Hello and THANK YOU for the outstanding forum! After a couple months of experimentation and getting some pretty half-assed advice from my dealer, this new spa owner was really happy to find an active community with experienced folks to give me the straight scoop. Thanks to you all I have finally figured out how to properly administer chemicals, avoid foam etc., and also that at 75+ days in, I am way past due for an initial water change. And as luck would have it, the weather-guessers are forecasting a couple days above freezing this week, a rarity here in the great white north.
So we are expecting a couple windows of at least 6-8 hours in the mid to high 30's the next couple afternoons, and I am planning to use a wide-guage pool hose to fast track the draining process. Which leads me to my question: where should I dump the water? There is a steep downhill drop behind my retaining wall near the tub, which seems like the obvious choice, but there is only about an 8 - 10 ft buffer until my neighbor's yard. My wife is worried we will prematurely melt all the snow in his backyard for him
, and/or create a big ice sheet when the temp dips back down, as I assume the frozen ground will not absorb water.. It is a long way to the street (150 ft. or so) and would only be practical to get there with a garden hose, and even then I am not sure it is down-hill enough to work. All the drains in the house would be an uphill climb. Has anyone else drained into snow / frozen ground? What should I expect?
Thanks all!! There's nothing like soaking under the stars in cold weather!