Two Years With a Bullfrog A8L

[RicoTubbs11]

I joined the forum back in 2014 when I was shopping hot tubs. I ended up going with the Bullfrog A8L and I have been extremely pleased with it. I have had the tub for 2 years now and have used it literally hundreds of times, so I thought I would share my experiences with prospective new hot tub owners.

The A8L has been a real joy for me. I have not experienced a single quality problem or failure on it in the 2 years I have had it - no leaks, breaks, cracks, things falling off, etc. It has been a very low maintenance product and has been a real blessing to me for easing various aches and pains. My dealer and the Bullfrog folks have been great to work with in answering questions both before and after purchase. I have not had any repairs or troubleshooting under warranty so I cannot speak to their performance in such manners, but the way I have been treated thus far is at the very least quite encouraging.

Like any product, the Bullfrog has some quirks / features that could stand improvement. I will list the bad with the good throughout.

During the purchasing phase, I looked at dozens of tubs and did endless research. Due to dealer proximity, ratings, and features I pretty quickly narrowed my selection down to Bullfrog (A8 series), Hot Springs (Aria and Envoy NXT) and Jacuzzi (J365/385). It was quite a drive to the Jacuzzi dealer and I was not impressed with their facility and maintenance staff, so I eliminated them first. The Hot Springs dealers did not have an NXT tub for me to look at or try out, so I narrowed my choice to the Aria. In the end I found the Aria and the A8L to both be quite acceptable for my needs, but I ended up going with the Bullfrog due to design features and a more favorable dealer experience. It has been an excellent choice thus far.

(Continued)

[RicoTubbs11]

1. Hot Tub Selection and Purchase

I have quite a bit of experience with swimming pools, have owned them myself and also worked as a pool maintenance guy in the past. Over the years I have accumulated a lot of wear and tear damage on my joints and back, and was contemplating putting in a pool at our current residence to provide low-impact exercise. I was ambivalent about spending that kind of money again for an in-ground pool for what almost always turns out to be sporadic usage and significant maintenance sweat, so I started looking at above-ground swim spas as a possible lower maintenance alternative. I had never really had any interest in a hot tub, but after visiting a couple of dealers that also had hot tubs I started thinking "Hmmm - might it be more cost-effective to just get the benefits of pain relief and relaxation from a regular spa, and continue getting the low impact exercise benefits from my bike?"

At first I thought a heated swim spa would be a good compromise, but after looking them over in person closely I was skeptical of long-term durability of the shells with that large volume of water and the acrylic / fiberglas materials that were in use. Some folks are more skeptical of the "swimming against the pump current" aspects of a swim spa, but I tried one out and found it worked quite well for me. Ultimately though the combination of cost and structural concerns turned me away from swim spa - I concluded I would get more bang for much fewer bucks with a regular spa.

My experience as a pool man had included exposure to a lot of "jacuzzis" as they were generically known back then, and my experiences were not favorable. I could not begin to count the number of pool areas I had seen which included decaying, decrepit spas of one sort or another. Bleached and mottled wooden tubs full of pea soup; faded chalky fiberglas tubs full of pea soup with badly rotted wooden skirts and supports and leaky decrepit plumbing; crumbling in-ground stone and gunite spas full of pea soup; many of them with soap/lotion scumrings around the waterline so thick they looked like the stalactites in a cave --- what I had seen and cleaned in years gone by did not give me a particularly positive view of spas.

I am a clean freak, and have absolutely zero desire to soak in a tub full of pea soup and assorted biological byproducts of random strangers, so the "zero bypass" filtration of Hot Springs was an immediate plus in their favor. I am also a decrepit, lazy, and cantankerous old guy so I wanted a tub that would require minimum maintenance. My list of required features centered on the following:
- Light / white tub interior finish to make it easier to assess cleanliness
- Good lighting to make it easier to assess cleanliness at night
- Good filtration
- As little wood as possible in the support structure to minimize rotting, leaks, pests etc
- Good plumbing design to minimize leak potential / ensure easier repairs
- Big enough for full body float if desired, with enough variety of jet/therapy options to keep it from getting boring

I found the Bullfrog design approach very appealing, with a straightforward plumbing design, lots of jetpack therapy options, and plastic / ABS support structure so no worries of rotting or termites. The Hot Springs NXT was appealing for the same reasons, with the added benefit of zero-bypass filtration. Bullfrog's jetpacks offered versatility, but at the same time their design limits therapy options to essentially the area of the back unless you have enough room to lie down in the tub in different orientations. I liked the Jacuzzis I looked at, in particular the ability to get a very fine mist of bubbles into the tub so that the water had a lovely silky texture, but overall I liked the Bullfrog and Hot Springs spas a bit better. This is probably because of the poor presentation of the Jacuzzi spas at the dealer I visited. Eventually the versatility and design of the Bullfrog made it my number one choice, helped in no small part by the Hot Springs dealer experience.

When I placed my order, it was for a new Bullfrog A8L with platinum interior and jetpacks, hazelnut exterior, no stereo or add-ons. I had asked that the ozonator be removed as I was skeptical of its utility and figured it was just another component that would fail and have to be replaced, but when they delivered my tub it had been left in so I have been using it with no problem. The A8L has 6 jetpacks, for mine I selected the Oscillator, Wellness, Cascadia, Neck Masseuse, Rainshower, and Gyrossage.

I was originally going to go with the pure white interior, and I am glad I didn't - in full sunlight the platinum reflects so much light it is almost unbearable, with full white it would be even brighter.

[RicoTubbs11]

2. Dealers
Buying a hot tub is one of the more frustrating experiences I have encountered. The majority of the dealers for the lower-tier tubs appear to be selected from people who were too sleazy even for the worst of the used car industry. Even some of the top-tier dealers present their customers a woeful experience with poor presentation / limited knowledge of the products, often blatant lies, and arcane pricing. Finding a good dealer that you feel comfortable with and provides good service is probably the most important aspect of your spa selection, more so than the brand you pick - but even that is no guarantee, because hot tub dealers seem to frequently change the brands that they sell. For example, I was very pleased with the dealer I finally went with and they had quite a bit of experience with Bullfrog ---- but now they no longer sell Bullfrog. Grrrrr.....

Many of the dealers have their tubs set up in storefronts in strip malls, so the overall shopping experience is rather like going into the back of a hardware store where they sell pool supplies and finding a hot tub standing in the middle of the store surrounded by umbrellas, pails of chlorine, and assorted other stuff. This conveys a poor impression of their product, and makes people reluctant to try to famous "test soak" which IMHO is vastly overrated. For those with multiple tubs on display, many of the tubs have no water in them and the dealers are often very reluctant to fill them.

Pricing of the hot tubs varies wildly. You may get different quotes from the same dealer on the same product on different days (sometimes even on the same day). The MSRP's that are provided in various sources are almost entirely worthless for comparison purposes, and getting a straight answer on "what does this cost out the door" can be very difficult, as the typical dealer will give you a price and then try to lard it up with "great deals" like monthly shipment of supplies, extra gimmicks and cheap accessories, etc. Your best bet for meaningful pricing is to see what people report on forums and consumer sites. Be prepared to haggle on price instead of accepting the offer the salesman yanks out of his crack, or you will overpay - often significantly.

Regarding the test soak, I believe it is much overhyped by the salesmen because of the psychology aspects. For many people, climbing into a hot tub in their swimsuit in a highly public place with unknown water quality and strangers standing around gawping can be an off-putting experience at best. Those that take the figurative and literal plunge are unlikely to take more than a few test soaks, and I suspect most people won't take more than 1 or 2. Reluctance to go to the trouble of getting in more tubs, means that people have some additional motivation to find the tub they are testing to be acceptable. If the salesman can get you in the tub, you're more likely to buy - just like if they can get you to test drive a car, you're more likely to buy. From the consumer perspective there is of course some benefit to be obtained by seeing how you like the jets and the configuration of the tub, but given the similarity of basic tub designs there is not as much difference as we might like to believe. For example, a common thread that you see in hot tub forums is "I like Brand X because I stayed put in the seats, in Brand Y I floated out." That sounds like a real discriminator, until we look at the physics of the situation:
1) Your buoyancy does not change based on the design of the hot tub seats
2) Your buoyancy depends on your volume. If you are fat, you are going to float more. If most of your weight is in the lower portion of your body (hips / legs) you may have trouble sitting in any seat or lounge without floating unless you can (a) brace yourself in place or (b) the seat/lounge is shallow.
3) How much you "float" is also proportional to the depth of the water and its density. Lots of bubbles and you will be less buoyant by some small amount - but the sensation of floating up out of the seat will have more to do with how hard the jets are hitting you and how you are able to brace yourself in the seat. I suspect that the flow and aeration of any arbitrary spa seat jet layout could be adjusted to provide pretty much the same "float / no float" experience as the rest.

With this in mind, if you have been holding off buying a spa trying to work up the courage to go get in one at the dealer, I believe there is little risk to you from buying a quality spa from a quality dealer without going in and directly testing.

[RicoTubbs11]

3. Preparation / Delivery

In the spa brochures and websites, everybody has incredibly scenic yards with beaches or mountain vistas that provide a wonderful open-air experience of a lifetime. But lots of us regular people live in areas where we have neighbors close by, or limited yard space with no beach or mountain. If you are a regular suburbanite, things you might be worried about are:
- Visibility to the neighbors (not everybody is a supermodel, and some folks don't want people seeing them in hot tub garb or their full nude splendor)
- Controlling access (keeping out kids, dogs, varmints)
- Making a pleasant and relaxing environment
- Locating tub sufficiently near electrical power
- Locating tub so there is plenty of maintenance access
- Shade and shelter
- Inside a structure (spa hut, spazebo, or inside the house porch or garage)

For my purposes, I wanted the spa to be in a private yard area so when I was in it I didn't have to see or look at other people and the useless boring crap that they might be doing while I am doing my own useless boring crap. After a long day of working with people, I wanted privacy and relaxation - my own personal space that I could landscape and decorate just for my own selfish pleasure. I had thought of putting up a spazebo but I really wanted to be able to float and look at the stars and sky with the full open-air experience. So I decided to put the spa out in the open, but on the side of the house with an 8-foot board-on-board privacy fence surrounding the entire area. This gave me lots of room for the tub, plants, an outdoor fire pit, and allowed me to have lighting inside the area that would not disturb the neighbors. I like the Miami Vice style blue and pink/purple lights at night, so that's how my space ended up. I had about 100' of fence total, with the gates and stuff the way I wanted them it cost me right at $10K total to get it the way I wanted.

For the foundation, I used some 6x6 timbers to lay out an open square on the ground and then leveled the sides (easy to do by just lifting them as necessary and packing some crushed granite in the right spots). I then filled the box with crushed granite and and compacted it. I let it sit there for several weeks and as the ground slightly subsided in places with the granite, I compacted some more and releveled. It was very easy to do, for leveling I just used a long board and scraped the top smooth, for compacting I used one of those square tampers you can get at Home Depot. All you have to do is get a garden hose, wet the area, fill, scrape, and tamp. After it dries, repeat. You end up with a nice well-packed platform for your tub. I spent a few hundred bucks total doing this - pretty cheap approach overall.

I then bought one of those plastic spa pads and put that on top of the crushed granite, and had the tub set directly on the pad. Between the hot tub's plastic base and the plastic spa pad, there is no direct contact with the ground and the tub cannot sink into mud during a heavy rain etc. In the course of 2 years and extremes of no rain / heavy flooding in our area, the spa base has remained level with no shifting at all. The spa pad cost another few hundred bucks but I think it was worth it.

Installing the tub required the provision of 230 V / 50 A electrical power to that side of the house. I had electricians install a box on the side of my house for the ground fault breakers, and also a ground fault protected set of 115V outlets. This ended up costing me about $750, with me digging the trenches from the house to the tub.

I ordered the tub through my local dealer, it took about 6 weeks to have it delivered from Utah which was plenty of time to get everything else ready. With accessories tax and all the tub was $12k. Overall this project cost me about $23,000. I was looking at nearly $50,000 for a pool in the same area so this was not as huge an expense as it sounds.

Delivery was a breeze - they delivered it standing up on edge, on a large dolly with pneumatic tires. Standing on edge it easily fit through the gates (I planned ahead) and when they tilted it over onto its base it was easily slid into position. Empty, 1 person can nudge it around on the plastic spa pad - full it doesn't move in the slightest.

Filling it and wiring it up was a snap, took a couple of hours to fill from our hose. I didn't do anything special to filter the incoming water. The water was about 65 degrees upon filling (late afternoon on a late fall day), it was into the 80s by bedtime and the next morning was running at temperature. I tweaked the chems and sat about enjoying the spa - no muss, no fuss.

[RicoTubbs11]

4. Usage notes

I have used the spa far more than I typically used our pools over the preceding decades, literally hundreds of times over the past 2 years. I took pains with the layout of the spa enclosure area to make it EASY to go out and use it, because I know from experience that every little thing that makes a pool aggravating to use will become a reason to avoid using it. Steps I took to make it easier to use:
- Located so the entrance to the spa area is convenient to the front door, no long walk when wet and cold
- Tall fence greatly reduces wind at the spa location, very comfortable to use even in windy conditions
- I made a walkway from rubber "tile" sheets from Home Depot so i can walk from house to tub in flip-flops without stepping in any wet grass, dirt, mud etc. The rubber tiles look exactly like a paver brick walkway but require zero maintenance except an occasional dusting with the blower
- I bought a bunch of white and blue LED Christmas lights and hung them around the inside of the fence so that the tub area is well illuminated, and then colored LED Christmas lights to hang on the far side of the fence. Plenty of light, quite attractive at night, extremely low power use and no impact to the neighbors. I have a remote control box that plugs into the 115 outlet, just hit the button and lights instantly on.
- Gates are well balanced and easy to use, can easily open them while using towels and such

My typical routine is early morning use before I go to work, or late night before I go to bed. I am the only person that uses the hot tub 99.99% of the time, and as noted I am a clean freak so I don't worry about taking a shower before using it - I take a shower AFTER using it to get the chlorine smell off.

It is very easy to use - lift the cover up, hang robe or t-shirt on the lifter hooks, then hang a towel on the hook on top of the robe or shirt. Place a small handtowel on the steps, deposit flip-flops by the steps and clamber in. I typically stay in about 15 minutes which gives me enough time to work out the kinds in my muscles and rotate through the various areas of the spa. I don't see much improvement from staying in longer, and longer soaks tend to dehydrate me and cause more muscle cramps when riding my bikes. 30 minutes is about the longest I stay in, and I do that only very rarely.

I move the jetpacks around from time to time, depending on what part of my body is hurting one or the other of the jetpacks will be become my favorite for a while. Observations on the seating: My favorite spot in the A8L is the "non captain chair corner" because it has the most room. I am a big guy so I find the captain's chair a bit too small - for example the "wrist" jets actually hit my about halfway up my forearm if I try to lay my arm there, and if I have the Neck Masseuse jetpack installed I cannot sit completely upright because my torso is too long. The captain's chair design is best for smaller people maybe 5'10 in height max I think. I would prefer it if my A8L had both corner seats just the plain open style. Regarding the lounger, I use it much more than I thought I would because it is very convenient for hip massage. I put the Rain Shower pack in that spot (lots of small pin-point jets) which provides a kind of "air hockey table" floating support so I can recline with a very gentle massage sensation without my back touching the wall - very nice and calming.

I use plain old chlorine, no Spa Frog or bromine or mineral tabs or anything special. I like the water clean so I test it frequently and constantly give it the "eyeball test". I like it when the water is so clean and clear that it is nearly invisible with the pumps off, and that is easy to maintain with just me using the spa. When I started I was obsessive about using my water test kit, but over time I realized the spa test strips sold by Leslie work fine. I generally use a test strip every time I use the spa, and if the free chlorine has dropped too low I don't get in. A couple of teaspoons of Spa56 and I am good to go. I use the LeisureTime chemicals mostly because they are in stock at dealers nearby, also the Leslie pool supplies stuff. It has been easy to keep the water clean and balanced, although the hot tub does use more chlorine than one might expect. Eventually I will get around to trying the bleach method, but the granulated chlorine is so easy to use and I am so lazy that so far I have been loathe to change what works easily.

For some reason my wife and (grown) kids do NOT like using the hot tubs. They have literally used it only a couple of times each. My dreams of a 70's-style party tub have been sadly unrealized, instead it is 99.99% of the time a completely solitary experience, and I confess that I absolutely LOVE it that way. It's MY tub, configured the way I want it, with water that is clean and clear, hot and ready whenever I feel like using it, and it is blissfull how fast it will soothe the aches and pains away. I have used in on hot summer nights, cold winter mornings, and everything in between. I have sat in the tub during a gentle rainshower and watched the droplets bouncing up off the surface, and I have sat in it while snow gently sifted down. On many occasions I have floated there and watched the brilliant stars overhead, or the beautiful indigo tones of the sky as the sun rises or sets. I have watched clouds form and scud across the sky, heard the whispering rush of wings as flocks of birds flew by, and also the nearly silent flight of owls. Due to the hot tub I spend a lot more time outdoors in aggregate than I have for many years, and I see and hear things that were commonplace to me many years ago but which I had long forgotten. It is a rewarding experience every time I take a dip.

[RicoTubbs11]

5. The Good The Bad and The Modestly Ugly

I have made only 2 real mistakes with the hot tub. The first week of use, I learned a painful lesson about the efficiency of High Efficiency laundry detergents and the importance of water hardness, oxidizers, and making sure people don't wear freshly washed clothes into the spa. I was in the tub one evening, and was quite content with how the water looked and felt - the hardness was not yet where I wanted it, but overall it was great - nice, hot, and refreshing. Then my son joined me. He was wearing a t-shirt and just hopped in the spa wearing it. I noticed there were a few bubbles popping up but I didn't pay much attention at the time. My big mistake was failing to add some oxidizer when we got out of the spa. So the next morning we come out to use the spa, and I notice the water is a bit cloudy. My son and I hop in, with him again wearing a t-shirt, and when I turned on the pumps we immediately began to get soap suds. Out of the tub we jump, and as I watch in amazement the tub generates an absolutely prodigious amount of soap suds - to the point that I had suds towering several inches above the sides of the tub, like something out of an "I Love Lucy" episode. I would have thought it was impossible for such a thing to occur if I had not seen it myself, and I spent the new few hours cursing and using a dust pan to scoop out / skim off suds and throw them out into the yard. Once I could see clear water again, I went and got some anti-foam from Leslies and repeated applications / chemical balancing cured the problem. Never made that mistake again!

My second mistake was when I left for a weeklong vacation and did not turn off the heater for the spa. I thought there was plenty of chlorine in the water, but when I returned and opened the cover I was presented with the spectacle of greenish, greasy-looking water so cloudy it was tough to see the bottom of the spa. That one required a quick drain and refill. Haven't made THAT mistake again either.

Other lessons learned / suggestions for improvement / general spa comments:

1) "Out in the open" location is GREAT at night but SUCKS in the bright daylight. In full sunlight, the nearly white interior is so dazzlingly bright that it is nearly painful to be in the tub - not from heat, but from the sheer dazzle. It is definitely a dusk-to-dawn proposition for me. Also, in this location the cover has taken a fearsome beating from the sun - I view it as a consumable and expect to replace it every few years. That expense is acceptable to me for the tradeoff of being able to experience the stars etc.

2) Something that is lacking in all the hot tubs I have seen, is effective lower leg / foot therapy. Yeah they all have jets where you can dangle your foot over the spout and let the water pummel it, but with Bullfrog's jetpack scheme it would be very easy for them to provide a pair of hookups or a "well" area where two jetpacks could be set facing each other to provide a tremendous massage / whirlpool effect for owners that need deep therapy for their ankles, knees, or hips. Many older folks are afflicted with swelling of their lower legs and feet, and the combination of gradient pressure from standing in the water and the massage from the jets would be extremely helpful to them.

3. I love just about everything about the Bullfrog except for the front cover design. To get to the pumps and plumbing, you have to remove an "easy off" cover that is basically the entire front of the unit. It has a few large screws on each side, and velcro that helps hold it in place. Pop out the screws and the cover comes off very easily. Unfortunately it is heavy and awkward to put back on, because the velcro and the width of the cover makes it nearly impossible to align one side and have the other end in the right place to install the screws. Bullfrog needs to build in some sort of alignment ledge to make it easier to install this cover.

4. One other thing that is irritating about my Bullfrog is the difficulty in getting the 2nd pump restarted after a drain and refill. The start/stop method has gotten the water flowing through the 2nd pump on only one occasion for me, all the other times I have had to take off the cover and loosen the air bleed thumbscrew on the pump body. This is easy to do and it takes longer to type the explanation than to bleed the air, but the cover reinstallation turns this trivial task into a frustrating experience.

5. The pillows and plastic trim are black and have faded rapidly to a dark gray. This is probably due to my use oxidizer, but even so it would be nice to have a product that one could wipe on to re-darken them without affecting the water

6. Draining a spa is a slow process. I am too impatient to let gravity do its thing, so i use the 115 volt outlet and a small sump pump that I bought at Home Depot. It sits right on the bottom of the spa and will pump the water down to about 1/8". When it is done, I just climb in and use a dust pan to quickly scoop the rest into a bucket. It then takes just a couple of minutes to go over the clean the entire inside with a wet towel. The first couple of times I used the "gloss" product, but honestly I didn't see enough return on investment to justify it. If you keep your spa water clean, and you have a smooth finish tub, the inside surfaces are going to be very clean and need nothing but a wipedown.

7. IMHO the "body counts" for all spas are ridiculously overstated. Yeah I could see having 7 people in my tub if the other 6 were Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders and I really enjoyed the prospect of being tightly packed in cheek to jowl, but truthfully even with just 2 or 3 people in these size spas you are going to have a lot of incidental contact due to feet and legs touching. If you like the idea of being in a hot tub with other people, hopefully you are on pretty good terms with them because you are going to be sitting in a stew of their effluent - lots of sweat and body oil and soaps, lotions, perfumes - EVERYTHING that can be washed off their body, WILL get washed off into the water. 500 gallons is a lot of water, but even so - that kind of intimacy may be best reserved for a select few people you know really really well --- and make sure you keep plenty of oxidizer/sanitizer in the water. Personally, I find my spa is optimally sized for the 1-person experience, plenty of room to lounge and sprawl in clean hot pristine water.

8. If you use your spa at night in the outdoors, those nice white fluffy terry cloth robes and towels are your best friends - easy to see, and more importantly easy to see when any bugs etc get on them. The robes are so useful, that is a shame that Bullfrog and the other spa manufacturers don't offer them for sale as accessories - they're a real pain in the butt to find in regular stores. Sure you can find the cheap flimsy robes, but when you are walking back and forth to the spa in cold weather when you might be wet, the thick plush robes are just awesome. They are missing a great branding / marketing / revenue generation scheme.

10. There is no real need to buy an electric vacuum for the spa, as the cheaper plastic piston-operated ones work great. Compared to a pool, only tiny amounts of debris get into a spa because it is almost always covered and the design of the cover makes debris slide off when it is lifted open instead of slopping into the tub the way covers often do with pools. In the course of 2 years of usage, I have not had a total of an eighth of a cup (yes 1/8th) of dirt and debrise on the bottom of my spa, mostly just an occasional scattering of a few tiny pebbles that stick to my feet when I am putting on flip-flops. The filters stay just ridiculously clean for what seems like forever. If you wipe your feet off and are careful with your chemicals, your spa will be easy to keep clean.

11. Even though they are advertised as "easy to lift" with the various cover lifters, the truth is that the covers can be very heavy and difficult for smaller people to lift, particularly when they are wet after a rain. The motion required to lift them can be troublesome for people with a bad back because it involves a bit of twisting and off-centered pushing. If you fit into any of these categories, you might be better off with a "slider" type cover removal system --- just remember that you will need extra distance from fences/walls/obstructions to roll the cover back.

12. When you are locating your tub, be sure to leave at least a few feet between all sides and obstacles/walls/fences. You will need to be able to access those areas for yard maintenance etc, and it makes it easier to situate lights so you can see what is around the tub at night.

13. An outdoor propane fire pit is a cheap and easy addition to the hot tub space that can add to your soaking pleasure - very relaxing to watch the flames dance and nice to have a warm fire when you get out of the tub. They operate with the push of a button and the turn of a knob, no muss, no fuss.

14. If you have put off buying one because you are afraid of maintenance, or dealing with the chemicals, or not having the perfect site / enclosure / deck, alay those fears and get yourself a tub. All you need is a stable foundation for it to sit on, and safe electrical power - everything else can be added / improved in the future. It is remarkable how much the tub can help with aches / pains and relaxation - it is guilt-free, therapeutic, convenient pleasure that everyone deserves to experience.

[RicoTubbs11]

One last comment on Bullfrog - they build a high-quality product with great features and they appear to stand behind their product. I am very pleased with my choice and would not hesitate to recommend them to anyone. Just be aware if you buy one, that there is not a lot of after-sales support --- they have a newsletter that you can sign up for, but it is pretty sporadic and you will rarely receive messages about new products or such. I actually receive more communication and offers from other spa companies whose product I didn't buy, than from Bullfrog. That is the only area that I have seen where I think they could improve, and it's something I suspect they could easily remedy.

Hopefully I have not bored you all to tears, I just wanted to provide full disclosure on my experience with Bullfrog. I would give them 9 out of 10 stars at this point, 10/10 if they would make it easier to reinstall the front cover and have a bit more after-sales engagement with their customers.

[MikeTheGoalie]

Thanks for the review Rico.  I just had a Bullfrog R6 installed this week.

I also bought based on efficiency (both in plumbing and heat) and was sold on the JetPak system as well.  We bought the Pearl shell with mahogany shell.  It looks great on our patio.  

My only complaint with my tub is we only have 3 JetPaks, as the 4th corner seat is built in like an X Model.  I think the reason for this is ease of manufacturing when creating a R6 Lounge model (our 4th seat would be the foot rest in the R6L).

Thanks again for the review -- I have the same sentiments

Mike

 

 

[pRox68]

Great review and observations!  I recently discovered Bullfrog and am smitten with the design / quality / build / etc.  My hopes were kinda crushed, though, on my first dry test. I didnt fit well in the recliner on an A8 and the seating positions are pretty spartan (wide open with not many auxillary jets).  The jet packs are a great idea, but it seems you might really only get therapy for your back?  I will be wet testing an R8 soon though and will see how different it feels full of water.  Hands down the most beautiful tub I have seen though.

[lynn uk]

WE have a A8L and just wondered how to remove the head rest on a cascadia jet pak, we are worried we might damage it if we pull too hard but we want to clean all the jet paks. It is the one with a waterfall that comes up out of the head rest. Have you got this feature on yours??

[Frank B]

Just purchased a Bullfrog A8 and had it installed a week or so ago. Love it. The kids and grandchildren are also enjoying it. Wondering what it’s going to be like in the cold Upstate NY winter. 

[obxnc]

On 5/10/2020 at 11:28 AM, lynn uk said:

WE have a A8L and just wondered how to remove the head rest on a cascadia jet pak, we are worried we might damage it if we pull too hard but we want to clean all the jet paks. It is the one with a waterfall that comes up out of the head rest. Have you got this feature on yours??

 

On 5/10/2020 at 11:28 AM, lynn uk said:

WE have a A8L and just wondered how to remove the head rest on a cascadia jet pak, we are worried we might damage it if we pull too hard but we want to clean all the jet paks. It is the one with a waterfall that comes up out of the head rest. Have you got this feature on yours??

 

On 5/10/2020 at 11:28 AM, lynn uk said:

WE have a A8L and just wondered how to remove the head rest on a cascadia jet pak, we are worried we might damage it if we pull too hard but we want to clean all the jet paks. It is the one with a waterfall that comes up out of the head rest. Have you got this feature on yours??

Also wondering. Just broke the plastic clips that holds the “pad” in place. Tried gluing them, but you can’t reinstall with the clips in place. It would seem it is adequately held without the back half of the clip,though. Can’t find actual directions for remova, anywhere!