power failures

[buzzsaw90]

My co-worker has not had power for a week after the ice storm in Philly. That got me thinking what should i do with my tub if i lost power for an extended period in winter. Any experience there? I expect it'd be ok for a day or so, but after that i'd start thinking about draining it to prevent a freeze.

[Jacuzzi Jim]

 Depending on temps  here where I live you have about 3 days to drain it in below freezing temps.  Minnesota I would say you have maybe a day to get it drained..   Basically you would drain as much out, open the front and undo the pump unions and what ever else you could to get the water out..

[Isaac-1]

For such events I suspect a small generator and a shop vac to blow out the lines could go a long way

[Tman122]

Or a small generator and a trouble light. All depends on the temp. Ice storms usually right around freezing but warmer during the day. Most places that are susceptible to ice storms and power outages are reasonably mild. Short periods of below freezing. May not be an issue. But if it becomes an issue for sure drain and winterize.

[rosewoodsteel]

We've had some bitter periods following ice and/or heavy snow storm induced power outages.

I like Tman's idea of using a small generator and a trouble light. 
If it looks like a long term outage, or the temperatures are extreme, maybe a small heater in the cabinet would help, as well. 
Worse case scenario (if draining is not an option), may be to keep a heater in the cabinet and dump RV anti freeze in the tub.
(Although I would expect the tub would be ok unless the outage, and extreme conditions, lasted for over a week). If you can get a pump wired up to circulate the anti freeze through the plumbing, all the better.     

[Isaac-1]

Upon giving this some thought, I think the answer is going to depend on a LOT of factors.  What kind of tub, is it well insulated, or not, 120 or 240V?  Seperate circulation pump or not.  How long of outage are we talking, days, weeks, ...?  How cold, advice for North Dakota where they talk about getting up to 20 degrees for the daily high as a warm spell and lows of -20 being common, could be different than the Atlantic coast with lows in the low 20's.

For example where I live we rarely go more than 24-48 hours below freezing, but can occasionally get lows down around 10-15 degrees.  Therefore exposed plumbing would be my main concern since it never stay's cold long enough for the bulk of the water to freeze.  (the last time it was cold long enough for exposed water, ponds pools, etc. to freeze over here was 30 years ago, even then the ice was only a couple of inches thick).  Therefore since my tub has a seperate circulation pump and I have a standby generator, making sure the circulation pump runs whenever the generator is running would be a priorty for me, but I would not need to worry about powering the heater which draws much more power.

[buzzsaw90]

on a related note, we got another few inches of snow last night. I looked at the tub this morning and the cover has a coating of snow maybe 2 inches worth, except for a 3 inch strip where the seam between the two panels of the cover are. So insulation-wise that looks like the spot where the heat leaks out and melted the snow. Is that typical behavior for a cover?