[Can I add gas heater to portable spa]

On ‎6‎/‎9‎/‎2019 at 9:07 PM, nj erik said:

Good day all.  I am new to the forum and have hopefully an interesting question.  I am looking at eliminating my inground pool and renovate my backyard, which would include adding a hot tub/spa.  The pool will cost $25,000 or more to renovate, plus $3000 per year to operate and we hardly ever use it, so out it should go.  However, we have new, only two years old, equipment including a 125K btu pentair pool/spa gas heater.  Where I want to put the spa I do not have the right wiring to the outdoor breakers at the current pool.  I have a 15 amp 240v breaker and a 120v 15 amp breaker were the pool equipment currently is, however spas require a 30 or 50 amp 240v breaker.  The wiring feeding the 240 v 15 amp breaker is not of the right gauge to increase it to 30 or 50 amps.  However, I do have the gas heater right there.  So, my question is can I get a new spa without a heater and pipe it to my gas pool/spa heater and run the pump off of the 120 v 15 amp or 240v 15 amp circuit?  The plug and play unites are usually 120v.  If I have to run a bigger 10 gauge or even 8 gauge wire to the spa it will be too cost prohibitive and I already have a relatively new gas heater.  Can this be done?  What brands would be best to look at?  I am interested in a therapy spa rather than a soaking tub.

Thanks,

Erik

Very interested in what you find.   I'd like to add a gas heater to a spa and not sure how easy or hard it is.  Youtube wasn't that helpful...

[Buying first swim spa - questions for the newbie]

Slab is built.   Swim Spa order is about to go in.  We've looked at a few.  about to pull the trigger. 

for a 14 footer, the real question we are trying to answer is whether it CAN be a unicorn pool...  swim when we want to swim, and hot tub when we want to hot tub.   We plan to keep it nice and warm (89-ish) for swimming.  But how long does it really take to warm up to a hot-tub temp?    I'm pretty handy so the idea of adding a gas water heater isn't out of the question.  But I'd hate to start tearing apart our brand new swim spa.   Natural Gas is about 5 feet away from where we are putting it though. 

So does a swim spa really scratch both the pool and the hot tub itch? 

We are looking at the ES14, believe it or not.  We like the bench seating in the hot tub area.  We had been pretty hot on swimspamanufacturers.com but when product questions got a little harder they lost interest in us.   But for a toe-in to a swim spa it didn't look bad. 

I've never read a 'complaint' about a swim spa.  Guessing that is because once someone spends 15-40k on a set-up they are going to like it.  because it isn't like you can just send it back! 

But the info on these really is sparse.   I'll probably do an entire blog/write-up on my experience to share with would-be swimmers. 

thoughts?