pkillur

Personal experience is that Spa Flush (as bought from spadepot.com) seemed to get green and white crap out. Swirl away (what I used last week) seems to get white and brown and green goop out. It's also used (unoficially) for cleaning out front loading washers that develop forgotten-load-syndrome That would be interesting to see what people use

I ran mine twice through and it had gunk the second time as well. The PO might have been very cleanly, or if it was just setting dry it could have still been getting aqueous (if that's the right term??) You also ran all the pumps on both speeds and adjusted the airvalves (all of them) and the diverters (all of them) back and forth? This would change how the water is bouncing through the pipes and get the stuff out more. -PKil

After a weekend of using the spa on and off, it seems to have worked it's pump 1 issues out. I'm guessing it just needed to find it's groove or something! I still have the GFI issue with heating and both pumps at the same time. It doesn't seem to trip the house breaker, just the GFI - does anyone have any thoughts on this - could it be a corroded / crappy heater element?

Can anyone tell me if the local hot tub guy is a crackpot? He told me never to put Borates (Gentlespa / Borax) into the spa because it creates a white-ish cottage cheese consistency goo on the bottom of the tub. As well, I told him to go to poolcalculator.com where it said to add it, and he said he'd never heard of it, and didn't know whether or not to trust it (although I did hear him calling his co-worker marveling about it as I left...) He also said drop tests were only necessary if you have major problems. I really like him the person, but don't know if I like him the hot tub guy at this point. So on to my question - is it possible to create "goo" from adding borates??

So, I finally got the Windriver Hurricane set up, and it was a complete joy to use for the first night, and the timing could not have been more perfect with a clear starry night, a freezing cold draft (-10 with wind chill!!!) and some nice time with our 5 year old son. However, I noticed something last night that I didn't seem to find happening previously - the pump one motor seems like it's noisy on the 1st setting (the low setting) and then when I kick it into second speed it seems to get a teeny bit more silent. The Other one is the opposite, it's more quiet on 1 than 2 (expected I would think). The vibration dampers seem a little worn out, so I could maybe try and replace those, though I really don't want to replace the wetend because it's a PITA to get on and off. Maybe for good insurance I should do it anyhow, because the seals are probably original... As well, I had a weird thing happen, the temp was on 101, my wife wanted it at 105, so she turned it up. Once she did, when I turned off the pumps it tripped the GFI. Am I missing something obvious to anyone else?

So I can confirm that this stuff does in fact work REALLY well, to the point of netting junk out for 30 minutes after a cleaning! It's possible that you are either super dilligent about tub maintenance (yehaw for you!) or of pristine biological condition and your skin doesn't ever peel...

I also love the AO Smiths, I had a motor die on an old spa and replaced it for my grandfather. The difference was like going from a screaming yak to a purring kitten. I was quite happy to see my new-to-me windriver uses AO Smith motors. I work for an oil company and we almost never have AO Smith motors die in the field, and they pump some heavy and nasty water out of the ground (and some oil too...) and very infrequently die.

Wow, sounds like a whole lot of work for not a lot of benefit. I was thinking of putting in a little dinky pump just for the waterfall, but the more I think about it, I might just be opening pandoras box for not a whole lot of gain. Thanks for the replies, I appreciate them! -PKil

I don't know how that model is made, but I have done three things to clean out my windriver - Firstly I use a submergable pump (I stole it from my aquarium and shocked the crap out of it to kill anything that might live on it). You can plug it up and fill a couple of inches (6-12ish) in the bottom and then use the pump to force it through. It might not work though because you may find that the wetends may not turn opposite directions and/or that it just shoots and dribbles out another jet (this was my experience). If you take the wet end coupler off the out end of the pump that would probably work but would drop the sludge and water in your pump area (probably a dumb idea). You could also take a shop vac and see if you mash it up to the pump if you get it out that way (you probably won't be able to tell unless you have a pristine shopvac though...) You could then finally fill half-way up and crank the jets and net what gunk you see out. This is how my hot tub service guy does it...

So, I am an engineer, but I no absolutely nothing about acrylic and fiberglass, but it seems to me that it would be fairly simple to add a trigger inline with a pump switch, or a separate switch that activates a waterfall feature to a hot tub. But, what I don't know is if making a new penetration in the acrylic and fiberglass is a really bad idea or not. Anyone have any ideas? I'm sure with the cost of finding and or time cost of making one it's probably cheaper to buy a new tub with one in it, but who knows, maybe this is something that is routinely done.

Greetings, I recently picked up a Windriver Hurricane from a relative who leveled with me and said he didn't do "too much with the chlorine for the last 9 or so months" - which probably equates to a year or more (the test strips also expired in 2004...) SOOOO, I have this predicament: I have plast-aid coming to fix a few leaks I can get to (air valves over the controller box - good thinking on that one by the engineers...) and some leak-fix to repair any little bitty guys I'm not seeing anywhere else for good measure. I also have some whirl-away coming as well to nuke out the biofilm before I sterilize the tub. I'm trying to minimize my water usage because our water is stupid expensive out here (Parker, CO), but I spent 50 bucks on a ton of chemicals and don't want to waste chemicals over 10 bucks in water! Here is my thoughts about the methods I'm going to use to fix the various issues sequentially: #1 - Plast-aid on the leaks I can see. #2 - Whirl-Away. #3 - Sterilize (as recommended on this forum I think). #4 - Drain. #5 - Fill. #6 - Stop Leak. #7 - Drain (????) #8 - Fill (Do I need to wait a few days?) #9 - Shock & Balance. #10 - Enjoy tub (FINALLY!!!!) My question is whether or not I need to drain after the stop leak stuff or not. I can't really tell from posts anything other than "It's a temporary fix" - but I figure it'll stop any weird leaks that I can't see currently or at least minimize them until march or april once we're past "High of 30, low of 6" weather!. I don't see anything except the leaks that I plan on really fixing but I figure it's probably the best. It's not a full foam spa either - it's a dead air system that is also covered with the hard foam stuff (the stuff that looks like "good stuff" but is way more dense). Do any of you have a better suggestion that is faster perhaps? I would prefer to drain as little as possible because it's really freaking cold AND I have to pay for new water and the electricity to heat it up again.