What Temp Do You Turn Your Tub Down To?

[bart6453]

So...when you are not planning on using your tub for a couple of days, what temp do you turn your tub down to?

I am looking to conserve some energy during the Minnesota winter...

[Dnepr Dave]

Our tub is pretty well insulated, it costs less than $20 a month in the winter. That, and we use it every day, all winter.

We keep it at 103 degrees all the time.

Dave

[poptones]

If you're not going to be using it for a few days, then what about turning it down low enough to inhibit growth of "bad stuff?" Load it up with chlorine and turn it down to 80 or so?

[djousma]

Its the same age-old question. Which is more efficient? Maintain the temp, or let it rise and fall? We always leave ours up to temp. I think it uses less juice to maintain, plus we dont plan that far in advance if we are going to use it or not. takes a couple hours to go from 80's to 104.

[Pool Clown]

Mine won't let me go lower than 80, unless i kill the power to it.

[r5ran]

So...when you are not planning on using your tub for a couple of days, what temp do you turn your tub down to?

I am looking to conserve some energy during the Minnesota winter...

I agree with the other's opinions, keep at the set temp you want, then it's ready for you when you want to soak, no planning or waiting involved. As long as you have a well insulated tub it won't cost you. I keep mine at 101 and the most I have seen my winter electric bill go up is about $25, and I'm in just as cold an area as you. If I am going to be gone for a week or more, I turn it down to 80 (and it take about 2-3 days in the dead of winter till it drops that far and the heater kicks back on), but only when were gone for a long period of time. Plan on it taking a few hours to get back to temp again, and you know that heater is running the whole time when heating back up to temp, so I don't think the savings is even that great then.

Enjoy winter, the colder the better, best time to tub by far.

Randy

[Trigger]

I keep the temp up all winter. The tub is always ready for use, and with a 24/7 ozone system and a post use dichlor program, I have never had a water quality issue, even if I let the tub go unused for 1-2 weeks.

Another concern of keeping the temp up in the winter: if you lose power, you would want to have your water temp up as high as possible to ward off potential freeze as long as possible.

I've owned high end and low end tubs, and the low end tubs in a New England winter were absolute energy hogs. Turning the temp up and down to try and save a few $$$ was fruitless.

If you find winter costs going through the roof, I'd look into a decent fitting, high R value cover, and also improving the insualtion in the cabinet. Looking for cost savings by fine tuning the temp is a wild goose chase, IMHO.

[The Pup]

We keep our spa set for 100F through the winter months.

By our best guesstimate (c-clamp amp meter at $0.14/kW) our spa averaged $18 per month through the winter (20F average low). We only heat/filter for 1-hour every 12-hours (the largest drop in temp we have observed between heat/filter cycles has been 1-2F).

[RickJ]

Its the same age-old question. Which is more efficient? Maintain the temp, or let it rise and fall? We always leave ours up to temp. I think it uses less juice to maintain, plus we dont plan that far in advance if we are going to use it or not. takes a couple hours to go from 80's to 104.

I agree with djousma. Keep it at the temp you want, so it's ready to go when you want to soak. I tried turning it down and then turning it back up one winter. I also ran my tub in the economy mode, where it wouldn't run the heater unless it was doing the filtration cycle. It seemed to use more energy that way. Running the heater to get the tub back up from 90 to 100 cost more than just maintaining the temp that I wanted.

If you are going to be gone for a week or two, then load it up with chlorine and turn it down. I would probably go down to 80 or so. But, during the times you are around, if you want to save energy then get a floating spa blanket (the foam kind, not the bubble wrap cheap stuff) and buy a thicker cover. That will save you more energy over the long run, IMO.

[Hillbilly Hot Tub]

The other advantage to keeping it to the temp you want is, say you have a power outage, the tub was down to 80 degrees, thats 20+ degrees below you set temp and now you cant heat it back up, if you are without power for a few days, having it up in temp keeps it further from the freezing point.

[Roger]

So...when you are not planning on using your tub for a couple of days, what temp do you turn your tub down to?

I am looking to conserve some energy during the Minnesota winter...

Unless you have a very poorly design low end tub I would not even bother. The cost savings is so minumal that I say you deserve to splurge, you work hard, put the few dollars a month in keeping your tub ready to go always. This way at the drop of the hat you can say "baby let's go for a soak"