General > Beating a dead horse
full foam vs thermopannels
Gary:
Forget about insulation value, I see way more leaks with TP spas than FF spas and when I do fix FF leaks it is no big deal as some try to preach.
I am only a service person and from what I have seen through the years FF is how I prefer a spa to be.
Tom:
--- Quote ---Forget about insulation value, I see way more leaks with TP spas than FF spas and when I do fix FF leaks it is no big deal as some try to preach.
I am only a service person and from what I have seen through the years FF is how I prefer a spa to be.
--- End quote ---
This is turning into a good discussion. Since Arctic uses access and ease of repair as a sales argument, I'm interested in comments of this type.
Gary, have you had the opportunity to work on an Arctic Spa? We really don't follow the usual TP construction, and other technicians report the reverse, that they prefer to work on an Arctic to FF types. Perhaps this is just a variation in individual experience? I do know that in our factory service training courses, we have techs with a lot of experience with other brands who comment on how easy it is to service our spas by comparison. At that point, though, they wouldn't have much experience about relative frequency of repairs.
Would this vary with location or climate, do you suppose? I remember one tech from Alaska, who makes a good living fixing frozen spas, saying that Arctic was the only one that made sense from his perspective.
Gary:
Have never worked on an Artic nor see one up close, not much a dealer base in the deep south.
If and when a spa does leak a non full foam spa is easier but as I stated fixing a full foam is not a big deal either.
If they are sealed up tight and it appears Artic does then I would think it would be insulated just fine.
The other thing that bothers me though is the heat, to lower the life and any electronics just add heat or moisture or a combination of the both. If you seal it up tight the pumps, circuit board will all run much hotter than they were intended. That is why some manufactures of TP add vents that the owner can open if it gets too hot in there. The pumps themselves have fans built into the to remove heat, so if it is a sealed environment it will just recycle the hot air. All kinds of electronics have built in fans, they are not doing it for no reason.
For this reason alone I would never recommend a TP style spa to someone.
Tom:
--- Quote ---Have never worked on an Artic nor see one up close, not much a dealer base in the deep south....The other thing that bothers me though is the heat, to lower the life and any electronics just add heat or moisture or a combination of the both. If you seal it up tight the pumps, circuit board will all run much hotter than they were intended.
--- End quote ---
Your being in the deep south does indicate a regional influence. As their name implies, Arctic Spas were engineered for cold climates, and a lot of that engineering is redundant in your service area. Many who think we are an ordinary TP-type spa are not really familiar with our product. I invite you to check www.arcticspas.com (and oh, how I hope our new site gets finished soon!)
Obviously, we've considered the heat issue, and our components are spec'd for the required internal operating conditions. Our pump motors, for example, are IP55 (sealed against moisture and air infiltration) and use an aluminum housing with an external fan driving air over cooling vanes. Electronics are spec'd appropriately as well.
Although we have few dealers in the American south, we have dealers in Australia, the Canary Islands, and Cyprus, to name a few hotspots. For warm climates like that, in what I consider a monumental irony, we remove two of the insulated doors and replace them with screened, louvered doors to permit cross airflow, or we install our patented Chiller to help keep the interior cold. The irony is, of course, that we devoted a lot of R&D time to keeping the heat in during a Canadian winter, only to have to find ways to keep it out in more southern latitudes.
Often mentioned in this context is the myth that "In a TP tub, the unsupported hoses flop around, which causes them to work loose and leak." Could be true in some, not so in ours. The simple answer is to remove a couple of the access panels and point out that the hosing is spot-tacked where necessary so it is hardly "unsupported". A more fun answer is to hand the person a three-foot piece of the heavy hose used in our products and say, "Here you go, flop it around." It takes real effort to bend the stuff; it doesn't need a lot of support.
I hope that addresses some of the concerns you raised in your post.
Hillbilly Hot Tub:
Very well explained Tom. Funny how different our experiences are in different climates on the repair aspect. I will also add that for us, in the cold weather, digging in foam for a leak sucks when it is zero outside. I will also add with Clearwater we have never had to address a leak in the plumbing(keeping fingers crossed!) We have had to replace many light lenses last year(light lens manufacturer issues), very glad it was not a full foam tub for those! Clearwater also spot glues the plumbing where needed and uses decremeted clips for the plumbing to the jets. It still comes down to a quality built spa with a company and dealer that back it!
As well as my tub is insulated, we are having serious heat creep here right now, but only have to deal with it for a month. I can see in the south how this would be a disadvantage. I have the tub set for 98, it wont go below 100 and creeps to 102 when we use it. We have to take 2 doors off to let the heat out this time of year.
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