Vacation Water Sanitization

[pmj]

What is the best way to keep the hot tub water clean when going away for a 3 week period of time if no one is available to sanitize it, without emptying it??

We use Nature 2, chlorine and an ozonator currently. Is there a time realease product or a product such as the chlorine sticks that pool owners may use, that will keep the pool sanitized over this time frame?

tub is outdoors, northeast, thus winter temps.

Thanks

[B0Darc]

What is the best way to keep the hot tub water clean when going away for a 3 week period of time if no one is available to sanitize it, without emptying it??

We use Nature 2, chlorine and an ozonator currently. Is there a time realease product or a product such as the chlorine sticks that pool owners may use, that will keep the pool sanitized over this time frame?

tub is outdoors, northeast, thus winter temps.

Thanks

Wow with all the SPAM you dropped down pretty quick! I'm not the person you should take professional spa advice from, but lets look at some logical things you might find easy agreement with. You said you don't want to drain, that's smart, and I don't even want to touch that descriptive which has ingredients like special antifreeze. Let's just focus on the obvious. I mean you know you wouldn't want to get in a tub that has been without sanitizer for 3 weeks... but that's a critical point.

First, I was able to leave my spa for a week with no problems, but when I got back the chlorine was barely measurable. Before my week began, I had triple dosed it with my choice of sanitizer and latched the cover clips to seal as tight as possible against the wind. I wouldn't recommend going *way* over on sanitizer as damage to your spa and cover may occur ...like dumping in an entire bottle of Clorox is a NO-NO, and really shouldn't be necessary.

Remember no one will be getting into your spa while you are gone, so just try deep cleaning your filters (whatever chemical cleaning procedures you regularly perform besides just hosing them off) and give the dry shell a good wipe down ...increase your sanitizer a reasonable amount, and perhaps even lower the temp to the high 90s. Mostly remember you won't be getting home and jumping right in the spa ...so it doesn't really matter what condition the water is in exactly until you DO want to get in. That's when you want it to be fully sanitized. It really doesn't have to be *perfectly* sanitized while you're away, but of course you don't want it to look like soup either upon your return. I really don't think that can happen to a water balanced sanitized spa with super clean filters that no one is getting into for a couple weeks with no Sun (cover on) and initially highly sanitized.

So when you get home ...pop the top, test the water, shock it and run the jets for several cycles with the cover off. Make any changes to balance your water including a little extra sanitizer and wait til morning (Ooops forgot to raise the temp!). Test the water that next morning and run the jets (aerate) for a couple cycles before getting in. I have a lot of friends with vacation houses and they leave spas for unforgivable lengths of time. If they are super clean they should last awhile covered, especially if you have ozone and mineral assistance (N2) I still would not get in there no matter how clear it looks without heavy shock treatment and sanitizer of choice, and test test test. Think about it, without sunlight, sweat or dead skin to live on how bad can it go? Well bad enough that you wouldn't want to jump out of the car and into the spa!

[Nitro]

Before you go on vacation,

1. Balance water if needed.

2. Shock your tub to 12 ppm FC. Run jets for 30 min, then cover.

When you get back from vacation.

1. Check FC and pH. Balance water if needed. If you have any FC, you should be in good shape.

2. Shock your tub to 12 ppm FC. Run jets for 30 mins, then cover.

3. The next day check your FC level. If it's < 6 ppm, goto step 2. If it's >= 6, goto step 4.

4. The next day check your FC level. If it's < 3 ppm, goto step 2. If it's >= 3, soak.

A clean tub should use <50% (more like 25%) FC/day with no use. So if you find you have less than half FC the next day with no use, it's using more than it should and needs to be shocked.