RobPih

Ahoy! I concur with Scottie above! We bought ours in Sept 2014 (probably a first edition) from a dealer over 3 hours away from our city. It was suggested that I could install it myself. That should've been a clue right there about the support to expect. NOTE: This is a bit of a long read and has a bit of a rant to it, but just be aware of these issues before you buy. We live in Northern Ontario so the winters are harsh. In Dec 2018 our Covana started giving us issues. Once in a while we'd see a little a little gap after it was lowered. I though maybe there was still some settling from the deck/hot tub pad. After adjusting the lid a few times I realized that there was more to the issue. We then started getting a shimmy then a POP as a link would jump. Once I heard that noise then I knew I'd have to adjust the lid again by removing the bracket screws from the sleeve, letting the cover settle and reinstalling the screws. Soon it became obvious that the chain was jumping on one post and then another post started the same thing. And wouldn't you know it, they were the two posts requiring me to go under the deck to service them. Of course, this approach would have to wait unitil the snow melted to access my crawl space. That spring I Googled how to ratchet the posts down and solved what I though was the issue and greased the entire chain, lubricated the posts, etc. You know, the usual fall maintenance but done in the spring. It worked fine for the summer of 2019 but come mid-winter, our worst fears were realized - the Covana cover wouldn't come down. Grr... Luckily I kept the folding cover that came with our hot tub and used that for the winter, leaving the Covana cover suspended for the winter, hoping no big winter storms would arrive to cause us further grief. I contacted the dealer and they were stumped. I suggested maybe the chains were defective as they had jumped earlier and were now jammed somehow. They suggested just buying new posts and their quote for each was 1/4 of the cost of the Covana in the first place! Summer 2020 rolled around and I spent many a weekend under the deck, cleaning the chain, checking the sprockets, cussing the eqpt, greasing chains, and when all seemed to be working again, the dreaded "jump" would occur. It would be back to square one. I found a part that holds the chain had twisted and let go. It was like pulling hen's teeth to get the tech from the dealer to send me the parts pages for the Covana. They wanted big $$ to come and service the Covana. I just wanted the $15 part. After that part arrived and I installed, all issues disappeared and it raised/lowered without any issues. Success - or so I thought - was fleeting. Mid-winter 2020 and the two "up until now" trouble free posts jammed, the other two kept going down and all was askew. It even put a small crack in the corner of the cover where it had twisted. Needless to say, access uder the deck wasn't possible until spring so I used ratchet straps to lower the two elevated posts, removed the cover and stowed it on my deck over the winter. The folding hot tub cover was deployed once again. I worked on it for about two weeks in spring 2021 and it starting working fine. Woo-hoo! Come the winter however, the old routine set in. Every week a post or two would jump and I would adjust the cover by removing the backet screws, let the cover settle and put the self-tapping screws back in, creating new holes in the sleeve. I removed the brackets in the spring and the post sleeves looked as if a woodpecker had attacked them. This spring - 2022 - was spent once again cleaning everything. I figured how to get the chain to continuously loop and cleaned every link in the 4 posts. All seemed good until I tested it. After 10 or 11 raises a post jerked and the cover became misaligned again. Not wanting my wife to deal with this issue over the summer (as I was away for 3 months) we stowed the Covana cover in the garage, ratched the posts to the lowest postion. She just used the folding cover for the summer. While away, I found out through aother dealer in eastern Ontario that the few that they have sold over the years have lasted about 4-5 years. Similar complaints, especially during winter operation was quite common. We decided to invest in a manual cover lifter and installed a pergola with a retractable awning over the hot tub. So far, much less stress. All in all, it was great when it lasted but the issues we have the last +4 years and the lack of support from our dealer 300 km away have left us with a bitter taste in our mouths. I am looking forward to a stress-free winter operation of our manual folding hot tub cover.