New Caldera Geneva & Very Hard Water - Help Please

[Spayedkitty]

Hello All,

Need advice.  Our dealer delivered our Geneva today, beautiful spa!
We have very hard well water.  Dealer and Spa Manual said absolutely to bypass our water softener when filling.  The dealer filled the spa using the Watkins Clean Screen Filter and immediately said yes we have hard water.  The dealer put an entire bottle of Leisure Time Metal Gon in the tub.  He then told us to wait until the temp got to 90 and add the start up shock and install the @ease cartridges.  We are using the chlorine @ease for now.

The dealer told us to rinse the spa filter this evening because our water is so hard.  We have rinsed the filter twice and the filter is now stained the rusty color.

The dealer also left us Leisure Time Spa Down.  So we are using the Spa Down as directed and testing the water and the PH is still off the charts.

The water in the tub has an ugly kind of rusty color and we have cleaned the water line several times with a microfiber cloth and there is so much rust on it.

One of the pillows now has a rust spot on it and that isn't wanting to come off.  Can we remove the pillow and use iron out on it?

I know, we are like new spa-parents, but this rusty water is horrible.

Of course we can call our dealer on Monday if needed and ask for help.  Do we need to add more Metal Gon?  Do we keep adding Spa Down and testing?

Is there anymore we can do to prevent the rust?  Our dealer told us every time we add more water as it evaporates we will need to use more Metal Gon.

Is there anything else we can do to make the filling process easier?

When can we use the spa?  Can we try it for a few minutes even though the ph is high?

Thanks!

[danthespaman316]

The battle your fighting can be won, but it will be costly and labor intensive. While running soft water in a tub is a no-no and could possibly void your warranty, you can increase the hardness to make it suitable. If it's as bad as you say it is I'd drain it, clean it, hose it down, vac it out, refill it through your water softener system and add calcium increaser to achieve the recommended hardness according to your manual or test strips. Depending on size it could require 1 entire bottle each time you fill it. But even then, at around $10 per bottle, I'm sure it's less costly than all the other products you'll be pouring into your water to remedy your current problems. Test any cleaners on the back side of the pillow first, if it's too caustic you don't want to have to stare at a melted divot in the foam. Good luck.

[Tman122]

I would actually mix softened water and hard water to achieve close to the desired hardness during filling. This may take some experimentation over the next year or so. In the mean time keep working on it as recommended.

[bud16415]

Sorry to hear of your problems. Your pillows pop right off if you were not shown how to do them. some have two posts some have four and just pull out and they will come off. Leave them off till you get it figured out.

I take it you have an extensive water softener and filtration system for your home and that the water you wash with and use for laundry has none of these problems. I also would use the soften water and then adjust the hardness as suggested above. The little hose filter cant compare with a full house system why not use what you have.

Take a test strip and test your softened water and report back how it reads.

Around here we have quite a few people who haul water also and fill pools etc. many of them are milk truck drivers that do it as a side line and really don’t charge that much. That would be an option if worst came to worst.

So sorry to hear about your troubles I know we talked about this before you bought the tub. 

[Spayedkitty]

Thank you for the advice and suggestions.  After 48 hours the rusty water line we kept cleaning finally went away.  The stained pillow we were able to get clean.  We have rinsed the filter daily and no longer see rusty looking water running out of it.  The filter is still stained but we are guessing that is ok.

We had to keep adding spa down over several days.  We used the entire bottle of that.  Finally everything on the @ease strips shows it's ok,  except for the calcium hardness.  That is still too high.

Do we keep adding spa down?  We have stopped adding that for fear the other things would go too low.  How can we bring down the calcium hardness?

Added some softened water today and put a test strip in the softened water from our tap as suggested.

We had a foam problem but added extra shock and dipped out all the foam and that seems resolved for now.  I'm thinking it could have been from the moisturizing body wash and hair products that I use.  We do rinse off prior to use and don't use clothing that has been washed in soap.

The dealer told us to add chemicals to the middle of the spa but the manual says to add them to the filter area.  Does it matter?  We turn on the jets when adding chemicals.

Also I see on here that people suggest using 303 to protect the cover.  I asked the dealer and he told us not to use anything.  Told us it could make it mold and nasty.  I don't think that is right.  We have motorcycles and a boat and use products to protect those and they are kept in the garage.  The hot tub is outside, although we do have 2 umbrellas to use during the summer.

Other than getting the water adjusted, we are pleased so far and enjoy using all of the seating.

We do think the steps are cheap even though we got the utopia steps.  When they fail hubby will build new ones.  I thought the steps would be composit. 

The hand rail we love!  I know it's not exclusive to the Caldera brand but it looks great, works great, matches our spa, and serves as a towel bar.

[bud16415]

Sounds like you are getting things under control somewhat. I don’t know what to offer beyond what has been said above except maybe this.

I think every new spa owner goes thru a hectic first couple of week with a new spa to some degree. If not everyone then at least a lot of us did. We see others with spas and they seem to have an effortless time of maintaining them with a high enjoyment factor and it is like what is going on here. That’s where I was at a in the beginning also. It might be different problems for different people but there is always something. I felt it robbed us a little of the initial enjoyment of the tub. Then after a couple water changes in the first couple months and changing this and that it just fell into place for me. Talking with others I hear the same stories quite a bit.

Just hang in there and enjoy having your own spa and a year from now you will be puzzled as to why you ever had problems.

The rust stains won’t hurt the function of the filter at all. I also notice when we have a bunch of women in the tub the foaming starts and we have found our routine is to shower before with soap and water and then hot tub and then moisturize after as for us the tub dries out the skin. I personally love the in shower moisturizers and after closing up the tub for the night I jump straight in the shower and use them. In our case after the initial panic about the spa then came the panic about our skin. We never saw issues with using spas before we had one but it wasn’t like we used them anywhere close to as much as when you own one. I now view the whole shower, tub, shower process as part of the pampering of owning a spa.

Good luck going forward the worst is behind you, trust me.