How Important Is Filtration?

[spawn]

I know it depends on who uses the spa, how many and what they do but...

Hot Spring touts their no-bypass filtration and 24/7 operation. On the other hand I have seen spas with 2 or 3 pumps moving 600 - 700 or more GPM and with no circ pump that only have a 50 SF filter.

Is there any rule of thumb for spa volume vs filter area to indicate that filtration is probably adequate. Is a 50SF filter with a couple of program cycles good enough?

[Peteyboy]

I don't think there is any rule of thumb.

Many people don't like that HotSpring uses so much filtering. I like it.

To me the more filtering the better. If you take good care of filters they can last many years.

[d1dennis2009]

I know it depends on who uses the spa, how many and what they do but...

Hot Spring touts their no-bypass filtration and 24/7 operation. On the other hand I have seen spas with 2 or 3 pumps moving 600 - 700 or more GPM and with no circ pump that only have a 50 SF filter.

Is there any rule of thumb for spa volume vs filter area to indicate that filtration is probably adequate. Is a 50SF filter with a couple of program cycles good enough?

spawn,

The amount of filtration is very important, but there are also many variable that factor in to figure what is required. The factors that immediatley come to mind are as follows, but keep in mind I'm sure that I will forget something.

1. volume of use

2. number of users

3. well or city water

4. How well the spa is maintained

5. Ozone Equipped..?

I would have to say that most spa today are setup with the option to select from a number of filter cycle configurations, like 2X a day for 1 hr or 4X a day for 30M or even 24hr filtration with a circulation pump. So it is possible that the program that you have in mind would work out fine, you will figure out what works for you.

[hrustar]

My spa gets fairly regular use. Every day or every other day. I have ozone with a 50 square foot filter and filter cysle set at 2 hours twice a day. I spray my filter off weekly, but it is rarely very dirty. When I soak it in cascade, I do find some oil and debris wash come out, but not a ton. And my water is clear as can be (with only a couple random exceptions).

My point, I think filtration is important, but smart tubing is even more important. By that I mean the cleaner you are going into the the hot tub (and while you are in it), the less need you have for filtration.

[Mikey_in_NY]

As everyone says the amount of filtration is very dependant upon a number of variables, and as Dennis points out users have the option to 'tune' filter cycles on most modern tubs. The bottom line is that as long as you're flitering sufficiently to meet the needs of a given environment then that's enough, and more filtering won't achieve anything other than driving up your electric bill.

HS "no bypass" filtering is basically just clever marketing jargon.

[THE SPA GUY]

i would agree with Dennis, i sell both standard pump spas and spas with 24/7 filtration both work great, advantge of 24/7 there are advantages to both....i am a fan of top and bottom filtration,not just skimming of the top, also i have tubs with 50 square foot filters, 2 in some spas, some with 75's and 2 75's, some spas with one 100 sq. ft filter,,,,,,,

[spawn]

As all have noted, the characteristics of use are the key factor in determining the need for filtration. The other side of this is the effectiveness of filtration. It seems for "smart spa use" adequate filtration can be easily achieved.

I've noticed in many spa lines that as spa volume increases, filter area will also increase which makes sense I suppose, but there are also spa lines that use the same 50SF filter for their smallest and largest spas. 100% no bypass filtration seems to make sense too, but other spas are adequately filtered without 100% filtration. Does anyone do 100% filtration besides Hot Spring and Marquis? Marquis does it with one or maybe two filters while Hot Spring uses up to five. As a consumer, I would prefer not to maintain five filters or buy five filters every couple of years, unless there was a clear benefit. All these filters take up volume in the box and it looks like they can effect spa layout and seating. Maybe it would make sense in a tub that would be exposed to lots of make-up, lotions, gels, sweat etc. I can see a benefit to top skimming and bottom drawing too, as pointed out.

Anyhow, I was just wondering what the experts thought about this. Do you ever encounter a spa where you think "I wish it had a larger filter an extra filter" or can pretty much any spa be adequately filtered by properly managing filtration cycles in conjunction with smart spa use?

[Roger]

The bottom line is that as long as you're flitering sufficiently to meet the needs of a given environment then that's enough, and more filtering won't achieve anything other than driving up your electric bill.

This kinda says it all

[THE SPA GUY]

Spawn,,

on your comments well done, with regards to the Hot Springs and Marquis filtration, If you look at Marquis they pull water from the filter as well as from the bottom suction fittings, if you look at the schematic the suctions go through filter but also do a bypass, as well as D1, Sundance Jacuzzi etc.. Hot Springs just filter through the filter, both systems work, Just different ideas, and also no spa is self cleaning, you still have to clean the filters , check water chemistry, wipe doen skimmers and side walls along water line......with they way each spa is designed most can be taken care of with what they use on filter size and tub size....

[spawn]

Thanks SPA GUY for correcting me on the Marquis. By the way, my misunderstanding did not come from a salesman, just my own misinterpretation of some Marquis promo info.

I guess filtration really shouldn't be much of a factor, if any, in selecting a spa. Seems they all get the job done, some more efficiently than others. I had just wondered about it because there seemed to be such a wide range of flow vs filter sizes. As pointed out above, once the water is adequately filtered, anything else is just a waste of electricity.

Thanks all for the feedback!

[hot_water]

Thanks SPA GUY for correcting me on the Marquis. By the way, my misunderstanding did not come from a salesman, just my own misinterpretation of some Marquis promo info.

I guess filtration really shouldn't be much of a factor, if any, in selecting a spa. Seems they all get the job done, some more efficiently than others. I had just wondered about it because there seemed to be such a wide range of flow vs filter sizes. As pointed out above, once the water is adequately filtered, anything else is just a waste of electricity.

Thanks all for the feedback!

The amount of filtration in terms of square feet doesn't matter much in a typical spa with bypass ports in the tub in terms of cleanliness. The filter will filter out stuff smaller than the pore size of the filter paper.

But a smaller filter will require more freuqent cleaning than a larger one - obviously since there is less filter to accumulate the crud. My current spa is 50 sq ft, my previous one was 100 sq feet. I rinse my filters every week, or every other week if useage is light, and give them a soak in filter cleaner (or a couple of cups of Cascade in dishwasher detergent in a bucket of hot water) every three or four cleanings. Never had a problem.

I don't think HS no-bypass filtration is too important, either. However, with a no-bypass scheme, it seems like if the filter gets clogged up you will restrict flow to the inlet of the pump. You'll notice a decrease in performance if it gets dirty enough, and low pressure at the inlet can result in pump cavitation which will kill the pump quick. Whereas with a bypass scheme it won't matter - as Roger pointed out to me a couple of weeks ago. Unless HS has incorporated some way to bypass their "no-bypass" filter, that is. Assuming they haven't, it's still no big deal - just clean the filter every so often.

I've also had 24 hr circ pump and filtration via the jet pumps. I prefer the 24 hour pump. It's quieter, and you can have your ozone on 24 hours rather than just having it come on 4 hours per day. I'm not 100% sold on ozone anyway since I really can't tell if it's working up to par, but it seems of even more questionable value if it's "on" only a few hours each day.

[spawn]

Thanks SPA GUY for correcting me on the Marquis. By the way, my misunderstanding did not come from a salesman, just my own misinterpretation of some Marquis promo info.

I guess filtration really shouldn't be much of a factor, if any, in selecting a spa. Seems they all get the job done, some more efficiently than others. I had just wondered about it because there seemed to be such a wide range of flow vs filter sizes. As pointed out above, once the water is adequately filtered, anything else is just a waste of electricity.

Thanks all for the feedback!

The amount of filtration in terms of square feet doesn't matter much in a typical spa with bypass ports in the tub in terms of cleanliness. The filter will filter out stuff smaller than the pore size of the filter paper.

But a smaller filter will require more freuqent cleaning than a larger one - obviously since there is less filter to accumulate the crud. My current spa is 50 sq ft, my previous one was 100 sq feet. I rinse my filters every week, or every other week if useage is light, and give them a soak in filter cleaner (or a couple of cups of Cascade in dishwasher detergent in a bucket of hot water) every three or four cleanings. Never had a problem.

I don't think HS no-bypass filtration is too important, either. However, with a no-bypass scheme, it seems like if the filter gets clogged up you will restrict flow to the inlet of the pump. You'll notice a decrease in performance if it gets dirty enough, and low pressure at the inlet can result in pump cavitation which will kill the pump quick. Whereas with a bypass scheme it won't matter - as Roger pointed out to me a couple of weeks ago. Unless HS has incorporated some way to bypass their "no-bypass" filter, that is. Assuming they haven't, it's still no big deal - just clean the filter every so often.

I've also had 24 hr circ pump and filtration via the jet pumps. I prefer the 24 hour pump. It's quieter, and you can have your ozone on 24 hours rather than just having it come on 4 hours per day. I'm not 100% sold on ozone anyway since I really can't tell if it's working up to par, but it seems of even more questionable value if it's "on" only a few hours each day.

Good points, hotwater and thanks for sharing your experience. I am still on the fence about ozone. I am looking at lower priced tubs for which ozone would be an added cost option. I will either go with a circ pump plus ozone or no ozone, no circ pump and just rely on my low speed pump to filter. Tub will be far enough away that I am not concerned with noise and can have filtration occur when noise would not be a concern anyway. If I forego ozone /circ I am going to start with the shorter filter cycle durations of 1 hr for the small 250 or so gallon spa and see how it goes, add more time if appears that 1 hr is not consistently long enough. A circ pump would still be a little cheaper to run but I don't think the difference would be huge. Even with a circ pump I would want to run the jets to make sure the water is well circulated and not closed into the lines serving jets. I plan to have all jets all open so that water moves freely through the entire system - no dead areas.

I know that there are many experienced tubbers who really appreciate the way ozone can help with water managment and provide a little cushion in the process. Of course, many tubbers do just fine without it. A circ pump ozone system will probably add about 10% to the initial cost of the tub I purchase. Replacement of the ozone unit would be one of my higher on-going costs of ownership and a single replacement of a circ pump, if necessay, would be much higher than any savings I may have realized vs the low speed pump doing the circ. Circ pump would save on running time of the jet pump but I would still have the same number of on/off cycles so I am not thinking it is going to help much with extendig the life. Still not sure which way I'll go. Maybe the dealer will offer an attractive price to add the ozone / circ pump. Or maybe I will start without it and then add it later if I am struggling with water chemistry, waitng to see if I have a problem before I solve it.

[Roger]

Good points, hotwater and thanks for sharing your experience. I am still on the fence about ozone. I am looking at lower priced tubs for which ozone would be an added cost option. I will either go with a circ pump plus ozone or no ozone, no circ pump and just rely on my low speed pump to filter. Tub will be far enough away that I am not concerned with noise and can have filtration occur when noise would not be a concern anyway. If I forego ozone /circ I am going to start with the shorter filter cycle durations of 1 hr for the small 250 or so gallon spa and see how it goes, add more time if appears that 1 hr is not consistently long enough. A circ pump would still be a little cheaper to run but I don't think the difference would be huge. Even with a circ pump I would want to run the jets to make sure the water is well circulated and not closed into the lines serving jets. I plan to have all jets all open so that water moves freely through the entire system - no dead areas.

I know that there are many experienced tubbers who really appreciate the way ozone can help with water managment and provide a little cushion in the process. Of course, many tubbers do just fine without it. A circ pump ozone system will probably add about 10% to the initial cost of the tub I purchase. Replacement of the ozone unit would be one of my higher on-going costs of ownership and a single replacement of a circ pump, if necessay, would be much higher than any savings I may have realized vs the low speed pump doing the circ. Circ pump would save on running time of the jet pump but I would still have the same number of on/off cycles so I am not thinking it is going to help much with extendig the life. Still not sure which way I'll go. Maybe the dealer will offer an attractive price to add the ozone / circ pump. Or maybe I will start without it and then add it later if I am struggling with water chemistry, waitng to see if I have a problem before I solve it.

I've tryed both ways, with and without ozone on a jet pump filtered tub. Seems in my experience the only difference I noticed was the ability to go longer inbetween uses. In other words if I didn't use the tub for 5-6 days or more the water stayed cleaner with ozone. This of course was after the proper sanitation after the last use 3-7 PPM chlorine level.

I found the same results on a circ pump filtered tub. Still needed to sanitize properly after use but less inbetween non use cycles.

Advantage when I went out of town or couldn't soak for 3-4 or even 5-6 days. Made water managment easier. And making things easier generally cost more.

[spawn]

Just when I had come to understand that most spas rather easily meet their filtration needs I have found that some owners are doing so with excessive energy expenditure. Some folks are running their pumps for four or eight hours per day just to filter the water. Would a larger filter or two filters allow them to reduce the filtration time and save energy? When the pump is large for the purpose of trying to provide adequate power to a large number of jets, the energy use can be considerable. In such spas it seems that a circ pump running 24/7 would help reduce energy use.

Some owners claim that waste heat from the jet pumps running for filtration helps mitigate the heat loss for a spa that is lacking insulation. Could anyone help evaluate this? One user claims that a low speed pump running 8 hours generates about as much heat in the cavity as a heater produces in 15 minutes. Of course the heater is directly heating the water so the effect on water temperature is greater, but does anyone know which would use more energy – a jet pump running at low speed for 8 hours or a heater running for 15 minutes? Seems to me the circ pump plus 15 minutes of heater would be the more energy efficient arrangement, but I haven’t run the numbers.

[r5ran]

I know it depends on who uses the spa, how many and what they do but...

Hot Spring touts their no-bypass filtration and 24/7 operation. On the other hand I have seen spas with 2 or 3 pumps moving 600 - 700 or more GPM and with no circ pump that only have a 50 SF filter.

Is there any rule of thumb for spa volume vs filter area to indicate that filtration is probably adequate. Is a 50SF filter with a couple of program cycles good enough?

Hi, I know alot of readers think that the HS no bypass filtration is alot of hype and marketing, and under normal tub use, I tend to agree, and that a single filter with a bypass is sufficient for most users, but it's hard to argue with how my HS Vanguard (with 2 filters for each pump and one for the circ pump) performed under it's recent extreme use.

Over the Christmas week, between 2 holiday parties, and 2 kids home from school that had 5-6 friends in it every night, we had about 45-50 different bodies in the tub that week! And that was about 2/3 girls with all their makeup, lotions, hair spray and body creams, too......not to mention everyone had bathing suits on too (at least when I was around!). I had expected with all that use, (and it was about 2 months old already) that my water would be a mess and would need to be changed after that week. To my surprise, except for an extra dose of dichlor after the gang left each night, my water stayed perfectly clear all week! I was planning on cleaning the filters right away, but something else came up, and was not able to get around to cleaning them till the next weekend, even though my water stilled looked fine. When I did start rinsing the filters, I found the usual debris/hair with a very slight film that I expected on the 4 pump filters.....but when I rinsed the circulation pump filter, boy, was I shocked! ...a non stop creamy & milky looking film continuously came off that filter as I rinsed it thoroughly, leaving the floor of my garage with a huge white area surrounding where I had rinsed that one filter! Now, if I had had just a single filter, the pumps would of had tried to filter through that one slimy and filthy filter, instead of using the 4 other clean pump filters when in use.......I really can't see how they could of cleaned the water as well, or had enough pressure trying to push water through that clogged filter (even though i know they would bypass some of the flow around the filters, too...Now, like I said earlier, this is extreme and unusual use (bordering on neglect), that most users will seldom experience, but I really think it shows how well the HS system can work under stress if needed. Randy

[spawn]

I know it depends on who uses the spa, how many and what they do but...

Hot Spring touts their no-bypass filtration and 24/7 operation. On the other hand I have seen spas with 2 or 3 pumps moving 600 - 700 or more GPM and with no circ pump that only have a 50 SF filter.

Is there any rule of thumb for spa volume vs filter area to indicate that filtration is probably adequate. Is a 50SF filter with a couple of program cycles good enough?

Hi, I know alot of readers think that the HS no bypass filtration is alot of hype and marketing, and under normal tub use, I tend to agree, and that a single filter with a bypass is sufficient for most users, but it's hard to argue with how my HS Vanguard (with 2 filters for each pump and one for the circ pump) performed under it's recent extreme use.

Over the Christmas week, between 2 holiday parties, and 2 kids home from school that had 5-6 friends in it every night, we had about 45-50 different bodies in the tub that week! And that was about 2/3 girls with all their makeup, lotions, hair spray and body creams, too......not to mention everyone had bathing suits on too (at least when I was around!). I had expected with all that use, (and it was about 2 months old already) that my water would be a mess and would need to be changed after that week. To my surprise, except for an extra dose of dichlor after the gang left each night, my water stayed perfectly clear all week! I was planning on cleaning the filters right away, but something else came up, and was not able to get around to cleaning them till the next weekend, even though my water stilled looked fine. When I did start rinsing the filters, I found the usual debris/hair with a very slight film that I expected on the 4 pump filters.....but when I rinsed the circulation pump filter, boy, was I shocked! ...a non stop creamy & milky looking film continuously came off that filter as I rinsed it thoroughly, leaving the floor of my garage with a huge white area surrounding where I had rinsed that one filter! Now, if I had had just a single filter, the pumps would of had tried to filter through that one slimy and filthy filter, instead of using the 4 other clean pump filters when in use.......I really can't see how they could of cleaned the water as well, or had enough pressure trying to push water through that clogged filter (even though i know they would bypass some of the flow around the filters, too...Now, like I said earlier, this is extreme and unusual use (bordering on neglect), that most users will seldom experience, but I really think it shows how well the HS system can work under stress if needed. Randy

Thats a good testimonial r5ran describing the conditions where the HS system can make a difference.

[spawn]

I know it depends on who uses the spa, how many and what they do but...

Hot Spring touts their no-bypass filtration and 24/7 operation. On the other hand I have seen spas with 2 or 3 pumps moving 600 - 700 or more GPM and with no circ pump that only have a 50 SF filter.

Is there any rule of thumb for spa volume vs filter area to indicate that filtration is probably adequate. Is a 50SF filter with a couple of program cycles good enough?

Hi, I know alot of readers think that the HS no bypass filtration is alot of hype and marketing, and under normal tub use, I tend to agree, and that a single filter with a bypass is sufficient for most users, but it's hard to argue with how my HS Vanguard (with 2 filters for each pump and one for the circ pump) performed under it's recent extreme use.

Over the Christmas week, between 2 holiday parties, and 2 kids home from school that had 5-6 friends in it every night, we had about 45-50 different bodies in the tub that week! And that was about 2/3 girls with all their makeup, lotions, hair spray and body creams, too......not to mention everyone had bathing suits on too (at least when I was around!). I had expected with all that use, (and it was about 2 months old already) that my water would be a mess and would need to be changed after that week. To my surprise, except for an extra dose of dichlor after the gang left each night, my water stayed perfectly clear all week! I was planning on cleaning the filters right away, but something else came up, and was not able to get around to cleaning them till the next weekend, even though my water stilled looked fine. When I did start rinsing the filters, I found the usual debris/hair with a very slight film that I expected on the 4 pump filters.....but when I rinsed the circulation pump filter, boy, was I shocked! ...a non stop creamy & milky looking film continuously came off that filter as I rinsed it thoroughly, leaving the floor of my garage with a huge white area surrounding where I had rinsed that one filter! Now, if I had had just a single filter, the pumps would of had tried to filter through that one slimy and filthy filter, instead of using the 4 other clean pump filters when in use.......I really can't see how they could of cleaned the water as well, or had enough pressure trying to push water through that clogged filter (even though i know they would bypass some of the flow around the filters, too...Now, like I said earlier, this is extreme and unusual use (bordering on neglect), that most users will seldom experience, but I really think it shows how well the HS system can work under stress if needed. Randy

Thats a good testimonial r5ran describing the conditions where the HS system can make a difference.