What Happens If You Lose Power In The Winter?

[104 Degrees]

does anybody have a tub they dont need anymore????? we can fill it with water this winter and do an experiment???

[New NW tub owner]

quote name='Trigger' date='Jun 13 2007, 11:44 AM' post='28563'

I also think thought it was laughable that you try to turn it around on me not answering question. Nice try..

Are you saying that your hot tub sat in 22 degree weather for 144 hours and lost only 35 degrees? Is that your statement?

To make you happy, Id say it would be closer to 22 than 60. I'd lose my tub.

And I know you would too.

Care to amend your statment? Or once again do you want to toss out outrageous statments that you pull out your butt to validate your purchase?

I thought you were the guy "try to turn it around on me not answering question." (sic). My "statement" (which was actually an observation) is already posted here earlier and it was and is correct. If I understand YOUR statement, your answer to my question is that you think the temperature in your tub would be 'closer to 22F' after 6 days without power. So, Trigger, now that you've finally answered my question, let's see what that means. Assuming your tub has 400 gallons of water and started at 100F, that means your tub passively cooled from 100 F to 22F in 6 days and lost 259,000 Btu or 76 kwh. That would be 13 kwh per day for just passive cooling down to ambient temperature. Passive cooling follows an exponential decay curve which tells us that your tub would cool from 100F to 78F in just the first 24 hours if it's final temperature is to be 22F after 6 days. This means that your tub is losing at least 73,000 Btu per day when it is at 100F for a whopping 21 kwh per day. At $0.15 per kwh, your tub is costing $94 per month, just for the heat loss with the cover on. If you actually take the cover off for an hour a day, turn on your jet pumps, and actually USE your tub, there's another bunch of kwh. Your tub sounds like a MAJOR energy hog...with the rotted out wooden bottom to boot. Maybe you should get a new tub. I can help with a suggestion...

[East TX Spa]

Winter of 2000. Had a customer (Bill York) with a HotSpring Sovereign lose power during an ice storm, something that occurs on occasion in NE Texas. Spa was set on 102 on Sunday. By Thursday, power had still not been restored and the temperature had stayed at or below freezing most of the week. Mr. York took a thermometer out to his spa and measured the water temp at 94. His family bathed in it as it was the only hot water available to them.

True story.

Terminator

[104 Degrees]

East Tx is hot springs Full foam?

Thanks 104

[East TX Spa]

Yes sir...multiple sprayed-in layers of closed-cell, high density foam.

Terminator

[Roger]

='Parafly9' date='Jun 11 2007, 01:02 PM' post='28366']

Just curiuos - if we lose power this winter, what happens? Does the tub stay warm for along enough time with its own insulation; or will I have serious problems? In other words, if power is down for, say, 24 hours, wll the tub be OK?

Thanks for the advice

[

OK some advice for you finaly, If your tub looses power in the winter there are alot of factors that are involved here. Whats the outside temp? If its just below freezing at night and into the upper 30's to 40's during the day you will have enough time to call a service guy and get it fixed. Or if it's a power outage, first and formost protect your family and your house, your tub will be fine. But in over 50 years in Northern Minnesota we have only had a couple power outages that lasted for more than a few hours. Now if we are talking colder temps we may have some other issues, but one thing remains constant, protect your family and your house, there more important. If the power does not come on in a day, again, protect your family and your house!!! I can't stress this enough!! Now what was the question? Sorry this is a non issue unless it's a tub problem and if it is a simple light bulb or trouble light can extend the freeze up time on any tub to weeks. Call an authorized service guy as soon as you notice you have a problem!!

.

[104 Degrees]

Thanks again East. You all can get a generater then you can use it till the power comes back on

[Chas]

If you have a spa with a small circ pump, you can hook things up so that the generator runs just that. That makes it possible to have a much smaller generator, in fact you could run a circ pump off a battery and inverter if it was beefy enough.

The circ pump will not keep a large spa from freezing, but will add many days to the cool-down time.

This I have been told by dealers who don't live in paradise, as I do.

[In The Bubble]

I hate it when they fight! Just....breaks my heart!

[Trigger]

nice try. Not being a physics major, it took me a few times to see the mistakes in your answer. I'm not trying to bullSh_T you, however, I am left with the impression you are trying to. Espically so given you answer above.

Assuming your decay curve (I've never seen a temp decay curve for water and passive cooling. Do you have a link? It's my undestaning that water temperture rates are factors of surface area, volume, intial temp, and ambient temp.)

I'm going assume, your BTU calculations are based on taking an entire volume of water (400 gallons) to 22 degrees (frozen solid).

Aint gonna happen, espically when you don't take into consideration the surface area. I do know that the water in my full foam tub would stay warmer than your tub. Hell, I doubt that my pool 12000 galons freezes solid in the dead of winter.

The tub water of thermal sytle hot tub will lose heat a lot quicker than the tub water of Full foam tub when the power is out. That's a fact.

So as I work through this, Are you claiming that your Costco tub at 100 degrees, in a constant 22 degree environment will not drop lower than 60 over the course of 144 hours if I pull the plug on it?

[Aric]

Ok I'm not getting in the middle of this, but I wanted to point out to some of the people talking about how losing power for more than a day is "unheard of"

You weren't in St. Louis a winter ago. I had friends who where without power well over a week. Now it might not have been as cold as 20 average, but it was cold. Most had gas heaters, but the blowers required power to move the heat. Most ended up moving out of their house for several days and stayed at friends/family/hotels.

[Chas]

If you live in an area with long-term power problems, it seems that you would already have a genny of some kind. I had to hook power up to one of our homes once - by running a long extension cord from the neighbor's house. I ran a couple of lamps, the DVD player and monitor, my computer, and the fan in my forced-air furnace.

I bet you could do the same with a very small generator, in case the whole area goes dark. In that case, as has been mentioned, a trouble light in the motor compartment, or connecting up to the circ pump only, should get you through. And if the water temp drops down into the danger zone, you could put the hose onto a hot water tap (assuming you have gas water heating) and simply keep the temp up enough to keep things from freezing.

You could also drain the thing and blow it out with a yard blower - BTW that seems to be the reason most tech don't recommend draining it: it is very easy to leave water trapped in the plumbing since you can't go out with the shop vac and blow or suction out the lines. But in a pinch the old yard blower can help you out.

Or just move to Southern California.

[JohnInSJ]

Or just move to Southern California.

Naw, northern CA is warm enough in the winter

[Mr Solo]

My problem for some, they just put more wood under it.

[Trigger]

OUtside of my debate with NW on how cold would a tub get issue....

For the rest of us, it's not the tub water per se' that's the concern, if the water in the tub is close to freezing, your pipes and pump are probably long gone. The pipes and pump will freeze and expand long before the huge mass of water in the tub will.

[Roger]

'Trigger' date='Jun 15 2007, 07:46 AM' post='28697']

OUtside of my debate with NW on how cold would a tub get issue....

For the rest of us, it's not the tub water per se' that's the concern, if the water in the tub is close to freezing, your pipes and pump are probably long gone. The pipes and pump will freeze and expand long before the huge mass of water in the tub will.

Thats always the concern, not the vessel itself. And that small space in a FF tub or bigger space in a TP tub is easy to keep warm.

[104 Degrees]

OUtside of my debate with NW on how cold would a tub get issue....

For the rest of us, it's not the tub water per se' that's the concern, if the water in the tub is close to freezing, your pipes and pump are probably long gone. The pipes and pump will freeze and expand long before the huge mass of water in the tub will.

Trigger

So if you have a TP tub, you could blow heat into it???

[Trigger]

104, Yes you could put heat into the thermal cavity either blowing it, or a light bulb, or from a heater. (And you can do same for the equipment cavity in a full foam tub. Which has a lot less space to heat, so you wouldn't need as much heat).

Of course, this assume you have power. How are you going to put heat into the area, if you have no power?

How do you measure the temp? Powers out, so your control panel is dead. You put a thermometer in the water and say "Gee! my water is 60! I'm golden!"

Well, What about the temp of the water in the pipes and pumps? I bet it's a lot colder than the temp in the tub.

[104 Degrees]

104, Yes you could put heat into the thermal cavity either blowing it, or a light bulb, or from a heater. (And you can do same for the equipment cavity in a full foam tub. Which has a lot less space to heat, so you wouldn't need as much heat).

Of course, this assume you have power. How are you going to put heat into the area, if you have no power?

How do you measure the temp? Powers out, so your control panel is dead. You put a thermometer in the water and say "Gee! my water is 60! I'm golden!"

Well, What about the temp of the water in the pipes and pumps? I bet it's a lot colder than the temp in the tub.

I have a tent of sorts that i can put over the tub and put my carosun heater in it. i do have a battery powered temp sencser that i can put in the water with a remote in the house.

I did try this and it keeps the temp around the tub at 50 or so when it was 10 degrees out side.

I will say its going to be easier when i get a generator for the house.

The first year we had the tub it got to -5 and with wind chill it was 20 bellow. i did what i could do at the time thinking how fast this tub would ice up and i did the very thick blanket wrap. it will keep the tub warm doing it that way and its not as much of a pain to do it.

104

[Trigger]

I'd like a generator too, as I'm all electric in my house and even though do the majority of my winter heating with pellets, I still need electricity to run the pellet stove. I wonder what a permant generator (as opposed to a portable) would cost? If you had Natural gas to your house, running the back up generaor on that would be a nice set up (not refueling).

[Roger]

I'd like a generator too, as I'm all electric in my house and even though do the majority of my winter heating with pellets, I still need electricity to run the pellet stove. I wonder what a permant generator (as opposed to a portable) would cost? If you had Natural gas to your house, running the back up generaor on that would be a nice set up (not refueling).

A 20 KW gen set permanently mounted and wired to switch automaticly is 15 G's A propane heater and a 2000W honda is 1 G. So if your trying to protect your tub 1G, your house 15G's But I use my 2000W camping also. And I use my propane heater ice fishing. My 2000W Honda gen set will run a small electric forced air heater for 27 hours before it needs another gallon of gas. That and my canvas shelter allow me to prevent freeze up and do repairs in -20 degree temps. Golden, I get 75 bucks an hour at -20 also but my time goes up by 1/3 or more.

A 20 KW will run the whole house, you may only need a 10 to get by in an emergency. Maybe 7-9 G's

You could go less even but you would have to limit your use and just keep your house plumbing from freezing. But again in 50 years here in Northern Minnesota a few hours in the dead of winter a couple times. We have had Ice storms that have knocked power out for close to a week in some areas but that is spring and fall 20 at night 40 during the day. Light bulb or heater powered by a generator will protect your tub. We worry more about our house and ourselves. I have a wood stove also.

[104 Degrees]

I'd like a generator too, as I'm all electric in my house and even though do the majority of my winter heating with pellets, I still need electricity to run the pellet stove. I wonder what a permant generator (as opposed to a portable) would cost? If you had Natural gas to your house, running the back up generaor on that would be a nice set up (not refueling).

I heat the same way you do. the portible gens are very loud and can eat fuel. the gardian type are about 10,000 instaled but run the whole house and are Quiet. you can have a big bottle of propane that will last along time and they come and fill it.you will need a bigger gen because of the tubs power input.

I think my bigest fear is the tub going down and no help or you need to wait for parts in minus degree winter.