Jim_The_Jim

The only shells that have a true 20 year warranty are those made out of fiberglass, because it has about a 10,000 year half life in the dump. Most companies never ever expect to have any problems with them, because after the first week or two of use any manufacturing defects will start to show. Surface cracks are considered to be normal. The number of surface cracks on an ABS substrate shell is about 10 to one comparison ABS/Acrylic VS Acrylic/Vinylester/ Fiberglass. How many people do you know who have a 7 year old spa with surface cracks all over, expect to get any warranty service? They don't even know where the warranty papers are.

I suggest that you take more time when you read what I write, because it is very clearly written. The ABS acrylic shells have 100% failure in that they develop surface cracks in time. Most of the warranties do not cover surface cracks, and are stated as being normal. If you try to repair those cracks, they will come back, because there is no fiberglass under the crack to support the repair. There is just the ABS plastic. About 3% acccording to my personal study, before 8 years have cracks that break through and leak, because the shell has no fiberglass behind it. There were four of them on this forum before it moved to this format. One of the guys was really upset because he was just out of the warranty, when it cracked out. I saved all of those posts. By the way ABS plastic is used in low pressure sewer drains in your house. It is considered too weak to be used for pressure pipe. I wish that you were more civil and could just make comments about the topic, instead of personal attacks.

Chas; There is one thing wrong with your premise. You can't read. I was just posting facts about how Hot Spring has no dual suctions as specified by the ANSI and UL and "pool boy" decided to make death threats. Your buddy who I believe sells the same product is the culpret in posting personal attacks. If talking about the suction design of your product is not on topic, then you don't know what the topic is. I thought the subject was about the ridiculous filtering design of your spas, not a personal discussion of anyone. In case you missed the difference your spas are not you. Here is more. It is deceptive to consumers to present it as "filtering all the water all the time". The reality is that no spa on earth does that, not ever, not at all. They all filter by a progressive reduction of particles over time. I am sure you have read my detailed article on how spas filter. Here is how to describe this to "lay" people. Take a bucket of dirty mop water and take it over to the sink. Get a cup and dip in and remove one cup of dirty water. Pour in one cup of clean water and stir it up, mixing it with the dirty water. Keep doing that until the water is clean. If you have a tiny circulation pump, it is similar to dipping in and pouring in a fresh cup about once a minute. If you have a real filter pump it is like dipping in seven times per minute. What really matters in filtering is if the water is stirred well to get the debris over to the filter, and the volume of water passing through the filter. In the example it is the number of cups of clean water being mixed with the dirty water, until the dirt is greatly reduced and the water is clear. If you have a tiny pump that moves little water, it doesn't matter if it is blocked (100% no bypass) by the fitlers or not. What matters is the amount of water passing through the filter media over a given time period. I am not allowed to talk about my products on this site, so I can't even mention them. I can only talk about the subject.

That is funny because I don't consider your product or Hot Spring to be competition at all! HA! HA! HOOH! OHHH! Have you even looked at a Hot Spring spa?

We let them play with the ducks. Normally I pop in a video of a frozen full foam spa as part of my presentation. Actually I used to do that years ago. If any of the shoppers mentioned a full foam product as being competition, I put in the video. I had no mercy for full foam spas, because I was the service manager and had to see tons of frozen spas. This particular spas was left for three days in Feb. When the owner got home the spa had a frozen water spout that looked like an ice flower. The spa quit running, the heater tube fittings froze and cracked on top. This created a frozen fountain that eventually froze solid. The shell had huge cracks in it because the water stopped draining just above the foot well. The ice on top put so much pressure on the shell that it had two long cracks about 18 inches long to relieve the pressure from the ice expansion. The guy spent $1500 on trying to fix it with some greenhorn spa repair guy, BEFORE he called us. I took my video camera out on this one and my still camera. I became an expert at submitting damage reports for frozen spas to insurance companies. Does anyone, now understand why I don't like full foam spas? I had to see the faces and hear the stories on this. Most of the time they got 1/4 to 1/3 the replacement value from the insurance companies.

I guarantee to you, that the price the fellow is quoting you, is not the best deal possible, and it is not going away when you leave. You can almost certainly take that price and go to any retail store with the same spa and get a better deal. The home shows and fairs are great places to shop, but the worst places to buy, unless you have totally researched the market and you actually know what you are getting into. The "buy now, because you may never see this price again." is as old as Methusula in the sales books. It is under the topic of "Create Urgency to Buy". This is versus real issues that affect pricing. When our prices are going up, I post that fact for all to see and give lots of warning. We just got another price hike from a supplier of Jets, right after the hurricanes. The last two years have been much higher price hikes than we thought could happen. We also do not negotiate prices, because it is not ehtical to sell the same product with the same features, warranty, and in the same time period, to another person for more or less money. Some of the "sales" I have seen make me laugh. We are having the "Grandpa Needs New Dentures Sale this week. Save thousands on a new hot tub!" I think I am getting more pragmatic in my pre-retirement years.

Very funny! I'll bet Dr. Rogers and Dr Tong, would find that funny too. There have been other tests done by dealers, but those are not independent. My friend up in Wyoming did a side by side with a Sundance and Arctic. The Sundance was 30% more in freezing winter, according to his test. I am falling behind on my test. I can't get off the phone with customers buying spas. I got the camera, and the software to run the 24 hour web cam on the two spas, but that is as far as I have gotten.

Let me rephrase: In all the independent testing done by outside testing companies, not part of the spa industry, the Thermally Closed design came out the winner in energy savings. All of these tests were done with the full foam spas compared to the thermal closed design. They were funded by spa companies, but the testing agency, was not part of the spa industry. These are the only ones in which the full foam was compared to the thermal sealed. I am still looking for my copy of the synopsis of the first test and who the company was. It is probably in my files down in the basement. It was in 1994. The test they did were heat transfer and insulation on this type of spa. It shows charts of the energy going into the spa water from the jet pumps. There was a 14 degree rise over eight hours as I recall with twin 1.5 HP water pumps. This was with a Coleman spa. The second test was done by the universities of Colorado and Arizona, called the Tong and Rogers Report. Here is an excerpt from the report. "a fully insulated spa {full foam} makes no attempt to recover and use waste heat." (Tong and Rogers 1996). "...the performance of an insulating system which makes use of a thermal barrier, generated by waste heat rejected from the motors and pumps, in an enclosed air cavity around the tub is superior to a system which simply insulates the tub directly." The third test and report was the Alberta Research Council in Canada, and most of you have read that. The Arctic spa came in with the best results. I don't sell any of those brands, so this is strictly about an insulation system.

I have not eaten any meat, fish, or chicken for nearly 40 years. WE have plenty of vegitarian cook books. By the way, just because I give slick salesmen hell, does not in any way reflect on my integrity with consumers. I am one of the strongest consumer advocates in the spa industry. I wrote THE book on spa shopping about 10 years ago, and it is still being sold today. That was long before I started building spas, when I was the service manager in one of the largest service centers in Colorado at that time. You have not taken the time to even begin to understand what I am about. That is because I think you don't know much about spas and it is obvious that you don't.

I would call Master Spas and ask for a written guarantee of service. In their video they say that you can move your tub and still get service. Ask them how? If the spas feels like what you want, then why go for something that is not as good? The warranty is from the manufacturer and if they can take care of you if this guy goes out of business, then so what if he is new.

Boy! Sometimes I feel like a wet blanket on a fire of buyer enthusiam. The Beachcomber product has a propensity for the equipment to freeze very fast. I communicated with the technical folks at Beachcomber and the pumps freeze in less than a half a day at 5 degrees above zero. Faster than any spa in current production. I call it the "box o' pumps" sitting out in the cold. The reason why they don't like ozonators, is because one of the most common causes for the GFCI to trip and leave the spa vulnerable to freezing is guess what? Ozonators. However, there are well known ways to build spas with ozone where it doesn't trip the GFCI. They just don't know how to do it. Ozone does not work the way the wholistic practitioners think. When you are in the spa outside it is blown away from the spa very fast and most modern controls do not allow the ozone to run when the equipment, including the light is turned on. I never reccomend using ozone inside unless it is a true 100% ozone saturation contact chamber. There is only one company who has that, but I can't tell you. They also don't use a blower, air injectoin or turbo air, because of the design from 1986. At 45 minutes away, you might as well start looking on the net for a better deal. Beachcomber is noted for being very comfortable, until you try to sit up on the edge of the spa. I have been a consumer and user of spas for over 20 years and I like large flat areas to sit on, especially in summer when you want to sit up and cool down. All of the cover companies that I know of are ASTM UL listed. I don't know about the Canadian covers. Do a search online for "Eco One" for the most natrual spa treatment there is.

Here is more engineering information for you. When you draw (suck) the water from the skimmer, throught a filter, down to the pump, the pumps do not run as well as with a much higher pressure (feet of head) source from the bottom of the tub. If you have to bring it down first then bring it back up you are extending the distance of the run and you are restricting the full function of the jet pumps. The pumps have to create suction at a higher inches of Mercury. That causes less power from the jet pumps and really is wasteful of the pumps potential. It just so happens that the ANSI standard is also good engineering. And using screens for filters is not the same as using real filters. Having dual suctions capable of the full flow of the jet pump at the bottom of the tub is much better hydraulically. The common term for it is "FLOODED SUCTIONS". You really want to start out with pressure on the pumps caused by the differential of the feet of head between the jets and the top of the water line. You do not want any suction to overcome at the front end of the pump to start with. This old Hot Spring design gets more and more "interesting" as they try to improve it but actually they need to take a huge eraser to it and start over. If you were to learn about spas from the standpoint of design, you would be able to improve the industry as a whole. I suggest that you learn to respect people who have a lot more knowledge than you do. If you are going to make death threats, I strongly suggest that you not do it on a public forum. I just figger' you don't know what you are saying, and you obviously have no respect for the ANSI safety standards as were quoted.

You can build a sub platform under the spa. Using pressure treated 2x4 cut as long wedges, placed about one foot apart. Then put plywood on top of that, pressure treated if you can find it. To determine the cut, us a 2x4 cut to the size of the base of the spa and a level. Place the level on the 2x4 and measuer the height at the end to the ground. That is the size of the mark on the end to cut. We do this often enough.

Unfortunately it is not simple math. There are many thermodynamic principles taking place that favors the spas like Arctic. In my testing on blowers in thermally closed spas, the blower will not draw in cold air if you control the air currents inside the cabinet and only run the blower while the jet pumps are running. The opposite is actually true. We were more concerned about the blower not moving enough air to keep the intake air below 130 degrees and the under pressure temperatuer of the air in the blower channel under 160 degrees F. With both pumps running and the blower at 60 CFM the water temperature did not drop at all, and only after 29 minutes did we record a degree drop at 65 degrees ambient. The air entering the blower was over 120 degrees F, all the time and at the air controls (turbo air) about 145 degrees under pressure. This spa had twin 4 HP WW executives. In spas that capture and use all of the energy of the equipment it is much different. These saps are called thermally sealed.

Yea But?? Have you read the safety standards for portable spas. According to this the use of single suctions has been ruled to not conform to the modern safety standards. That is why no other company violates these rules but for some reason Hot Spring does. Sundancce acutally follows the safety standards, and now especially with the larger circulation pump. READ: Under Article V of the ANSI/NSPI American National Standard for Portable spas also states: Quoted: 5.0 CIRCULATION SYSTEMS 5.1.1 The system shall be designed to turn over the entire spa water capacity at a minimum of once every hour. Unquote. My commentary: Do the math: A 7 GPM ( maximum) tiny circ pump in a 500 gallon spa does not turn over the water once every hour. At 5 GPM it is worse. Under Article VI of the ANSI/NSPI American National Standard for Portable spas also states: Quoted: 6.0 FILTERS 6.1.1 All filter elements, media and other components which require servicing shall be accessible for inspection, removal and repair, and shall be installed in accordance with the filter manufacturers instructions. Unquote. Under Article VIII of the ANSI/NSPI American National Standard for Portable spas also states: Quoted: 8.0 RETURN INLETS AND SUCTION OUTLETS 8.2.2 A minimum of two (2) suction outlets shall be provided for each pump and the suction outlet system, separated by a minimum of three feet (3) [91.44 cm] or located on two (2) planes; i.e., one (1) on the bottom and one (1) on the vertical wall, or two (2) separate vertical walls. These suction outlets shall be plumbed such that the water is drawn through them simultaneously through a common line to the pump. Unquote. My commentary: This is about a simple as "apple pie". You can change the spices in the pie, but you can't leave out the "apples and the crust". You must, by these rules of safety, separate the suction inlets and have two on each jet pump. The fittings have to be ANSI/NSPI and UL safety suction fittings as well. Read the article on wood tub suctions for more clarification.

I suggest that you read some books by Tom Hopkins; "Selling with integrity" is his method. I have gone to many hundreds of hours of sales seminars and his is the best. Some of the stuff these other "heavy hitters" teach was horrible. ONe of the techniques that I particularly disliked was the "customer trap". This was a major sales man in the industry selling for a large spa company. He said to design the store so that when you complete the presentation, there are no exits visible for the consumer to see. He went on to say that you quicky set them down at the "closing table" and bring them drinks to creat obligation. Then start closing. Some of the closes made me sick to think about. In our store and all of our reps have to sign a contract that they will not use any subversive closing techniques other than to simply ask for the sale. If the customer says no one time, let them go. If they understand what you are about, they will return, otherwise, why press for a sale?

Both are decent brands. I have sold spas made in the Vita factroy and have worked on many brands of spas in service. I believe you are correct in your understanding that the other spas you mention are overpriced. A good spa will have variable seating height for different body types. The maximum depth allowed by the ANSI and UL is 28 inches water depth. The horsepower thing will be very confusing, because they use different types of measure for the horsepower. The best judge on Horse power is to look at the motors and the amp rating as well as if the HP is "continuous" or "brake" or "peak break". Continuous is the only real HP. We only use the continuous rating on our spas, because we feel it is unethical to use brake horsepower.

Here is my question. There has never, not ever been an outside test, in which more than one brand was tested fairly, in which a full foam spa was the "winner". Not ever, and it will never happen when you are testing a thermally sealed spa against a partially insulated full foam spa. Full foam spas are partially insulated, because the equipment is not insulted and most of the heat given off by the equipment is lost, completely wasted. Once again there are more "new" spas that are thermally insulated and less and less of the full foam spas. It is just a cheap way to hold up a flimsy shell and that is all.