Help a Tub Novice - Heater not working & tripping breaker

[tubnovice]

Family Friend's gave my fiance and I a hot tub for free and we've been trying to get it to work. It worked for the previous owners last summer (2017) but since we've inherited it we cant get it to work. It is an Advanced Spas Model: DS404STD (year: 2000). We got the pump and jets working but the heater won't heat the water up and it seems to be tripping the breaker. We removed the heater and turned on the jets and it didn't trip. The minute the heater is added back into the mix the breaker trips. As well, still not heating up the water. We bought a replacement heating element for the tub, but it hasn't seemed to solve either problem. We had a local Spa Service come out and take a look but they took one look at the age of our tub and refused to get involved because of the age. We've already sunk $400 into this (moving it and hooking up the electricity) so we don't want to give up hope. Even if we can get one year out of it, it'll be worth it. But right now it's an expensive lawn ornament. Any thoughts or suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated. We have NO idea what we're doing - neither of us have owned a hot tub before so we're flying a little blind here. We get married in November and it would be such a gift to get this thing running by then so we can relax after the wedding. Thank you in advance for any suggestions!

[xenon2000]

I just recently had this same issue. And I swear my heater core looked and tested as good. But I took the old one to a shop to match up with a new one and sure enough that did the trick. No more tripping the breaker and the water heats up fast. 

[Cusser]

Let's clarify" the heater is tripping the GFCI not the actual circuit breaker on the side of the house, correct?   If so, was the GFCI replaced?

An electrician might wire up the heater temporarily outside of the spa, see if that trips anything.  Then maybe run a jumper to the equipment housing and see what happens then.

Luckily my own spa is from 1988 and just uses a screw-in heater element from Home Depot or Ace.