PNW Soaker

It's to get a fresh reading of water temperature by circulating through the heater where the probes are located.

Hey guys, I decided to try Chlorine on this last fill and I'm really liking the fact that I can use MPS shock (non chlorine) often / as necessary to keep the water crystal clear, without it causing the bromine level to spike and therefore a long wait to get back in the tub. Thoughts?

2. I have my tub on a schedule, 99 degrees from 12am to 12pm and 104 from 12pm till midnight. It takes about 3 hours to heat back up so I can use it from 3pm onward. I save roughly 1/3 of the energy cost this way, which I can see in my usage graphs from the power company. Anytime you can get away with lowering the temp, you'll save money. Contrary to popular assumption it does not take more energy or money to heat back up than it does to maintain a higher temperature.

I hope this is right! But I've never seen so much water loss so quickly. Our tub is constantly opened/closed, used multiple times a day, we even take water out to fill a little basin for my daughter to play with and I still hardly see any drop until about a month has passed.

I was trying to say the same thing... FYI

Ya you don't need to worry about "total bromine", the active bromine will show on the strip and the other stuff is actually bromide that doesn't pose an issue or anything, it's called a "bank" and it is activated with shock (and will then show up)

This is what I see in my tub when I don't use enough MPS Shock (non chlorine shock), or if the chlorine/bromine level bottoms out even for a short while. Which brings me to what I've been thinking about lately, is there such thing as "too much" MPS shock? Doesn't seem like there is to me, or I haven't run into it yet.

MPS will take care of the "matter" portion of fecal matter, the super chlorination is for the pathogens.

Sounds like you took care of it effectively. I think I'd stop short of draining if it was indeed formed/hard. I mean there is tons of fecal matter going in there anyway. Good amount of MPS and super chlorination (bromination? haha) are going to take out what you can't see.

If you have a balboa spa pack that uses thermistors, like most do, the post about adding a 1k resistor into the sensor wires for both sensors is a really easy effective way to do it.

Many people will disagree with this because it can be counter-intuitive, but lowering the temp of your tub by 5 degrees for times you're not using it will save you quite a bit of money. I have mine lower every day at midnight to 99 degrees then at 12pm next day it goes back to 104. I could plainly see this reflected on my usage graphs, it was cut by about a 1/3rd. Some people will say it costs less to "maintain" temperature but that's not how it works, all things equal, heater time will still be less with this method. All the other recommendations you're getting here are good too.

Oh really, well I have a semi-recent order number I can ask them and see...

I can't 100% remember but my Strong Spa came with a 3rd party cover from Florida. I remember this because I didn't expect a second box with a different brand and origin on it. Looking up affordable spa covers just now I'm pretty sure it was from them. So they may be the Strong Spa original supplier.

You should have the temp set below the current water temperature (i.e. not heating), and have the pump running for a minute or two. Then cut power and test the resistance values. This will ensure there was good flow through the heater and one side is not hotter than the other. Provided you do this - your ohms should be very close, within .1 on your meter (even .44 is too far apart, that's almost 2 degrees).

I just used ahh-some last week, it really works fantastically but I have to echo the advice to clean the deposits right away when it's purging. I put the stuff in and ran the jets it immediately foamed like crazy, no big deal, says so on the label. After 15 min or so the foaming is decreasing and I start seeing the water line accumulating a lot of sticky slime. At that point I should have started wiping it off but I waited another 15 min and started draining the water before getting to the wiping. Big mistake, it was really tough to get off by then, and I ended up using a scouring pad and a hose keeping it wet to remove it completely. I was also really diligent about doing a second fill to "rinse" but in hindsight after doing this I don't know that you can really completely rinse it out there were some chemical bubbles on the next fill too but all that disappeared after a day of circulation with the filter installed and it didn't affect the water chemistry or anything. I don't think it's dangerous to have a little chemical still lurking around is what I'm saying.

There are two RJ45 ports on the main board to plug your topside controller into, perhaps try the other one? If that's no good turn off the power unplug the topside and plug in the power. I think you should get the usual startup sequence. 5 min priming followed by the pump running to check the temp. You could use a multimeter on the topside and/or RJ45 ports too to check for shorts.

FWIW you can also get OH if you short the sensor wire (no resistance). So check with multimeter to make sure your plug and sensor wires are not shorting anywhere.

Given this is a Balboa board, "Sn" is sensor sync (as opposed to say Sa or Sb where sensor connection is faulty or disconnected). Your resistance values are not agreeing with eachother, if your multimeter has good accuracy you should probably be able to diagnose this yourself, like RDsapguy says, they have to be within a few hundred ohms. The balboa VS spa packs have 2 sensors one inlet one outlet on the heater and no hi-limit. *Edit* also the "Sn" usually comes up at lower temps where the ohms change more per degree than at higher temps. So for me when I had bad resistance values it would only trigger when the spa was 100 degree or lower and it would be fine so long as it stayed hot like 103, 104.

Yea you have to support the entire bottom because you don't really know where the load is being carried, it depends on the spa shell shape etc.

Why not replace the hi-limit sensor then? You can check it with a multimeter as well if you don't want to buy one before you know it's bad.

No problem, did you get it installed and running?

Yea ozone will create chlorate or bromate, and in Canada it is becoming law that the ozone generators say "do not use with bromine/bromide products" or something like that because of the health effects of bromate. (that's at least my understanding, could be wrong)

Open the access area for the heater and pump etc and look there for a manufacturer placard.

I read on these boards that some tubs are intentionally not consistent side to side so you can put it on a sloped slab and have it "even out".

I think your idea is great, and I think 3/4 gravel that has been tamped every 2 inches is going to be pretty darn good at distributing the load and providing a base on top of those old pavers. Some smaller stone is probably a good idea for the top layer to make sure it's flat. Level is not a problem it's how flat the surface is, you don't want and high spots or ridges causing the tub to deflect.