wkearney99

It is just PVC tubing, so worst case you could cut the pipe, ream out the fitting and install a replacement section.

If you let the tub get dirty enough to even think about that sort of washer then, well, I'd be more worried about the health risks of using that tub.

What sort of plastic is recommended as a replacement base? And seeing as how most tubs are larger than a typical 4x8 sheet of material, is it ok to use two sections? I'll probably replace the floor under our Nordic at some point. It's not gone yet but a few of the side panels are losing their attachment to the floor strip around the base.

And don't forget snow. A bunch of snow sliding off the roof could be a real problem. Either for the cover when the tub is closed, or any people sitting in it. You wouldn't want a large clump of ice/snow to land on it.

I agree, they've been incredibly helpful and informative when I've called with questions. And that was even before the local dealer closed up shop. When the time comes for us to replace this tub we'll definitely be looking at another Nordic.

Don't know if it's going to be the same on your tub, but ours wouldn't heat properly when just the low speed circulator was running. Turned out the pressure switch wasn't registering properly and the system wouldn't let the heater turn on. The heater felt warm but that was only because it would get hot when the pump was in high-speed. From the looks of it the heaters are pretty simple to replace. Just take care not to go forcing anything as PVC does not lend itself to being bent, especially in colder weather.

Excellent tip. I believe I adjusted it with no filter present. It's been running fine but I'll double-check the adjustment to be sure.

Everything in moderation. Don't get so intoxicated as to be unable to safely get in and out of the tub. You don't want to be wobbling drunk, slip, fall, smack your head, pass out and then drown in the water. If you're hammered you're also less likely to heed the warnings about not staying in too long and get overheated. So, CAN you drink, sure. But be sensible and go easy on the sauce while you're relaxing in the tub.

A tub is VERY heavy, personally I'd prefer to have it resting solidly on reinforced concrete. As for decking material, consider rot problems. Water is going to splash out of the tub. That water is going to land on the deck, and possible seep under the tub. Do you really want regular lumber underneath it? Appearance aside, at least the synthetic stuff isn't going to rot through where you can't see it. But I've no idea which material would be better for actually supporting the full weight of a tub. Water weighs 8.3lbs per gallon. Do the math, is the deck designed AND permitted to support that considerable amount of weight?

When my Nordic DLX had GFCI troubles it turned out to be a very small leak near the heater. The collar used to screw the pipe to the heater wasn't maintaining a tight enough connection. The dripping water must've caused a brief short and that would trip the breaker. Good to see it work but it was a small hassle to find the leak. Replacing the collar was easy as it's a two piece assembly that fits around the pipe. Two screws to split the halves of the collar and a new one, with new seal, slipped right into place. Since that was fixed I've had no more mysterious GFCI tripping problems. Can't speak to the LEDs as my tub's too old to have that option. I've been considering adding something though. As for not reaching a high enough temp, mine just has that trouble. I fixed it by slightly moving the screw on the pressure switch. It was thinking the pressure wasn't high enough and wouldn't run the heater while in low-speed mode. Check yours, see if the heater light is coming on when the pump is in low speed. Then kick on the jets and see if the heater light comes on. If so then it's likely the pressure switch. Either adjust to replace.

Tubs require power pretty much all the time in order to keep the temperature at a ready-to-use level. Warming up that much water takes a lot of power. I'm in Bethesda, MD with a 220V tub. When I refilled it at 69F it took about 12 hours to bring it all the way up to 104F. If it goes without power for more than about an hour the temp will start dropping (during the winter, that is). So don't plan on being able to "turn off" the tub.

Kinda hard to give an answer without details like the make/model of the tub.

Looks like things are working OK again. I set the tub to 104F and this morning it was reading 105F. I've set it back to 103F. Given that it's 26F today I'm sure it'll drop back. I also noticed the pump was shut off, not circulating. This is also good. The tub heater was working while in circulating mode and then shut off both when the temp was high enough. Don't know if it stopped based on the set-point of the temp or an overheating situation. No errors on the display. If it drops back from 105F in a few hours then I'm reasonably sure it's all working fine again. The only downside I'm noticing is the pump seems to be making a bit more noise when operating than it did before. It's the original pump (Flo-master?) and the whole thing is at least 12 years old now. I put a new collar seal on it (fixing the leak) but the wet end does seem to be a bit noiser than before. Could be just my imagination though. It does seem to be kicking out the right amount of flow. Most of the jet inserts have been replaced at one time or another (and looks like a few could use it again). The shell and the plumbing all around seem to be in good shape. It does look like the bottom under the tub has started to rot. I suppose I could look into replacing that at some point. But meanwhile it looks like we're good to go! Thanks everyone for the advice!

Not just one towel, keep several on-hand. Drape one on when you use the tub and remove it when done. Get 'em cheap on sale somewhere, it's not like the color or pattern matters all that much. Better to have a couple of them on hand than expecting one to stay there and not get iced up too. That's what we've done for years and it's worked out fine. I could see where splashed water could freeze up. But we just don't splash that much, or onto the steps, to have that problem.

Aren't most tubs designed to have the full base spread the load on the floor? If so then you couldn't use anything that doesn't spread out under the full base of the tub. I would be careful about just raising it up on pavers under the whole base if you're in an area that gets cold enough to freeze. You do not want water to get into the gaps in the pavers, freeze and jack up the tub unevenly. Better to put a frame around the pad and pour self-leveling compound to raise the whole pad properly. But then you might have issues with how well that holds up (spalling, etc).

Laser levels are suprisingly inexpensive nowadays. I was surprised to see how much they've dropped in price. Great advice on the other steps. I was unprepared for how thick and rock-packed the clay soil was where we wanted to put the tub. I had to rent a backhoe to dig it out. It was just NOT coming out with a pick axe and shovel. Keep the tub running somewhere while you do the job, your back will need it. I have just the opposite situation, I'm going to have a deck installed over the existing tub. In preparation for it I've since laid a base suitable for a larger tub. Pretty much following the advice listed here. I put extra drainage around the side wall. Right now I've just got a round Nordic tub. At some point we might go for a larger and likely square tub. I mention this because if you have any consideration about a different sized tub you might want to consider it ahead of time. There should be enough room under the deck to get to everything. Any decking and side joist on the outside edge will be bolted to allow for getting the tub out with the least amount of hassles. The framing will be for an 8' x 8' tub and then framed in to meet the circle. The round tub is pretty old now and likely to get replaced (sooner than the deck would). Another though to consider is how much to recess the tub. Think about your butt sitting on the decking. And the cover. You probably do not want to set the tub too low. Otherwise you'd run into trouble with stuff falling down the gap. Also think about how the decking material is going to feel sitting on it to get in/out of the tub. We plan on using either Ipe or composite decking to avoid the risk of splinters in our butts. We also plan on leaving the tub edge raised a few inches to allow for a lip to grasp, and to give the lid room to seat properly. Don't forget about safety. You don't want people accidentally walking on the tub and crashing through the lid. Our lid is durable enough to deal with 'some' load but I'm still wondering how to best deal with blocking it off against foot traffic (aka children).

Ok, I have some results. The inside of the spa pack has a schematic that indicates there's separate sensors for temp, flow and pressure. I shorted the pins for the pressure pump (J9 on the controller board) with a PC circuit board jumper (fit perfectly). This immediately resulted in the heater light coming on up on the display panel when the pump is in low speed (circulate?) mode. What a relief, the controller seems to be OK. Previously the heater lamp would only light when the pump was in high-speed mode. Or perhaps under a low temp situation or something that I wasn't around to see. Otherwise it's ability to maintain 76F wouldn't have worked, I guess? Anyway, I then set about testing the pressure switch. I hooked a meter to it, in continuity test mode. With the pump at on high the switch would close the circuit. But once the pump dropped back to low the circuit would open. So I put the pump into low speed and turned the thumbwheel. Turning it inward had no effect, the circuit stayed open. Turning it outward did. So I'm guessing that the farther 'in' you turn the thumbwheel, the greater the water pressure needed to close the circuit. I turned it just past where it would close under low-speed mode. This seemed to be about a turn farther out than it was before. I verified that it would still open the circuit if the flow stopped entirely. We'll see if this solves my problem. Clearly the pressure switch was keeping it from running the heater. Whether or not the switch is bad, or just needed adjusting, remains to be seen. One thought that occurs to me is how will it deal with shutting off the heater once it gets to a high enough temp and the pump stops entirely? This tub can cycle the pump automatically. Right now it's not cycling. It's basically been running in low-speed all the time. The tub can cycle in 2,4,6 hour and constant cycles. I've got it in FC (constant cycle) mode for now. Using FC isn't the most efficient, of course, and I'm sure my electric bill will be a shocker this month (pun intended). I'll probably set it to 6 hour mode. At one point the tub was in either 2 or 4 hour mode and would keep waking me up in the middle of night when it would kick on. Seeing as we only use the tub intermittently I don't see much point in cycling it too often. In the 15 minutes since adjusting it the temp has already risen from 80F to 87F. And that's just running in low-speed mode. Yay! Looks like tubbing can resume, probably tomorrow night!

In re-reading a bunch of my old e-mail with the factory it would appear I replaced the switch once already. Go figure, I completely forgot about that. Yes, I'd shut off the tub and close the gate valves to allow replacing it without draining. The pressure switch has a screw wheel in it that allows adjusting the pressure. I've no idea what it's set to presently. But I'm wondering if the pressure setting might not be correct. And whether adjusting the wheel might better suit the tub's demands. Do you have a rough idea which way the wheel is supposed to turn to adjust the pressure level? Do I want more or less? And if I'm going to confirm the switch is just plain bad, is it OK to jumper the switch out of the circuit entirely for "a while"? The next question being what period of time is OK to do that. I'm not looking to use the tub during this process. I've got the various jets set for wide-open delivery and I would not be changing them while testing this. Under what conditions does the pressure switch really do its job? I don't want to bypass it and have something burst as a result, obviously. I'd just like to make sure it's the pressure switch before I bother buying and have another one shipped to me.

I've got a Nordic Crown tub. It came with the house when we bought it and has been working fine. We shut it down for about a year and a half and have just recommissioned it. It will bring the water up to 103F and keep it there for a few days. But when I've gone back to check it the temp has dropped to 76F. This has happened twice. We had no power problems (I have computers on UPSes that log this sort of thing). The 2-speed pump works fine on both speeds. The tub does it's usual cycling. The heater does work, obviously, because it does raise the temp. The Balboa controller also appears to be working fine. But it's shown no error codes after the unexpected temperature drop. (No FL error or any other for that matter). I spoke with the Nordic tech guy and he said it might be a pressure switch. That it's possibly getting stuck once it's up to temp and only resets itself when power is totally cycled to the tub. Sound about right? How expensive are these switches and how hard are they to replace? I'm handy enough to have already replaced the impeller in the pump. So if it's like anything else in the tub, it ought to be easy to replace. I just don't know where exactly to be looking for it. I need a new filter for it and have been, shall we say, less than impressed with the customer service from some local retailers. Are there some decent online retailers for the filter and possibly the switch? The factory calls for a Pleatco PRB25-IN. Thanks! -Bill