TWG1572

Fall has come, and so has the time to fire up my Grandee for the cooler weather. I filled it up today, started running it to adjust water chemistry and got the blinking red power light indicating a tripped temperature. high limit. The tub will run for 3-4 minutes after reset, then it trips again. It behaves the same if I'm just using the clean button, vs. the main jets. I've done some Googling and came up with a few troubleshooting suggestions, but would appreciate some input/thoughts on what I found. 1) Clogged filters: I pulled all five filters, fired it up, and got the flashing light in about the same amount of time. 2) Circulation pump clogged/bad. My assumption is that this is referring to the Silent Flo 5000 circulation pump, and not the jet pump? My jets run fine, even running jets 1 and 2 at once. There is a small hose that runs a stream of water into the filter compartment, that's running like normal. I have noticed I'm not getting the bubbles from the Ozone system, so maybe that's a sign. How do you check to see if the circulation pump is bad? 3) Thermisters. I've read I should check the ohm's on them. I'm not even sure where to start there - are they accessible through the filter compartment? Any words of advice, or things I should also check? Or are these the typical three things I should look at? Thanks!

I hadn't thought about putting it on it's side, just because of the size. That would definitly make the plywood replacement easier, and I could do a better job. Just need to round up a couple strong backs and see what happens.

PM sent. The rats are gone now, I've monitored the situation over summer and there aren't any active nests. I put quite a bit of rat poison in there as well to discourage any new inhabitants. We live in the middle of the country, so I'm hoping it was just a random field rat vs. an actual infestation...

Three years ago, I purchased a house with an older (2001 I believe) Hot Springs Grandee. We fired it up last fall, and about three weeks later started noticing piles of chewed insulation around the bottom skirt. This was in November - I pulled the sides off and discovered a rat condo, complete with the inhabitant. We were face to face when he came flying out, I'll just say I screamed like a school girl and ran. Thank god the neighbors were at work. Once I recovered, I assessed the issue. Lots of rot on the wood sill and the wood uprights. The spa definitly had a problem in the past with leaking, I'm not 100% sure if it still leaks or not. There was not an evident leak in the month we used it, but the water level did drop about an inch. Since it was mid-November, I decided to button everything up and work on it over the summer. Now the summer has come and gone, and I'm starting to figure out what to do.... I think I have a plan, but would appreciate input from people who know these better than I. Clean out all the nasty chewed / dirty foam. It's pretty disgusting in there. Definite gloves/face mask territory. The plywood sill that goes around the bottom is totally rotted out on that side - from one corner to the next. I'm contemplating either replacing it (which could be a project in itself) or getting a sheet of metal bent in a Z shape that would go up the base, across the sill, and then slip under the sides. I've got to get something fixed there since that's the entry point for all the critters. While I'm in there, the bottom of all the wood uprights are rotted too. They look easy enough to replace, if needed. If I don't put a new sill in there and just use metal, I don't see much benefit in replacing them though. There is nothing for them to sit on at the bottom. Then I've got the do I still have a leak or not issue? I could probably fill the tub and let it percolate as I'm trying to fix the side. How would you suggest approaching this issue? We like the tub but not enough to pay the big $$$ to have it removed/fixed/reinstalled, so either I make this work or we declare the tub DOA.

The leak appears to be relatively slow. It's been running for 2 weeks now and it's dropped about an inch. So the half full method would be the way to do it. It makes a lot of sense - I know I'm up against the clock too. Snowed yesterday, not too long before temps stay below freezing till March. None of the moto-jets work, so maybe that's where i should start. If replacing them/poking around in there could solve it, it would be a nice and comparatively painless route to go.

Hello! First post here, been a lurker for the last several weeks though and have gotten a lot of good information from this forum. To set this up, we bought a house last summer with a 2001 Hot Springs Grandee. The prior owners appear to have been using it, and it was full when we bought the house. We never ran it, but I did go through the winterization steps last fall. Fast forward to a couple weeks ago - when my wife got a wild hair and wanted to fire it up. I went through all the start up steps, and everything came online and worked. Life is good - right? Last weekend I noticed a couple issues that I suspect might require removing the sides, but I don't know... 1) There appears to be a slow leak somewhere, since the lowest corner of the spa always has a wet spot on the concrete. I know they are supposed to be level, but it appears the concrete has settled in that area. There is about a 1" fall from the high corner to the low corner. The awesome part is that since the tub isn't level, the leak could be anywhere. Equipment compartment is dry. 2) As soon as the hot tub warmed up, we have mice attacking it. I came out to a pile of insulation under one of the overhangs on the side. (We have about 3 inches of skirting, then the main body of the spa hangs over the skirting by about 2") I probed the material on the overhang - it's pretty rotten all around. The other three sides are firm. I've got full blown rodent killing measures now happening, but am scared what happened inside the tub. I'm thinking about putting mesh on that side to prevent more attacks if I can't easily repace the rotten material. Looking at the sides, there isn't any access at all. Do the boards come off one at a time? If so, that will be a pain! I can't really flip this thing on end easily - it's hard wired and a heavy beast. Any suggestions on how to proceed? I'm kinda at that point where I'm willing to do some work to get this thing squared away (I'm a relatively handy guy), but a lot of $$ or time will probably lead to me selling it on Craigslist or just winterizing it and letting it die a slow death from non-use.