Ducky

I hope no one minds a question interjected here, but the topic seemed appropriate: Do we NEED a cover lifter? I keep seeing photos of lifters that are holding the cover up vertically, and they remind me of a broken convertible top on a car. I hate the thought of looking at that while I'm in the tub. Also, I'm concerned about how much clearance may be necessary. For an HS Vanguard-ish tub (400 gallons, 7'3" sq. ft.), can a not-so-athletic but able person fold the cover, slide it over, and carefully lower it to the ground so that it's resting upright, on its edge? More importantly, is it so heavy that the afore-mentioned able person can't lift it partially and then tip it over onto the top of the tub? I don't want to undo all the lovely benefits of a good soak, but at the same time, I'm leery of the lifters. I'd love to hear any comments or opinions. Thank you!

RoxySpa...when do you take possession of your beautiful Vanguard? And more importantly: What colors did you get?? My husband and I started out thinking we knew exactly how much money we'd spend. Then we started researching and thought that the only way we could keep our total down to that number was to order a tub sight-unseen from online. Then we read more and realized no way could we do that, and we raised our number a bit for a budget-line from a decent manufacturer. THEN we kept researching, and started looking, and found out that even the "budget" tubs we wanted to look at were more than we expected, but we also saw a used HS Sovereign that looks nice and pleasant, without having to spend a mint. THEN, while looking around to learn more about the Sovereign, we got a good look at the brand-spanking-new Vanguard, and darned if it isn't gorgeous and possibly perfect. Lol. So tomorrow night we're wet-testing a little round tub (to try and convince ourselves that it's exactly what we want), and hopefully the '98 Sovereign (hoping that it's as good a deal as it looks), AND a 2011 Vanguard (KNOWING that if it fits us half as well as we think it will, it's the only one we really want!!). Hm. That "budget" isn't looking very likely anymore. In the meantime, however, I'm looking forward to hearing about your new tub. Many others here seem to really love their Hot Springs: hope you do too!

(Bump...thud).... WELL?!? What did you buy, Ksand? Or didn't you? I also have fibro and am starting to drool as we get closer to choosing a hot tub. I'm hoping that you and your husband found a perfect solution. My hubby and I are also working on that happy medium between heavenly dream-tub and financial feasibility...and just "I don't care how much it costs...it's pretty!". Yeah: that last one is definitely me I hope you were able to work something out!

Hi Dave The unofficial (the boss hasn't confirmed the number but the tech's given us a probable price) is $3500, with all updated innards (other than jet pump), cover, water kit, delivery, installation, 6-month warranty on their tub work + 1 yr warranty on the new parts, and the option to trade the tub in within 6 months if we decide we want to buy a new tub instead. In that case, the entire amount we paid for the '98 Sovereign would be applied as credit to whatever tub we chose. I spoke to the tech who's mostly responsible for working the tub over, and he told me that the previous owner let the tub go empty through a winter thus creating lots of little leaks. So, he's taking his time finding them all (he's removed the foam and is going through all the insides, I guess), is filling it tomorrow, probably, then will watch it for at least 48 hours, running the jets now and then, etc etc. Then he will fill the right spots with foam insulation again, let it dry, and Voila! New-old tub! From reading around and seeing what people get when they buy used tubs, everything they're doing to the Sov. seems to be very thorough to me. Also, and I hope that anyone will offer other thoughts on this if they can, I've read a lot of 30- and 60-day warranties for used tubs, so I feel like this dealer (who gets pretty great reviews according to online sources) is serious about their integrity and work. They've been in business for 25 years (father and now son), too. My husband and I are supposed to wet-test a Sundance Denali Saturday, but I'm so unhappy with the service prospects for Sundance that I think we're going to give up on even trying the tub. We'll see: I think it's likely that tonight we'll decide to just go with the Hot Springs dealer we like and trust so much, and even if we decide we don't want the Sovereign after wet-testing it, we'll wait to buy our perfect tub when it appears in their shop, lol. Thanks for the numbers, Dave, 'cause I've read such an array of used prices that it was hard to figure out if we're even in the right ballpark with the Sov. I'm also fairly sure they'll be a bit flexible about the price. I'm excited! I can't wait to test the tub! In the meantime, hope you enjoy your Grandee for many more years!

Wow, you guys have some great suggestions. Thanks so much! Today we met a couple of different set-ups: the afore-mentioned, much-touted dealer who is a small, family owned place that's been around for 25 years, and another, much less happily reviewed dealer that isn't known for satisfactory customer or repair service. Turns out that the second one (with Sundance and Nordic) contracts out their repairs to one man who "has other clients but always takes our customers first". I wonder if that's not really how it works. However, that's neither here nor there. They were hard-selling us, which we didn't love, but they did happen to have a Nordic Retreat ready for testing, so we lucked into that. The other dealer was awesome: very educational, no hard sell, but great about his products obviously. We were surprised at a lot of the prices, but then he showed us a 1998 HS Sovereign that they're refurbishing: a lot more tub than we could ever afford new, for less money than we'd spend for a new smaller one. Way different warranty situations, of course, but it's very tempting. I don't want to bog this down with details, although if anyone wants to hear them, I'm happy to oblige! Back to the point: all your suggestions are so helpful. I'll be surprised if we end up falling for a tub that draws us away from that particular, well-reviewed dealer. But we'll definitely follow a lot of the advice here as far as communication with the manufacturers and such. Now I have to go look up water treatment, 'cause I don't understand much about it other than it needs to happen. Thanks again!

Hi all! My husband and I are researching as much as possible before choosing our first hot tub. It's mostly just for the two of us - and possibly a guest maybe twice a year. We're short, and I'm wide , so we're leaning toward a barrier-free tub, but we've got a little list of tubs to consider and hopefully test. We've learned so much from this forum, so thank you all who've taken so much time and energy offering all this information! To give you an idea of the ones we consider possibles, here's the list we've come up with to see and maybe wet-test: Jacuzzi J-210, Sundance Denali, Nordic Impulse(DP) and Retreat, Hot Spot Sprint, Solana SX, and Hot Spring Prodigy. We're pretty luke-warm about the Solana and Prodigy, and the others are all pretty equally enthralling. So, here's the dilemma: We've been finding dealers in the area who have these brands, and then we've been reading reviews of those dealers. One dealer carries Nordic and Sundance, and the reviews of their service are pretty hit-or-miss. The most recent couple of reviews (both in this past January) are happy as clams (but I'd argue that other than installation, they haven't had much time for things to go wrong), and the older couple are **very** unhappy. Hmph. I'm so psyched about both of those brands/tubs, but bad service is the worst thing that can happen to us after buying a tub, I think? Another dealer carries Jacuzzi. They have so many horrific reviews on more than one review site...I felt like the reviewers' anger was going to burn holes in my skull, lol. And that's the only Jacuzzi dealer I can find around us. (hopefully I've missed a dealer) Double-hmph. Another dealer carries all the Hot Spring related names: HS, Hot Spot, Solana, Tiger-so&so, and Limelight. This dealer has a truly fabulous reputation for taking care of their customers, and if the Hot Spot Sprint turns out to be everything we hope for, then that would be perfect. Great. But what about the other possibly more-than-we-hoped-for tubs? Here's the question at the end of the dilemma: If we buy a tub from a dealer that we don't want to handle our tub servicing, can we have an independent person do trouble-shooting and repairs without breaking the warranty? I realize this is an imprecise question, so I don't expect a precise answer, but any thoughts or experiences you can share would be greatly appreciated. I was so excited about trying several tubs, but it won't be worth it if two out of the three dealers are headaches waiting to happen. I have enough of those along with plenty of others due to a pain disorder (hence my utter jubilation at finally, at the age of 44, being able to own a hot tub!!), and I am not willing to live with CR that makes us want to pull our hairs out! I hope this wasn't too long for a first post: I wanted to give enough but not too much information. Thanks so much everyone!