New Cedar Tub, Chlorine Is My Sanitizer; Ozonator Or Not?

[fronesis]

I'm about to place my order for an all cedar hot tub that I will be installing next month. I previously owned and maintained a cedar tub for about a year (and then had to move ). Last time round I researched water chemistry extsensively and decided to go with dichlor. I had no regrets and quickly was able to maintain a perfectly clean and bacteria-free tub, with no chlorine smell, very low chlorine content in the water, and no rashes or other complaints from many many happy hot-tubbers.

This time I'm purchasing a full do it yourself kit, and the package price includes an ozonator (my prvious tub did not have one). I'm no expert on water chemistry, but I've been doing plenty of reading. So I understand that the o3 will act as a sanitizer, thereby potentially reducing the required amount of sanitizer I use. But I also understand that ozone tends to activate the bromine present in the water, while it may tend to eliminate some of the chlorine in the water. Thus, there are reasons for using bromine as your sanitizer if you have an ozonator.

Still, I'm not convinced that I should go away from dichlor, which worked so well for me in the past. My questions, then, are:

1. Should install and use the ozonator, and what benefits might see from this?

2. Should just go without it?

3. Or is there a strong case to be made to go with bromine.

thanks SO much for any help or guidance....

[Dr. Spa]

Using ozone in a wooden hot tub will prematurely degrade the tub and lead to an early demise. Ozone being heavier than air, will sit on the surface of the water, become very highly concentrated, and eat into the wood above the water line. The only time I've seen where this doesn't happen is either when the ozonator barely puts out any ozone, or it simple isn't working.

We learned this LONG ago and, and not only will we NOT provide an ozonator with our wooden hot tubs, we HIGHLY recommend against using them. We provide an ionizer with all of our complete hot tub systems. Many of our customers only need to add chlorine once a week (some even less)

Bromine will also shorten the life of a wooden hot tub.

[fronesis]

Using ozone in a wooden hot tub will prematurely degrade the tub and lead to an early demise. Ozone being heavier than air, will sit on the surface of the water, become very highly concentrated, and eat into the wood above the water line. The only time I've seen where this doesn't happen is either when the ozonator barely puts out any ozone, or it simple isn't working.

Wow. Very interesting. I had heard this before, back when I bought my first wood tub in 2002-2003. But *most* of the places I was looking to buy from this time round had an ozonator in the package by default. The place I'm planning to buy from does tons of business in complete cedar tub packages, and they all have ozonators.

It's not that I'm doubting your experience with ozonators, but what do you think is up with all these places selling wooden tubs with ozonators? (I had just assumed that the earlier problem didn't show up in new ozonators.)

And if you don't mind my asking, I notice that you sell your tubs with natural gas heaters. All of the options available to me seem to be electric. Do you have any advice on that front?

Thanks for the help!

[Dr. Spa]

We use to offer ozonators as well, many years ago. For a long time we blamed the damage they caused on other things, but finally learned, it was the ozone causing the damage. Why others haven't figured this out I don't know. Perhaps it's a marketing thing. I can get an ozonators for 1/3 the cost of our ionizers.

Maybe it's our 30 years of manufacturing hot tubs. There seems to be a few things others haven't figured out.

We offer electric heaters. A lot of folks go the electric route. But remember, the largest electric heater only puts out 1/3 the heat of the smallest gas heater. Also, in most areas of the country, it's more expensive to heat with electricity than gas (not all).

Wow. Very interesting. I had heard this before, back when I bought my first wood tub in 2002-2003. But *most* of the places I was looking to buy from this time round had an ozonator in the package by default. The place I'm planning to buy from does tons of business in complete cedar tub packages, and they all have ozonators.

It's not that I'm doubting your experience with ozonators, but what do you think is up with all these places selling wooden tubs with ozonators? (I had just assumed that the earlier problem didn't show up in new ozonators.)

And if you don't mind my asking, I notice that you sell your tubs with natural gas heaters. All of the options available to me seem to be electric. Do you have any advice on that front?

Thanks for the help!

[fronesis]

Sincere thanks to Dr. Spa for taking the time to provide this information. This is just a follow-up, as I'm fairly confused now about a number of things.

I bought my first tub in California, when I was living there. I'm now in the UK, so my choices are to go with a UK company who imports their wood (or tubs) or to deal with importing myself. I'm working with a company here that has been in business for 26 years and sells a lot of cedar tubs. I spoke with the owner at length yesterday, and he swears to the following:

1. Properly run ozonators will not harm a wooden tub. He claims that the new corona ozonators produce too much ozone, and that while they may cause problems, if the proper amount of ozone is being produced it will not harm the tub.

2. He also claims that bromine should be the preferred chemical in a wooden tub. He argues that it is alkalinity and not acidity that is most dangerous to wood. And further, chlorine is more alkaline than bromine.

3. He went on to say that he thought it was a bad idea to use chlorine in a hot tub *at all*, as the heat of the water simply dissipated the chlorine too quickly and it was impossible to keep a safe and proper residual.

I told him what I had learned here, and also insisted I had had good experience with chlorine in the past. He stood by these arguments.

THIS IS NOT intended as a flame of Dr. Spa or anyone else. I am NOT the expert here, but I am indeed confused that two folks who both seem to have a huge amount of experience and knowledge have come to such opposite conclusions. So I'm not questioning either one of you or impugning anyone's character, it's just that getting such utterly conflicting advice makes it hard for me to make a choice.

All of that said, I will be likely to follow the advice of chlorine and no ozonator, simply because that worked so well for me in the past. Still, I would be very intrigued to here the opinions of other experts out there on water chemistry and the like.

thanks again...

[Dr. Spa]

Quick question to begin. Was the owner Steve or Phil?

Sincere thanks to Dr. Spa for taking the time to provide this information. This is just a follow-up, as I'm fairly confused now about a number of things.

I bought my first tub in California, when I was living there. I'm now in the UK, so my choices are to go with a UK company who imports their wood (or tubs) or to deal with importing myself. I'm working with a company here that has been in business for 26 years and sells a lot of cedar tubs. I spoke with the owner at length yesterday, and he swears to the following:

1. Properly run ozonators will not harm a wooden tub. He claims that the new corona ozonators produce too much ozone, and that while they may cause problems, if the proper amount of ozone is being produced it will not harm the tub.

2. He also claims that bromine should be the preferred chemical in a wooden tub. He argues that it is alkalinity and not acidity that is most dangerous to wood. And further, chlorine is more alkaline than bromine.

3. He went on to say that he thought it was a bad idea to use chlorine in a hot tub *at all*, as the heat of the water simply dissipated the chlorine too quickly and it was impossible to keep a safe and proper residual.

I told him what I had learned here, and also insisted I had had good experience with chlorine in the past. He stood by these arguments.

THIS IS NOT intended as a flame of Dr. Spa or anyone else. I am NOT the expert here, but I am indeed confused that two folks who both seem to have a huge amount of experience and knowledge have come to such opposite conclusions. So I'm not questioning either one of you or impugning anyone's character, it's just that getting such utterly conflicting advice makes it hard for me to make a choice.

All of that said, I will be likely to follow the advice of chlorine and no ozonator, simply because that worked so well for me in the past. Still, I would be very intrigued to here the opinions of other experts out there on water chemistry and the like.

thanks again...

[Dr. Spa]

"I'm now in the UK"

This may actually make a difference. There's at least 5 different types of chlorine. The pH of them ranges from 2.9 to 13. On this side of the pond we only recommend Sodium Dichlor which has a fairly neutral pH Regardles, the pH has NO bearing what so ever on the wood (least not that I've ever heard of, and we frequently consult with the US forrestry department)... AND, we've been in business manufacturing wooden hot tubs for over 30 years.

"1. Properly run ozonators will not harm a wooden tub. He claims that the new corona ozonators produce too much ozone, and that while they may cause problems, if the proper amount of ozone is being produced it will not harm the tub."

We disscontinued using ozone before CD came out. If, they're not seeing any damage caused by the ozone, 1 of 2 things is going on. Either they're putting so minute an amount of ozone into the water that it's not doing anything at all, or they're attributing the damage caused to the bromine (more on this to come)

"3. He went on to say that he thought it was a bad idea to use chlorine in a hot tub *at all*, as the heat of the water simply dissipated the chlorine too quickly and it was impossible to keep a safe and proper residual."

Is "poppycock" a word over there? Been a few years since I visited. Ok, bromine (and chlorine) are halogen sanitizers. As such they destroy organic matter. Wood, though very durrable, IS an organic material. If there's nothing in the water for the bromine/chlorine to destroy, it WILL attack the wood. It'll turn it into a white fizzy mass.. Now, what would you prefer? Chlorine, that you add, it kills and oxidizes what it needs to in order to make everything safe, that any extra evaporates in a few hours. Or bromine, that kills everything in the water, but is constantly there, and if there's nothing else for it to work on, WILL WORK ON EATING AWAY YOUR WOODEN HOT TUB.

"THIS IS NOT intended as a flame of Dr. Spa or anyone else."

No flame taken, besides, I'm not flamable

[fronesis]

Quick question to begin. Was the owner Steve or Phil?

The former.

Now, what would you prefer? Chlorine, that you add, it kills and oxidizes what it needs to in order to make everything safe, that any extra evaporates in a few hours. Or bromine, that kills everything in the water, but is constantly there, and if there's nothing else for it to work on, WILL WORK ON EATING AWAY YOUR WOODEN HOT TUB.

Since I don't have the 30 years experience that you have or the 25 that Steve has, *this* is really the deciding factor for me. I MUCH prefer the idea of using enough sanitizer to keep my water clean but *not* having sanitizer sitting in my water 24 hours a day. It might be the case that small amounts of ozone are safe, but since I'm using chlorine anyway I think I'll avoid running that experiment on my tub.

Thanks again.

Now if I can only figure out the pros and cons of running a line from my boiler and using a heat exchanger rather than the electric heater that comes standard in their kits!

Final Note: looking around the web at UK places that sell chemicals, I find a number of listings for sodium dichlor (which is what I used in the past). Sometimes they spell it out as, 'Sodium Dichloroisocyanurate' and mention that it is 55% or 57% strength.

Is this likely to be the same 'Dichlor' I used in California?

[Dr. Spa]

"It might be the case that small amounts of ozone are safe,"

It's quite possible, though, such small amounts of ozone probably have little or no effect on water quality either.

"Now if I can only figure out the pros and cons of running a line from my boiler and using a heat exchanger rather than the electric heater that comes standard in their kits!"

I heat my hot tub this way. Basically there's a pipe that runs from the boiler (water heater) through the side of the tub, coils around under the bench a few times, and returns to the boiler. With a thermostatically controled little pump to move the water from the boiler through the piping. Works GREAT, and the tub is ALWAYS at temperature ready to go. The downside is that it's probably quite a bit more expensive to initially insrtall.

"Is this likely to be the same 'Dichlor' I used in California?"

Same stuff.

Say hi to Steve for me. Out of curiousity, how far from Hindhead are you?

[fronesis]

"It's quite possible, though, such small amounts of ozone probably have little or no effect on water quality either."

Agreed.

"Basically there's a pipe that runs from the boiler (water heater) through the side of the tub, coils around under the bench a few times, and returns to the boiler. With a thermostatically controled little pump to move the water from the boiler through the piping. Works GREAT, and the tub is ALWAYS at temperature ready to go. The downside is that it's probably quite a bit more expensive to initially install."

Interesting. Sounds like your setup is slightly different. I'm looking at running a line from the boiler that then links into one of these. Water from the boiler then heats the tub water through this device.

Plumber comes tomorrow or Tuesday to give me a quote concnering installing the line to the heat exchanger. The equipment isn't that much extra cost, so it just depends on how much it costs to run the line from the boiler. Standard UK 'central heating' is a central boiler that has plenty of power to run a tub, so it could be worth the initial upfront cost. We'll soon see.

"Say hi to Steve for me. Out of curiousity, how far from Hindhead are you?"

Will do. I'm actually in south Wales, so probably about 3 to 4 hours from Hindhead.

Thanks again!