Hot Tub: Maintenance and Upgrading

One of the first pieces of advice to be offered is this: have a back up supply of everything you may need to keep your hot tub well maintained and healthy. There are sometimes when you'll need to add chemicals or shock the water that if you were out of the supply, you may not be able to get to a dealership, and will have to forfeit a soak in the tub.

One of the most important qualities to an enjoyable time in the hot tub is to be sure that your water quality is always at the clearest possible. There are sparkling agents and anti-scaling chemical treatments that can be added to your hot tub with regular maintenance that will keep the water crystal clear. If you can add this chemical as a normal hot tub maintenance feature, you will enjoy crystal clear water and always be a step or two ahead of the hard water calcium build up that can turn even the cleanest water cloudy.

One feature on a hot tub that needs your attention is the safety cover. An inspection each month of the cover will ensure that you are aware of any wear and tear that may need to be addressed, which is a big safety issue, especially if there are children around. The other maintenance required of the safety cover is to be sure to wash it down, at least, once a month. Again, the longer your hot tub lasts, the more you'll get out of it and by these few ideas of cleaning and maintenance, you can be sure that it will be around for a long time.

As far as draining and refilling the hot tub itself, the best advice is to be sure to read any directions that come with the unit and/or talk to the dealer where you purchased the product, they will always provide important information that should be read over or followed, pertaining to the re-filling of the hot tub. Depending on the size of the hot tub and how diligent you are about keeping the chemicals balanced will also play into the time frame of when to drain and refill the tub.

Upgrading your hot tub

Each year when the newer models are unveiled, an improvement that is worth thinking about trading up for is the ease of the maintenance for your hot tub. Where hot tubs of 30 years ago were mainly made of wood, they were much more difficult to keep clean and if you didn't refinish the wood yearly, they would eventually just rot because of the exposure to the elements and the exposure to the chemicals that keep a hot tub clean and clear.

This article is not to suggest that each year there is a new and improved hot tub model that you should go out and buy a new one, that's silly and it would be like trying to keep up with computer technology so that you are always guaranteed to have the latest and greatest computer on the market. There really is no way to keep up but with a hot tub, they do last years and if you find you are putting more money into its repairs than you should be, maybe it's time to trade-up.