sharkman009
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Posts posted by sharkman009
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92"x92"x35" 455 gal. water capacity and the weight is 785lbs (480 series 480,81,82) The 705,706 is 850lbs. with 400 gals. More weight is because it has more barriers.
The 705,706 is 150 lbs less than a Hotspring Grandee. The foam on the Hotsprings adds some weight to it.
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I dont pick up Cal spa's but the colemans weight about 700lbs wich is significantly lighter than the Hotsprings 850lb spa's or Catalina's 900lb'ers.
What is the largest Coleman spa?
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Most people think they want a lounge, but it's not like a lazy boy. when shopping for a second spa most avoid the lounge feature.
I wouldnt own a spa without the lounge. I use that seat 90% of the time. My wife on the other hand cant stay in it and thats the case that we find with most of our customers.
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Steel is more durable and carpender ants have no chance of eating away and having a feast on steel. Wood, Water, and termites=fast decay. I happen to like the smell of wood but I wouldn't have it in my tub being my tub is outside.
They both have their advantages and disadvantages. My service guys hate moving the spas that have metal framing in them because of the weight.
Try picking up an 8' cal spa with the metal reinforcement under the lip. A real backbreaker.
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I want to thank all of the people that offered insight to help me in my decision of purchasing my first hot tub. All of the tubs were great, Hot springs Envoy, Coleman 482, Master spas LSX and the D1 Chairman 2. I would recommend all of these spas to anyone. The decision came down to the WET TEST. The prices for these tubs ranged from 6500 to about 10,000. Price wasn't a major concern, we went with what felt the best.
Can't wait to be in it this week end!!!!!!
Thanks
Congratulations!
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With some that may be true but after wet testing many tubs I can say that there are many short tubs that are just shallow. The water level in the ELITE (Coleman the same) didnt even come up past my chest.
Like you said its a good thing you wet tested them. A lot of people buy without test soaking and dont find those things out until they get it home. Thats some good info.
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And you could get a piece of SS in the right environment to last 1300 years also. But NOT the stuff they make spas outa.
Ya but any stainless steel can rust too.
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I have flagstone around the perimeter of my pool instead of tile. I have a salt water system. I have a white ring around the flagstone, and in my creek between the pool and hot tub, at the water line, which is more visable when the humidity is low. How do I clean this off? And how do I stop it from happening?
You may be able to clean it off with a good acid based surface cleaner. First you need to try to determine if the buildup is salt or it may be calcium and other minerals in the pool. If its calcium its not going to come off so easy. One of the problems you have to watch is if you use anything like muratic acid to clean the buildup off the tileline it will also eat the Flagstone. If the buildup doesnt come off with one of the acid based pool surface cleaners then you may be forced to do a light acid wash on the surface or there are companys that actually sandblast tilelines on pools to remove buildup.
Once you get it cleaned off I would get a good sealer applied to the stone to leave a smoother surface so the minerlas cant bond as easy. And make sure you brush the tile line on your pool regularly even if you dont notice any kind of ring.
I clean mile tile line bi weekly with surface cleaner especially during the summer. Good Luck.
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I am sorry but I dont want to bash the shorter tubs, but to whoever said that the shorter tubs go deeper inside is complete BS.
"Also a spa that is a lower profile has the seating lower to the floor. "
I have tested the majority of the big players in hot tubs recently. Nobody here can honestly tell me that the inside of a coleman is the same as an aretesian. and so on. The elite and the coleamn will be the same because they are both made by MAAX. Some tubs do go deaper in the frame than others but no one here can tell me that all shorter tubs do that. Complet BS. The seating will not be any lower becasue there is still a layer of insulationunder the tub. Yes sther will be some variance in ther. Colemans are short on the outside and on the inside. You can revert to images on their website if you need some education on this. This is why you wet test a tub before buying. The shorther tubs are often not that great to me because you now have more of your body out of the tub. On a cold night that wouldnt be very nice. The shorter tubs with loungers can cause part of your chest to be out of the water. Again a not so pleasnt situation. Now, I do understand that not everone is tall and again that is why you wet test! I am 6' tall and I can tell you that elite and coleman are very comfortable tubs but also shallow. This is why I did not buy one.
When you get into a deeper spa you are sitting higher off the ground more like you are sitting in a chair. When you get into a shorter spa the distance is taken from the seat height to the ground so in most spas you will sit just as deep but you are foced to stretch your legs across the spa and if you have other people in the spa you are going to have your feet over eachother. And with taller people if the distance across the spa is to short for you to stretch out your right it will force you to sit up out of the water.
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If it is the Elite spa by maax they use thermalock insulation with a blue foam on the pipes themselves but not engraved or anywhere near the components
No he said he added insulation himself.
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If you are a DIY kinda person grab the Costco Elite, add some insulation and enjoy. I've had mine for over a year and am very happy with it. A plus with the in-store Costco tub is that it can be returned for a refund if you decide you don't like it. If you want or need hand-holding, find a reputable dealer in your area and make your best deal. A previous poster is right, there are a lot of industry insiders here, I'm just Joe Consumer who was in the same position as you a year ago. Good luck.
NightRyder
What did you use to insulate your spa with?
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I have a new spa on the way. Its an LA spa heet model, 8x8, with the ultimate water management system which has a small 24 hour re-ciculation pump to it. What chemicals would you recomend? My dealer asked if I knew which ones I wanted to use since the tub comes with all the start up stuff but to be honest I didnt know. I have been looking at spas all the time but now chemicals. I will be using the spa alot 5-7 times a week in the evening. He said that he has a recomendation but I cant remeber what it was. I told him I would read up on the subject as he thought that would be a good idea since many people have different opinions on this and he wanted me to understand the differences. Any suggestions?
You actually have quite a few choices. You can use chlorine with an ionizer cartridge or ozonator. If you dont like the chemical smell of chlorine or bromine you can go with a biguanide sanitizer like Softsoak or Baqua spa. They basically use peroxide as your sanitizer. They are also easier on the skin if you have people that are sensitve to chemicals.
Ask your dealer or find a local dealer that does water analysis and they can give you more details and options to fit your situation.
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You can also add a little sodium bi-carbonate (baking soda) to neutralize and kill the germs. The 1st thing you do is keep it sanitized enough like amanda said
Brulan,
Sodium bi-carb does not have any sanitizing ability.
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Mineral Springs generator is manufactured by goldline controls for biogard. Goldline recoomeds 99.5% pure solar salt for their units. Interestingly, the goldline units can be set to read salt ppm or mineral ppm. I have one of these units and asked their tech support what the difference is. they told me the minerals setting is for use with the Mineral Springs salt which has all kinds of added (read unnecesary) stuff. I personally would rather balalce my water and check my salt levels so I only put in what I need insead of putting in a chemical brew and hoping for the best. Also, a 40 lb bag of morton pool salt costs me about 5 dollars while a bag of mineral springs renewal is quite a bit more. I use baking soda (sodium bicarbonate, sodium hydrogen carbonate--alkalikity increaser), borax (ph up substitute) or washing soda (sodium carbonate--ph up) and muriatic acid for water balance. and add stabalizer when the level drops below about 40 ppm. I get everything I need except for the stabelizer and the muriatic acid which I get a the local pool store. I test my water with a drop based test kit (can be had for as little as 15 dollars for a 5 way test!) Knowledge is power and can save you a lot of money!
Thats true knowledge can save you money but if you make a mistake and add something to your pool water that leaves you with stains in your pool that $5.00 bag of salt is not going to seem like such a good deal.
A replastering job in our area is 5-$6000.00.
The chemicals that you read are unnecesary all have a purpose. If you dont want those things in your water thats fine but I would not recmmend adding regular water softener salt.
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Either you sell alot of quality spas or you need to sell more. How many service guys do you have working for you if you dont mind me asking?
I have five including myself and we are looking for more all the time. I only sell top of the line spas and as I've said before we made a choice a long time ago that we were only going to carry the best products we could find. I've been in this business a long time and over the years of doing service for a lot of different dealers one thing That I always found was the dealers that carried cheaper products didnt usually last longer than about five or six years and then they went out of business.
I know this isnt always the case but it happened enough times that it stuck in my head.
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Well it was and it had 2 cracked manifolds as far as I can see.
I can see some scum in the lines , Is there something I can add to wash it out then drain it?
thanks
The noob
There are a couple of different products out on the market if you find a Leisure time chemical dealer in your area they make a product called jet clean and there are a few other products out on the market made for flushing spa and jetted bathtub lines. Call around some of the dealers in your area and you should be able to find some.
That will remove the scum from the lines.
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The rash is gone and my wife just went back in and the rash didn't come back. The water is clear, the ph and alkalinity is also good. I was just wondering what the Free Chlorine should read. I check with test strips every day (check the ph and akalinity) and never saw much on the Free Chlorine reading. Just wondering what it should read.
When you say 'N2 cartridge', are you referring to the Vision cartridge?
In a spa your chlorine level should be between 1 and 3ppm. On the back of your test strips there should be a recommended level indicator right under the chlorine test.
Since you have the ionizer cartridge you will probably not use as much chlorine but you need to make sure that you add your chlorine and then wait for 8 hours before you take a test. I always add a teaspoon at the end of the night for each person that was in the spa (remember the more people in the spa the more bacteria you've introduced into the water) then I go out the next morning and test before I go to work. That way if I didnt add quite enough chlorine from the night before I can suplement it and I know its ready that night when I get home.
The reason you want to wait for 8 hours before you test is that it takes a while for the chlorine to kill the bacteria in the spa and if you test right after you add the chlorine you are going to get a false reading. Good Luck
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All I can tell you is that I have a costco spa, and I have not regretted it for one minute. There are plenty of "industry folk" on here that will be happy to tell you that if you buy a costco spa, there is something wrong with you and obviously you don't see things too clearly. I chaulked it up to fear.
I bought the one directly from the store.
I dont think I've seen one response telling anyone if they bought a costco spa there was something wrong with them.
If someone asks for an opinion they are going to get it and the opinions arent always going to agree with you.
As far as fear goes I've got news for you if it werent for the cheaper spas on the market my service department would be out of business.
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Not sure, but I believe it was purchased around 1999-2000
A lot of it is going to depend on what condition that it is in but a spa that originally cost 3500.00 seven years ago I dont think I would pay more than $1000.00 in good condition. My opinion.
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What is the story with the amount of gallosn a spa holds? I have noticed that some spas that are pretty close in size have a vast difference in the amount of gallons the spa holds. Is a spa that hold more gallons of water better? Is there any significance one way or the other?
The small differences in gallon capacity arent enough to worry about. There are going to be some differences in chemical usage operating costs etc. If you were comparing a 250 gallon spa to a 400 gallon spa there may be a few dollars per month difference but I would be concerned with comfort, therapy, warranty. I preffer the bigger spas because I like to stretch out in my spa and I like to sit in different seats and when I sit in a small spa I feel cramped. Everyone has different wants and needs and you just need to find what you like. My opinion.
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Alot of the time the smell could be coming from the cover itself! All that condensation build up gives it a musty smell and so does the actual filter cartridge itself. Dont just throw more chlorine to hide the smell you have to find out where the smell is coming from 1st.
If he has no chlorine residual, the water is cloudy, his wife broke out with a rash what other evidence do you need that he has a sanitizer problem?
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I talked to my dealer about the smell and he asked if I only smell it when I lift the cover off. I said yes and he said that it is ozone that is trapped in there when the cover is on. Does this sound right? I just tested my chemicals yesterday and the PH was a little high (added some PH Down) but the akalinity was perfect. I also noticed that the Free Chroline level is very low but my dealer said I shouldn't worry about that. With using the Vision cartridge, what should the Free Chlorine read?
The dealer is right if the smell is more of a chemical smell. Its kind of hard to describe the smell of ozone it smells like after a lightning storm as lightning creates ozone. But if the smell is musty or stinks you have a bacteria problem and the fact that you have a low residual of chlorine will reaffirm this. Even with the cartridge you should always maintain a chlorine residual ALWAYS. The cartridge will make it so you dont use as much chlorine but it does not do away with chlorine.
The problem that you have when the chlorine residual is gone is that any bacteria introduced into the spa can and will grow fast. The bacteria count will triple every twenty four hours so it doesnt take long for it to get out of hand.
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Thank you for your reply. You do have my curiosity peaked now that you mentioned two of the above do not have printed warranties. Will companies give you printed warranties if you are just looking or will they say they will once you purchase their spas? Fine Line! Can you give me a hint?
Any reputable spa dealer should be happy to give a copy of their warranty. Its one of the first things I put in my customers hands even if they dont ask for it.
The way I look at it is if they are not willing to share that with you they are either trying to hide something or a written warranty does not exsist.
And yes you are right a typical answer is you'll get a copy of the warranty with your spa. My response to that would be ok you have spas sitting here on the floor why dont you pull one of the warranties out of one of these and make me a copy of it.
Its very important to get a spa that has a warranty that is backed by the manufacturer not just the dealer. That way if your dealer goes out of business you have the manufacturer responsible to get you taken care of.
I would stick with the major manufacturers. Beachcomber, Hot Spring, Arctic, Sundance, D1, Saratoga.
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Anyone had any dealings with Aquasun Pools from Doylestown Pa.?
I can't seem to find any info on them anywhere.I have been calling their office
but get no respone anly an answering machine, What a way to run a business..
Thats a red flag. If you cant get them to call you when you want to buy something then you have a pretty good idea of what is going to happen after the sale with customer support.
Your right thats no way to run a business.
Make sure you do your homework on any contractor that you ay be considering. Talk to other customers and ask if they would use them again.
Go look at other pools that they have built and I would request the names of customers that have had their pools for a few years that way you get a better idea of how they take care of their customers after the pool is finished.
Check with the contractor to see that they do a complete startup with you after the pool is finished and that they teach you haw to take care of it. That is one of the biggest complaints that we hear about dealers in our area is they finished the pool and now we cant get them back out and we dont know what we are doing.
Hope this helps.
Is Full Foam Maint. A Problem
in Portable Hot Tubs & Spas
Posted
Your right they always have built a solid unit. They are about the only manufacturer that we regularly go out and servcie spas that are 20 years old. You just dont see that with other brands.