Hot Tub Electricity Economy

[seagif]

Hi,

I have a 2005 Sundance Maxxus. I am away for extended periods and am getting tired of wasting electricity. Can I turn off the electricity to the tub for extended periods while keeping the bromine levels okay. Is this safe for the hot tub? Safe for the water? Is there a way to turn off the heater and just have the daily pump activate?

Thanks for any help.

[Roger]

Hi,

I have a 2005 Sundance Maxxus. I am away for extended periods and am getting tired of wasting electricity. Can I turn off the electricity to the tub for extended periods while keeping the bromine levels okay. Is this safe for the hot tub? Safe for the water? Is there a way to turn off the heater and just have the daily pump activate?

Thanks for any help.

Turning the temperature way down will stop the heater function and yet allow for circulation. Those tubs also have an economy mode. Do you have your owners manual?

[JAMES THE HOT TUB GUY]

Hi,

I have a 2005 Sundance Maxxus. I am away for extended periods and am getting tired of wasting electricity. Can I turn off the electricity to the tub for extended periods while keeping the bromine levels okay. Is this safe for the hot tub? Safe for the water? Is there a way to turn off the heater and just have the daily pump activate?

Thanks for any help.

Turning the temperature way down will stop the heater function and yet allow for circulation. Those tubs also have an economy mode. Do you have your owners manual?

Turning down the heater will only throw the spa into summer logic your power to operate that spa should only be 10 to 12 dollars a month and it does not have filter cycles the only filter cycle on that spa is it will come on at noon each day and blow out the pipes for about 2 minutes and if the spa is in summer logic the 24 hour circ pump will kick on at midnite and run for three hours.

[Roger]

Hi,

I have a 2005 Sundance Maxxus. I am away for extended periods and am getting tired of wasting electricity. Can I turn off the electricity to the tub for extended periods while keeping the bromine levels okay. Is this safe for the hot tub? Safe for the water? Is there a way to turn off the heater and just have the daily pump activate?

Thanks for any help.

Turning the temperature way down will stop the heater function and yet allow for circulation. Those tubs also have an economy mode. Do you have your owners manual?

Turning down the heater will only throw the spa into summer logic your power to operate that spa should only be 10 to 12 dollars a month and it does not have filter cycles the only filter cycle on that spa is it will come on at noon each day and blow out the pipes for about 2 minutes and if the spa is in summer logic the 24 hour circ pump will kick on at midnite and run for three hours.

No offense James but running that tub here in Northern Minnesota will be about triple that per month. I never heard any mention of where he was located. And throwing it into summer logic would be the whole idea.

[JAMES THE HOT TUB GUY]

Hi,

I have a 2005 Sundance Maxxus. I am away for extended periods and am getting tired of wasting electricity. Can I turn off the electricity to the tub for extended periods while keeping the bromine levels okay. Is this safe for the hot tub? Safe for the water? Is there a way to turn off the heater and just have the daily pump activate?

Thanks for any help.

Turning the temperature way down will stop the heater function and yet allow for circulation. Those tubs also have an economy mode. Do you have your owners manual?

Turning down the heater will only throw the spa into summer logic your power to operate that spa should only be 10 to 12 dollars a month and it does not have filter cycles the only filter cycle on that spa is it will come on at noon each day and blow out the pipes for about 2 minutes and if the spa is in summer logic the 24 hour circ pump will kick on at midnite and run for three hours.

No offense James but running that tub here in Northern Minnesota will be about triple that per month. I never heard any mention of where he was located. And throwing it into summer logic would be the whole idea.

If you throw the spa in summer logic you have no filter cycle and with no filter cycle you get no ozone going into the spa if he has one. And if he is in the north if you run the temp to let say 80 degrees when the water reaches that temp the circ pump will come on and run anyway untill the spa reaches 2 degrees above set temp and if it is cold out the pump will run 24 hours a day anyway even though the heater is not on so what kind of power do you think he is going to save.

[Roger]

Hi,

I have a 2005 Sundance Maxxus. I am away for extended periods and am getting tired of wasting electricity. Can I turn off the electricity to the tub for extended periods while keeping the bromine levels okay. Is this safe for the hot tub? Safe for the water? Is there a way to turn off the heater and just have the daily pump activate?

Thanks for any help.

Well I can speculate on his savings James but lets look back, he's away for extended periods and is tired of wasting electricity. I think economy mode where it only heats during filtration, or throwing it into summer mode would do just what he is asking. Sure the savings would be minumal but a savings none the less. Depending of course where he lives. And bromine is his sanitizer of choice (assuming through a dispensor) so leaving it filter will keep the water clean for when he gets home and wants to use it. Am I way off base here or did you not read his post very carefully? As far as turning off the electricity I would say no unless you drain, otherwise the water will get funky.

[spatech (the unreal one)]

Well I can speculate on his savings James but lets look back, he's away for extended periods and is tired of wasting electricity. I think economy mode where it only heats during filtration, or throwing it into summer mode would do just what he is asking. Sure the savings would be minumal but a savings none the less. Depending of course where he lives. And bromine is his sanitizer of choice (assuming through a dispensor) so leaving it filter will keep the water clean for when he gets home and wants to use it. Am I way off base here or did you not read his post very carefully? As far as turning off the electricity I would say no unless you drain, otherwise the water will get funky.

I agree, summer timer/economy mode is the way to go for someone in this situation. Sure, it does lessen the amount of time ozone is operating and while I'd hate to limit ozone under normal circumstances, the reality is if they aren't using it for long stretches anyway so there isn’t as much need for ozone IMO. While Sundance is a fairly well insulated spa this is a Maxxus we are talking which is a huge spa so it certainly does use some power and nowadays anything you can save is a plus as long as it doesn't have any downside to the spa and I don't see that it does.

[mtbarr64]

I have a SLP heat mode on my Marquis. In this setting the system will keep the temperature 20 degrees less than the set point temp. My spa will only allow me to go to 85 degrees on the setting. Based on this the SLP mode keeps the water at 65 degrees.

This will reduce the overall electrical consumption, but the majority will still be for the filtration cycle. If not being used you could drop it to a few hours a day instead of say the normal 6 hours (2 cycles at 3 hours). The lowest I could keep my spa when not in use for extended periods was 2 cycles at 1 hour a day, so 2 hours total.

These two settings combined saved about 40% of the electricity cost.

You may want to superchlorinate if you do this reduced filtration cycle and monitor the levels and water quality carefully. Water chemistry will be critical in this case, but at 60 degrees you should not have many bacterial/algae issues.

[hot_water]

Oh, I wouldn't turn the electricity off completely. Without circulation, it's possible that you'll get unhealthy things happening in the plumbing lines. Personally I like to keep the filtration time no less than 4 hrs, but that might be overkill. I'm willing to pay for that, as healthy & clean trumps saving a few bucks in my book. I always (even when using the spa daily) make sure that all my jets are all open and diverter valve is set midway when I get out so that it will flush water through the plumbing whenever the main pumps kick on. Also, I turn on the waterfall valve but not so high that the water hits the inside of the cover. All in the spirit of keeping the water moving. Be careful about pumping a bunch of chems into the spa before you leave it -- the pillows and cover (not cheap to replace) degrade. I use a bromine floater and it's a problem to keep the bromine level from getting too high. With no usage and low temp, it tends to climb. So if I'm there at the house I still test the water every couple days with strips and yank the floater for a day or two or three if the bromine gets too high. Seems to work fine.... I have clear pleasant water with no issues. For temp control, I do exactly what mtbarr64 said - lower the setpoint temp and go into SLP mode. 65 degree water is a pretty good amount of savings compared to 100 degree water. Here in CA it takes quite a long time for the spa to cool off to 65, anyway. But not IMO a good idea to skimp on the circ & filtration -- some electricity consumption is the cost of playing the spa game.

[Wet in ChiTown]

If you change the temp from, say 100 to 65, and you said it takes a "long time for the spa to cool off to 65" wouldn't all the filtration be off while the water is cooling off ?? I though I read that the filters are turned off the entire time that the water is getting to your lower set temp. Is this correct ??

If this is correct, I would think that it would be better to turn the temp down in maybe 10 degree increment over a few days so the filter is not turned off for a long period of time.

[hot_water]

I'm not an expert on how the modes work in general - I only know what mine does. Some of the repair techs will likely be able to talk about the way the modes work in the majority of spas. On my spa (which has a Balboa VS controller, but the firmware could be specific to my spa) in sleep mode when the temp is still above the "-20 degree" point, the circulation pump is on, and I hear the blower and jet pumps kick on for a few minutes at the start of the filter cycle irrespective of water temp. When the water finally cools down to 20 degrees below the set temp, the heater will only kick on to maintain that temperature during filtration cycles - it's similar to "economy" mode but the temp is 20 degrees cooler. Don't know about the ozonator. There's bubbles coming from the port anytime the circulation pump is on, that's all I can say for sure.

[biasedhistorian]

Hi,

I have a 2005 Sundance Maxxus. I am away for extended periods and am getting tired of wasting electricity. Can I turn off the electricity to the tub for extended periods while keeping the bromine levels okay. Is this safe for the hot tub? Safe for the water? Is there a way to turn off the heater and just have the daily pump activate?

Thanks for any help.

I know you have a large hot tub but another option at times when you will be away is to time your water change so that you drain it and shut the juice off until your return. Works during non-freezing weather. I went away for three weeks this summer and drained it 1st. It takes around 6-7 hours to refill and warm it up again. My bill was very low in this period so the re-heat did not cost much.