I figured I'd follow Calicoskies and post how our install and first weekend went with our new Optima.
We took delivery last Thursday afternoon. The delivery guys were great. They hooked up the Ozonator and LED light and then pulled the tub to it's home in our backyard. It took them all of about 2 minutes to get it from our driveway to our concrete pad under our screened porch. Once they had it in place they installed the cover lifter and we were all set.
Our electrician was supposed to come out on Thursday afternoon to hook everything up but we had some severe weather and he was delayed until Friday afternoon. I had already filled the tub so it sat with no chemicals for 24 hours until the electrician hooked everything up.
Once we had power I put in the first batch of chemicals and starting the waiting process of heating the water. I was surprised that out of the hose our water was around 75F and after sitting for 24 hours it was actually around 80F when the heating started. We had it up to 98F in about 2 and 1/2 hours.
So, after the kids were in bed we took our first dip around 10:00 on Friday. Everything is exactly as we remembered from our wet test and we love it!!! The LED light is really cool at night too.
We were in and out on Saturday and had the kids in for the first time too. (they are 1 and 3) They both loved it as well.
By Sunday morning we noticed that the water was a bit green and a little cloudy. Talked to the dealer and he suggested shocking again with the OZ tabs and a shot of Bright/Clear. After a few hours I thnk things look much better and we'll be taking another dip in an hour or so...
We ended up going with Bromine for a sanitizer. With an Ozonator the desired level of Bromine is only around 1ppm according to our dealer and he claims the built in brominator works well. Guess we'll just have to wait and see how that goes. The low level of bromine should reduce any drying out of skin that we've heard is sometimes a problem with bromine.
All in all we're VERY excited to finally have our new toy up and running and am sure it's going to get lots of use. Once we deal with cleaning up our backyard and get the rest of my deck/lattice work done I'll post some pictures of our installation.
Thanks to all for the advice and information. It made our purchase that much easier!!
