the adjuster and the body and after awhile it will just lock up. once you get it out if you clean the junk out of the body and the adjuster the old adjuster will probably work again as long as you didn't booger it up too bad. every couple of months it's not a bad idea to take it apart and clean it up so it doesn't happen again. good luck. OK, so now I get to play the game "Name that diverter!" I called WindRiver, and they said "Oh yeah, use some channel locks to take it off, you'll scuff the crap out of the caps but we have new ones, they're like 7 bucks." So, I went ahead and took them off, and headed into the shop to get new ones. The barrel looks fine, though a little worn from crap getting stuck in the sides. New problem - The caps are gimongous, and look nothing like the standard waterway diverters that windriver uses. My father-in-law swears up and down he's never had anyone but windriver work on the tub, but I talked to all of their techs (which is amazing IMO, they've been in business for like 30 years and have only had one dude retire...) who happened to be in for a meeting. One of them pipes up "Hey, I worked on a tub like that - it had weird ass divereters - I ended up buying a sheet of rubber to make my own gasket for it!" Turns out it's my tub that he's talking about when it was at the in-laws' place. However, when I took everything off and tried screwing it back on, and got totally showered by old faithful from both diverters. I made some cheapo washers from some rubber matting I got from the seals place in downtown, but before I put them back in, I'm wondering: Anyone recognize this brand??? Is it something weird like sundance? It's certainly not waterway. I can certainly try to put it back on, but I'd rather swap it out with a new unit with a new washer / o-ring rather than my ghetto-specials... Sorry about the background, I took the pictures on sunday during our valentines day party - the one where we were going to use the hot tub. Whoops...

I did mine at 80 deg f I think.

Are there any tricks to removing a stuck diverter valve? I have a 2" or 2.5" waterway diverter valve that is just plain stuck, and the o rings disintegrated out of it. I am trying to get the cover off, but it feels like the stupid thing is glued on. I want to remove the cover and replace the dirverter with the one I just bought but I can't get it off!!! Anyone have any thoughts? -PKil

That sounds chemically very similar to the solution in Swirl-away. You might want to check out spa-flush as well. Once you put them in (them being the cleaners) you run it for the required amount of time and then you drain and refill. Make sure to have some kind of netting on-hand just in case you get nasty floaters. For my money, I like spa flush a lot better because a: it's an enzymatic formula and seems to work better and b: It's biodegradable, so if you're draining outside you're not going to have weird deposits around your yard.

Well think about it guys, Costco is a low end box store designed to supply product at a low price. Wallmart, K-Mart, Target all thos come to mind. Every product that is sold nowadays to box stores are the manufacturer left over, overstock, seconds, price point specific made products. Slapped out down the assembly line as fast as possible, with just enough corners cut to support the price point. I looked at a Sony TV at Wallmart, it was the same style, model and size of one from Best Buy Electronics I was looking at for 2 hundred less dollars at Wallmart. The part numbers on the two TV's were 4 digits different. The 4 digits on the end were different???? 2 letters and 4 digits the same and 4 digits different. Like it was made specificly for Wallmart by Sony?? What was different?? No one knows but I suspect it had 200 dollars less quality in it! I buy allot of stuff from stores like Costco, but I also pay a little more and buy allot from places that sell specificly what I want. Because I do believe, and no one has to if they don't want, that the products box discount stores sell is different. Different to achieve a lower price. And different in quality. No one has to think this is true, but I am sticking firm. Had to many less expensive things purchased at these type stores in my life just not last as long or work as well. Maybe the best manufacturers in the world have figure out how to sell box stores like Costco close to the best and most refined products in the world for less?? Why would Costco care, they just want to be able to name there price. The product is fine, just not as good. So as someone who specifically deals with Walmart and Costco puchases gone wrong, another point of view to add. Both stores exist for the same reason as said above : JIT (just in time) production to the customer at the lowest marketable and profitable price point possible. I had the same experience as the above poster with a router, 1 digit difference between the Linksys model numbers. The difference was about 5 bucks and the omittance of a fan, which didn't seem like a big deal, until the 150 dollar router broke about 10 days after the warranty expired... I love costco for jeans and produce type stuff, but I would not buy a spa from them.