I love hot tubs…but I wonder how sanitary they are.
Is there any info on this? does anyone know what the stats are on the filters and other mechanisms involved in these tubs?
There is a reason they always smell strongly of chlorine: You will never find a better breeding ground for bacteria than a tub of hot water. This is, of course hyperbole, since a tub of hot agar would make a better breeding ground.
My point is that unless they are heavily treated and filtered, they can get very nasty, very fast.
I can’t give results in bacterial colony counts, or percent of tubs that have pseudomonas, or the like.
I can tell you anecdotally that in 9 years of using our hot tub, we’ve not had skin problems from it. Of course, we’re quite aggressive to keep bromine at appropriate levels (it doesn’t smell as strong as chlorine to us at appropriate levels), keep the pH adjusted adequately, add the enzymes which help break down organics, and clean the filter regularly. When we do that, the tubwater stays sparkling clean, and we’re happy.
We use ours mostly with a small circle of family and friends. If it gets heavy use, especially with youngsters, I drain the damn thing and refill it.
It’s really not that hard to keep clean but like Qadgop the Mercotan said you have to keep it up regularly. I agree with the bromide too. Much better than chlorine. I only use the tub during winter, as I have a pool also. Even then, I drain it and clean it once a month. I just feel better about it that way. I have three sets of filters and prefer to change them weekly. It’s worth the effort cause it feels sooooo good on a cold night!
I found some info on hot tub and pool maintenance here. It’s a pdf file but some good info that might help answer some of your questions Not a Well Woman.
Well, thank you very much, my people.
I guess the trick is to keep the tub regularly maintained. I suppose one could easily get lazy about this, but it’s true that the rewards seem greater than the dangers.
If one uses bromide, one does not have to use any chlorine at all? I have a prob with chlorine.
When treated properly, they are fine. I have an open wound that is slowly healing and my wound specialist has given the OK for me to use my hot tub. When I asked she simply said that as long as it was my tub and I kept the chemicals at appropriate levels there would be no problems.
I have another question…Can one design a tub oneself? That is, can you have them put the jets where you want, or are they all factory made a certain way and that’s it? The jets always seem to be in the wrong place for my tastes.
If you custom order the tub, you can specify the number and location of the jets in addition to things like color, size, skirt material, optional equipment, etc. It will cost extra.
We use bromine instead of chlorine. Never used chlorine in it at all, for over 9 years now.
You still get a smell, and it’s reminiscent of chlorine, but to us, it’s not as strong, not as chloriny, and not as obnoxious. It keeps mosquitoes away too! YMMV, of course.
We also use Spa Perfect which made maintenance LOTS easier. I used to have to fiddle with shocking the water every few days, constantly straining it with the filter net (despite the filter in it running), and check the chemicals 3 or more times a week to keep things clear. Since using the enzymes named above, I don’t have to shock or strain it. and I touch up the chemicals once a week, if it’s not getting heavy use. Mrs. Mercotan and I can use it nightly without undue extra maintenance, on that schedule.
Pool + Hot Tub owners:
Is there any reason why a hot tub is different from a pool to maintain? I’m sure that draining the thing would make me feel more comfortable, but is it necessary?
I am recalling how I change the water in the pool once every decade or so when the liner gets changed. In the intervening years, children pee in the water thousands of times and many dead creatures are fished out of the depths (squirrels, chipmonks, and the occasional rabbit). One year I opened the pool in Spring to find it black with little squiggly worms zipping back and forth.
My point is, chemical warfare seems to hold everything in check, and all nastiness dies and is filtered away (or at least I comfort myself imagining that it is).
Does a hot tub merit other treatment?
Smaller volume of water held at a much higher temperature. Much better breeding ground for micro-organisms than a pool.
I would second everything QtM said, and add that we’ve had extremely good luck with spas that contain Ozonators. I don’t understand everything about how they work, but I can attest that they do. Besides purifying and clarifying, they make the water feel “soft”, and they remove almost all the odor from the bromine feeder, plus ozonated water leaves a good feeling on your skin after leaving the tub, so good that it’s rarely necessary to shower off afterwards, as is almost always the case when leaving a clorinated tub. Also, spas designed with a built-in ozonator use that process to gently circulate the water through the filtering system when not in use, instead of relying entirely on timed jets, making it more cost-effective as well.
We drain, clean and re-fill our spa every fall, before the weather gets too chilly. It gets its heaviest use in winter, so that’s when the water is most “fresh”.
Having said that, the water is actually being changed out continuously, since some is always being lost due to evaporation - more so in winter, since we stay in longer. Filling the tub back up adds “new” water, plus maintaining the proper chemical balance, keeping the filters clean, quickly purging critters that fly or fall in uninvited, and running the ozonator have proved to be more than adequate in maintaining a clean spa, in my experience.
And if you’re just not big on the whole maintenance thing, it really helps to shower off before jumping in, especially on hot, dusty days. Dried skin and microscopic particulates trapped in body oils are by far the largest source of contamination in any spa.
Ditto. Almost to the letter. Dishfunctional describes our process pretty much to the ‘T’. We only dump the water when it becomes ‘unmanageable’ (i.e. shocking and filter cleaning won’t solve the problem.)
Do you use NaBrO or something similar? I can’t imagine what else would be easy and safe to use, but this is the first time I’ve heard of brominating a pool.
Hmm…could you iodate a pool?
My bromine tabs are 60% 1-bromo 3-chloro 5,5-dimethyl hydantoin, 27% 1,3-dicholoro-5,5-dimethyl hydantoin, 10% 1,3-dichloro 5-ethyl 5-methyl hydantoin, and 2% other. The label states this adds up to 40% available bromine and 44% available chlorine, for whatever that’s worth.
We use BaquaSpa in ours and have never had a problem at all. It doesn’t contain either chlorine or bromine so you don’t have any smell at all.
I think he wasy saying that he brominates his hot tub. I also do - I think bromine is pretty much standard for hot tubs.
However, it doesn’t keep mosquitoes away as far as I know. They bite my forehead when I’m in the tub.
I once heard a guy claim that an effective way to keep a hot tub germ-free would be to occasionally raise the temperature to something like 140F and hold it there for several hours. This would, he said, pretty well eliminate the need for any chemical treatment.
Naturally, he had no cite, and I can’t seem to find one either. Leaving out the fact that few if any hot tubs can reach that sort of temperature, is there anything to this?