Purchase - Our Story

[d1 wayfarer]

Thought I would detail our recent Dimension One Wayfarer purchase and hope it might help someone else. I was surfing this board almost daily for some time before deciding to pull the trigger. I copied a ton of info from websites and compiled a list of things to consider. We have two kids age 6 and 4 so that was a large factor in our search.

We started with a list of every single manufacturer of hot tubs and then eliminated as we went on.

PRICE

First up was the talk about price. Wife and I started our search thinking we would spend about $4500-$5500 on this thing. Ended up around $8000 by the time the tub was in the back yard.

ENVIRONMENT

Second was the type of environment we were looking for. Seems it was either

A) Recreational – used for having friends over and to get a hot tub with some cool swirling water. These were lower cost since they seemed to skip some of the more essential functions of massage therapy.

Therapeutic – The spa and its jets were manufactured to assist with muscle tension and massage.

We talked about not being huge entertainers so the pictures on some brochures of multiple couples out on the back deck didn’t sway us. In reality we really thought if anything we would have one couple and their kids over and it would most likely be either the wives and kids in or the men separately, but seldom together. As a result our next decision was size

SIZE

Our deck and yard could handle either an eight foot or seven foot. We really decided to look more at water size than dimensions. I did not want too much water for chemical and refill reasons. In the end we went with anything under 425 gallons. 8 foot or 7 foot was no longer important to us.

ELECTRICAL

Next I took over the search on electrical. Thought we could make out like bandits since our home had an old Polynesian hot tub hooked up when we moved in (we got rid of it long ago). Problem I would find out was that the electrical panel was 40 amp and used 8 gauge wire. Which looked good at the time, but when we made our final decision, Dimension One’s warranty required 6 gauge wire. So that was a large unexpected cost to re-run the whole thing. Wish the dealers would have warned us about electrical. None of them said anything about this “hidden” cost. After all re-run and inspections, this added a nice chunk of change.

LOCATION

Once we began receiving brochures, we saw all kinds of cool set ups and outdoor settings that we started dreaming of. Deck, cement pad, or crushed stone. Lots of looking through this board to get thoughts. We ended up going with a cement pad which was another cost. This caused us to put things on hold until we saved up a few more bucks. Our hope of spending $4500-$5500 needed to be increased. The cement truck further left some ruts in the lawn and needed another few dollars to fill and re-seed.

The location we selected and set the pad on was perfect, but we should have waited till we selected the spa before determining the exact placement. In the end, I thought I planned everything out well, electrical in to the tub would be hidden, cover lift goes to the wind and acts as a privacy barrier… but wait, the controls are on the other side. Bummer!!! So now our controls are on the opposite side of the deck, which we just shrugged off as not as big a deal as it was when we found out. The controls, exterior steps, cool seat or interior steps, electrical input to the tub, lifter opening should all be known before finalizing things.

We kept the tub close the back door to help us monitor the kids when they get older also. I put a lot of thought into the wind direction, and use in the winter and how much snow would turn to ice when exiting.

PERMITS

Our township required both electrical and a hot tub install permit… a couple more dollars to add to your mix

CABINET

No brainer for us here. We both agreed we wanted a synthetic panel around the tub. No wood. It was nice being able to select color of the shell and the cabinet.

FULL FOAM vs. NON FOAMED – I know this has been debated and lots of messages on this board relate to this. I think I took a week on this decision alone. Lots of reading online too. We are in Michigan and elected to go with full foam. We actually bought a foam product called volara to act as a floating blanket to help create another layer of between the water and the cover since we really want to use this during the winter. Problem is it comes in 60” so there are some small gaps on the sides. Tried the old pool bubble wrap type, but found the call for heat and jet coming on would push it aside and it would not stay in place. Found lots of info on covers during this stage and R factors. It was my belief that more important than the full foam or not was the cover. Seems testing shows most heat loss is from water surface not through shell, but through cover.

WARRANTY

I did a ton of research online about warranties and eliminated a few manufacturers at this stage.

DEALER

Some know their stuff and some want a sale. It was easy to determine who was who for us and we were able to eliminate more here.

SHELL

Eliminated some more here as we decided on the acrylic shells.

SEATS

The tub we wanted needed to have a "cool seat" or steps that our 4 year old could use. She calls it her seat and it is perfect for her little frame. Checked with our pediatrician and we turn down to 99 degrees when we know they haven't been in for a couple days. They basically "swim" but it is the greatest thing in their world right now. Click up to 103 when we're getting out and its up to temp by the time they are in bed an hour or two later.

LIGHTING

Some models we looked at had all the led outside lights and we just didn’t think that was a big deal for us. Some had them in the tub themselves too. The one thing we ruled in was to have the spa light an LED light that was changeable. We are happy we got that. The wife likes red, I like blue and the kids like the rotate varying colors. Glad we got a lighter color interior cause it really shines at night. I wonder if we had gotten a dark blue interior color if the light would reflect as much. Ours is a speckled sand/white.

HEATER AND PUMP

By now we were narrowing a search down to about 10 tubs. This step eliminated us to a core group. We elected to go with two pumps and the tub had to have a circ pump. I looked at it like this: a circ pump = 1.25 amps where a jet pump pulls = 14 amps. So circs running 24 hrs = 30 amps where jets on a minimum of 2 times a day for at 3 hours = 84 amps. I like the idea that the water and chems are constantly being circulated, filtered, and mixed, not just twice a day or if the heater is running.

OZONE

Looked at the two types of ozonators A) ultraviolet lamp and corona discharge. There are a bunch of messages about these two also but our decision was to just have ozone. We would let the dealer/manufacturer of our final selection tell us which will be installed.

CONTROLS

We wanted to be able to control pressure. Our tub has every single jet control from anywhere from full off to full on and anywhere in between. That was huge for us

JETS

The number of jets was somewhat important at first… we found we wanted a bunch, but in the end, our final five tubs all were pretty close to each other. We did want varying jets (i.e. some to do the back, some foot, some swirl, some pulse)

We knew we wanted the waterfall feature, so eliminated a few others here. Problem is on our tub it runs off the jet so it never turned out to be the tranquil waterfall we thought it would be. Some models do run off circ pump and would have been better for us there. Never realized this until it was already installed.

MAINTENANCE COSTS

We talked about costs on a monthly basis… increased electric bills, and chemicals. They again seemed pretty comparable with our top five models.

WET TEST

This was the best time. Felt really weird doing it in the stores, but we are so glad we did. We tested on the same day and are really glad we did it that way. The final tubs on our list were comparable on paper, but totally different from the wet test perspective.

Hope this helps someone.

[Crusher]

Thought I would detail our recent Dimension One Wayfarer purchase and hope it might help someone else. I was surfing this board almost daily for some time before deciding to pull the trigger. I copied a ton of info from websites and compiled a list of things to consider. We have two kids age 6 and 4 so that was a large factor in our search.

We started with a list of every single manufacturer of hot tubs and then eliminated as we went on.

PRICE

First up was the talk about price. Wife and I started our search thinking we would spend about $4500-$5500 on this thing. Ended up around $8000 by the time the tub was in the back yard.

ENVIRONMENT

Second was the type of environment we were looking for. Seems it was either

A) Recreational – used for having friends over and to get a hot tub with some cool swirling water. These were lower cost since they seemed to skip some of the more essential functions of massage therapy.

Therapeutic – The spa and its jets were manufactured to assist with muscle tension and massage.

We talked about not being huge entertainers so the pictures on some brochures of multiple couples out on the back deck didn’t sway us. In reality we really thought if anything we would have one couple and their kids over and it would most likely be either the wives and kids in or the men separately, but seldom together. As a result our next decision was size

SIZE

Our deck and yard could handle either an eight foot or seven foot. We really decided to look more at water size than dimensions. I did not want too much water for chemical and refill reasons. In the end we went with anything under 425 gallons. 8 foot or 7 foot was no longer important to us.

ELECTRICAL

Next I took over the search on electrical. Thought we could make out like bandits since our home had an old Polynesian hot tub hooked up when we moved in (we got rid of it long ago). Problem I would find out was that the electrical panel was 40 amp and used 8 gauge wire. Which looked good at the time, but when we made our final decision, Dimension One’s warranty required 6 gauge wire. So that was a large unexpected cost to re-run the whole thing. Wish the dealers would have warned us about electrical. None of them said anything about this “hidden” cost. After all re-run and inspections, this added a nice chunk of change.

LOCATION

Once we began receiving brochures, we saw all kinds of cool set ups and outdoor settings that we started dreaming of. Deck, cement pad, or crushed stone. Lots of looking through this board to get thoughts. We ended up going with a cement pad which was another cost. This caused us to put things on hold until we saved up a few more bucks. Our hope of spending $4500-$5500 needed to be increased. The cement truck further left some ruts in the lawn and needed another few dollars to fill and re-seed.

The location we selected and set the pad on was perfect, but we should have waited till we selected the spa before determining the exact placement. In the end, I thought I planned everything out well, electrical in to the tub would be hidden, cover lift goes to the wind and acts as a privacy barrier… but wait, the controls are on the other side. Bummer!!! So now our controls are on the opposite side of the deck, which we just shrugged off as not as big a deal as it was when we found out. The controls, exterior steps, cool seat or interior steps, electrical input to the tub, lifter opening should all be known before finalizing things.

We kept the tub close the back door to help us monitor the kids when they get older also. I put a lot of thought into the wind direction, and use in the winter and how much snow would turn to ice when exiting.

PERMITS

Our township required both electrical and a hot tub install permit… a couple more dollars to add to your mix

CABINET

No brainer for us here. We both agreed we wanted a synthetic panel around the tub. No wood. It was nice being able to select color of the shell and the cabinet.

FULL FOAM vs. NON FOAMED – I know this has been debated and lots of messages on this board relate to this. I think I took a week on this decision alone. Lots of reading online too. We are in Michigan and elected to go with full foam. We actually bought a foam product called volara to act as a floating blanket to help create another layer of between the water and the cover since we really want to use this during the winter. Problem is it comes in 60” so there are some small gaps on the sides. Tried the old pool bubble wrap type, but found the call for heat and jet coming on would push it aside and it would not stay in place. Found lots of info on covers during this stage and R factors. It was my belief that more important than the full foam or not was the cover. Seems testing shows most heat loss is from water surface not through shell, but through cover.

WARRANTY

I did a ton of research online about warranties and eliminated a few manufacturers at this stage.

DEALER

Some know their stuff and some want a sale. It was easy to determine who was who for us and we were able to eliminate more here.

SHELL

Eliminated some more here as we decided on the acrylic shells.

SEATS

The tub we wanted needed to have a "cool seat" or steps that our 4 year old could use. She calls it her seat and it is perfect for her little frame. Checked with our pediatrician and we turn down to 99 degrees when we know they haven't been in for a couple days. They basically "swim" but it is the greatest thing in their world right now. Click up to 103 when we're getting out and its up to temp by the time they are in bed an hour or two later.

LIGHTING

Some models we looked at had all the led outside lights and we just didn’t think that was a big deal for us. Some had them in the tub themselves too. The one thing we ruled in was to have the spa light an LED light that was changeable. We are happy we got that. The wife likes red, I like blue and the kids like the rotate varying colors. Glad we got a lighter color interior cause it really shines at night. I wonder if we had gotten a dark blue interior color if the light would reflect as much. Ours is a speckled sand/white.

HEATER AND PUMP

By now we were narrowing a search down to about 10 tubs. This step eliminated us to a core group. We elected to go with two pumps and the tub had to have a circ pump. I looked at it like this: a circ pump = 1.25 amps where a jet pump pulls = 14 amps. So circs running 24 hrs = 30 amps where jets on a minimum of 2 times a day for at 3 hours = 84 amps. I like the idea that the water and chems are constantly being circulated, filtered, and mixed, not just twice a day or if the heater is running.

OZONE

Looked at the two types of ozonators A) ultraviolet lamp and corona discharge. There are a bunch of messages about these two also but our decision was to just have ozone. We would let the dealer/manufacturer of our final selection tell us which will be installed.

CONTROLS

We wanted to be able to control pressure. Our tub has every single jet control from anywhere from full off to full on and anywhere in between. That was huge for us

JETS

The number of jets was somewhat important at first… we found we wanted a bunch, but in the end, our final five tubs all were pretty close to each other. We did want varying jets (i.e. some to do the back, some foot, some swirl, some pulse)

We knew we wanted the waterfall feature, so eliminated a few others here. Problem is on our tub it runs off the jet so it never turned out to be the tranquil waterfall we thought it would be. Some models do run off circ pump and would have been better for us there. Never realized this until it was already installed.

MAINTENANCE COSTS

We talked about costs on a monthly basis… increased electric bills, and chemicals. They again seemed pretty comparable with our top five models.

WET TEST

This was the best time. Felt really weird doing it in the stores, but we are so glad we did. We tested on the same day and are really glad we did it that way. The final tubs on our list were comparable on paper, but totally different from the wet test perspective.

Hope this helps someone.

Great post! Which Spas where your final 3 and why?

[BigDfromTN]

Great review of your buying process.

You certainly did your homework!!!

[stryker709]

Holy research batman!!!

Certainly put more time into it then me, but it sounds like you got exactly what you wanted. Good point about the electrical, some people look at me like I've got two heads when I tell them their electrical is gonna cost them another $1000 or more. The beauty of doing hot tub hook ups is when the old panel is too full and needs to be replaced or have a sub panel. Sorry if this makes people cringe, I'm looking at it from an electricians view point.

[THE SPA GUY]

great to see your spa process, you spent a lot of time with that ,,good job a lot of conumers just take the salesman word that theres is the best, and consumers get the perception they are the supreme kings of hot tubs, but i like seeing this , it is a big investment you are going to have for a long time, it would be interesting to see the last 3 you had narrowed it down to and why you you pusehed them aside, again this was great .......wish we had more of these. thats what makes selling hot tubs so good. but glad you went with the D1 it is a great brand, i am biased as i sell these........

[Dnepr Dave]

Gosh! We bought ours off of Craig's list. It was not very old and was hooked up and working when we looked at it. We didn't even think of wet testing it. The number one feature for us was the size, we needed a small one to fit the spot where it was going to be.

We bought it, wired it up and haven't had any problems with it. It fits us perfectly and we love it!

I guess we did everything wrong, but it worked out anyway.

Dave

[d1 wayfarer]

HEHEH - I think I could write the book on shopping for a spa.

One good thing about taking a couple months to research was that I could stop into a store and felt like I could read the salesperson's knowledge pretty good.

Our final three spas:

1) D1 Wayfarer - bought this one at a great price/ great knowledgeable dealer w/ good trust relationship / BBB A+ rating.

2) Caldera Martinique - great spa, great relationship with dealer, but in the end, they stuck to a price and the D1 dealer threw in an electrical panel (since he knew Caldera would offer that), extra filter, great starter package and knocked a couple $$$ off for cash sale.

3) Sundance Hawthorne - Quite a bit more than 1 and 2 so eliminated to avoid our budget going up again.

We also looked closely at a Limelight Flair floor model (too fancy), and the Marquis Resort (no circ pump).

I do not think we would have been unhappy with the Caldera.

[THE SPA GUY]

HEHEH - I think I could write the book on shopping for a spa.

One good thing about taking a couple months to research was that I could stop into a store and felt like I could read the salesperson's knowledge pretty good.

Our final three spas:

1) D1 Wayfarer - bought this one at a great price/ great knowledgeable dealer w/ good trust relationship / BBB A+ rating.

2) Caldera Martinique - great spa, great relationship with dealer, but in the end, they stuck to a price and the D1 dealer threw in an electrical panel (since he knew Caldera would offer that), extra filter, great starter package and knocked a couple $$$ off for cash sale.

3) Sundance Hawthorne - Quite a bit more than 1 and 2 so eliminated to avoid our budget going up again.

We also looked closely at a Limelight Flair floor model (too fancy), and the Marquis Resort (no circ pump).

D1 wayfarer

appreciate you dialogue here thats nice to see the progression of your buying process, this helps confirm why i sell the D1 line, , but all the spas on your list are in the same category, again appreciate telling us your story, enjoy your new tub....

I do not think we would have been unhappy with the Caldera.

[bmorrow]

Great information!! The D1 Wayfarer is one of the spas we are looking at, along with the Sojourn (no recliner). Are you still happy w/ it, and how has the upkeep been? We need something super easy.

[spawn]

Great buying process - thanks for sharing your experience. I am impressed by D1's spas. I did not realize that the Wayfarer came with a circ pump - I thought it was just a two pump set up but no circ pump. I am sure that you will enjoy your spa, especially since after such a thorough search you won't have any regrets about"Maybe we should have looked at the ..."

[HockeyKat]

Great writeup!!

Gosh! We bought ours off of Craig's list. It was not very old and was hooked up and working when we looked at it. We didn't even think of wet testing it. The number one feature for us was the size, we needed a small one to fit the spot where it was going to be.

We bought it, wired it up and haven't had any problems with it. It fits us perfectly and we love it!

I guess we did everything wrong, but it worked out anyway.

Dave

I had the same kind of buying experience... well, not even, because I tried to buy one from CL and got a free fixer-upper from a coworker when I talked about it at work. We fought it for a month or two, replaced parts/plumbling, and have had some issues here and there, but overall we are really happy that we have it.