2024-03-24

Hot tubbing...

I have a hot tub, it came with the house over 3 years ago.

Managing a hot tub is complicated, and expensive. The expensive part is the power. But chemicals also cost. For reference, it uses around 17kWh a day on average.

I use it, I spend typically an hour or two reading a (waterproof) e-book in the hot tub most days. It is very relaxing and I feel worth it. And then Alice (granddaughter) might like to join me on occasion too :-)

When we moved in, a hot tub was new to me, and I read up on it. You need to maintain the pH, and chlorine levels, which means chemicals (last people left some for us).

Initially it got cloudy quickly, but after some time I found "clarifier" stuff. Eventually I found some cool "tablets" that have chlorine and clarifier and you put in a "floater" to dissolve slowly over several days. This worked well.

I eventually got to the stage that for at least a month the hot tub was clear and nice. But it would gradually go off. It would change a tad from a slight blue (which is normal, unless you have heavy water which is clear!), and change to a green tinge. The pH test strip would go a colour not even on the bottle. It would become a tad cloudy and more unpleasant and I would empty and refill it. This would typically take a month or so to happen.

More recently (and this is over there years now), it has changed. I got some new "pH increaser" (as what the previous people left had run out) and new "chlorine and clarifier tablets", and a new "floater" that allow slower dissolving. I have no idea which of these has helped.

But for the last, nearly, three months (and I had to check my power logs to confirm last refill), it has been nice. Crystal clear, blue not green, not cloudy. I have not even had to change the filter (which I typically do when empty/refill as compared to power cost of doing so a new filter is cheap). The pH has been stable, and sensible, and not a stupid colour.

I do have a wet vacuum cleaner thing that allows me to extract any flotsam that, err, sinks, (leaves and shit), so does not get to filters, rather nicely.

I don't know which of these things helped, but it is way better now.

I can only conclude hot tub chemistry is basically voodoo, much like RF PCB tracking design.

P.S. Environmentalists, we make more solar than the hot tub uses on average.

3 comments:

  1. I got a good chuckle out of this:

    > I do have a wet vacuum cleaner thing that allows me to extract
    > any flotsam that, err, sinks, (leaves and shit),

    Perhaps my mind is just too juvenile!
    ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. > I can only conclude hot tub chemistry is basically voodoo

    That's largely been my conclusion too - it *sounds* so simple: if it's too alkali, PH minus if too acidic PH plus.

    But then you have to mix in things like: have the airjets been on? They'll make it more alkali. Is it too Alkali? in which case your chlorine's ineffective, oh but you've added too much chlorine and dragged it the other way.

    Like you, I've found the best bet is not to fiddle too much and to let the floater do the work

    ReplyDelete

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