My experience with Artesian and Litehouse, buyer beware

[Berniecoy]

Just wanted to share my experience with Artesian and Litehouse (if you’re considering buying from Litehouse, I highly recommend you shop elsewhere).

I bought an Artesian Elite Pelican Bay hot tub from Litehouse.

We enjoyed the hot tub for a week or so before realizing a small light on one of the buttons wasn’t working so I called the service department. They sent a tech out to fix it:

Through the course of diagnosing the problem the tech said he smelled burning and the circuit board blew. He said we will need a new circuit board. Keep in mind, the hot tub, aside from that small light, worked properly. He said the hot tub will need to be drained to move it away from the house (once the chemicals are taken out of the water they are no longer good, this comes into play later).

A different tech came to replace the circuit board and that one blew up as well.

The next visit the tech replaced the circuit board as well as the topside touch screen panel. The circuit board then blew up again.

The next time the tech came out he replaced the heater, topside control, and circuit board. The board blew again.

The service tech told me he’s been servicing hot tubs for 20+ years and never seen anything like this.

The tech then came out with another circuit board, realizing the lighting system is causing the boards to blow up, which worked perfectly fine before we began this journey. He was able to get the hot tub to turn on, but with a error message saying there was an issue with the heater. The tech said the heater may not work but the jets will. Fortunately the error message disappeared the next day.

My wife and I discussed that this is the final straw. If something else goes wrong with this hot tub, we either want out money back or a brand new hot tub.

The new lighting system was ordered and the techs came to install it. They said everything was fixed.

I asked if they brought the start up chemical kit that I called about and was told would be included in my service call. He said we already received the start up kit and there is no reason to give me another one. He eventually gave me the kit and said he was doing me a favor.  I felt like this was ridiculous, after what we’ve been through you’d think they would be eager to make me happy.

That night, after dark, we checked on the lights, only some of them work. Some lights are assigned the wrong color (you hit the blue button, the lights turn red) while others just flat out don’t work. The ones that do work are noticeably dimmer than before.  The back right corner has a part that has fallen in front of the light, no idea what it is.

I called the manager of the store I purchased it from (Justin) to explain the situation. I told him we’re at the point that we want a new hot tub or our money back. He was very nice and understood where my frustration was coming from. He reached out to the regional manager as well as the service manager.

The service person, Amy, called me later that day to schedule another service call, ignoring my entire issue. When I told her we were past the point of continuing to put this hot tub together with bubble gum and bandaids, she raised her voice aggressively, “you’re not getting a new hot tub.”

I was very much caught off guard. Clearly she is annoyed that she has to deal with me and my problem.

She said “this is what the warrantee is for” and “when I bought a new car, if it had issues they wouldn’t give me a new car, they would fix the issue. And trust me, my car cost a lot more than your hot tub.”

This comment was not only condescending, it was incorrect. There are laws protecting consumers against that. I highly doubt If she bought a brand new car and it went through 5 engines, 3 transmissions, 2 suspensions, and 3 sets of brakes within 2 months she would be demanding a replacement as well.

I was told the handful of circuit boards we went through were supposed to be overnighted so we could get our hot tub back up and running quickly. After calling to assure the parts were order and to see if we could get an ETA, Amy said she didn’t have an ETA and that if I wanted one I would need to call Artesian myself. I didn’t think it was appropriate for the customer to call instead of the service department, but I called anyway. They said they knew nothing of my order and didn’t hear from Litehouse. This was multiple days after it was said to be “overnighted” from Las Vegas.

Other comments from Amy, the service person: “well your hot tub is working, right?”, to which I responded no, it is not working, there are still parts that are broken/not working. She basically said that I should be happy that at least some parts of this brand new “Cadillac of hot tubs” aren’t complete broken. 

I don’t particularly feel comfortable having my family inside of a hot tub with so many electrical shorts in its sustem. Also, having a hot tub that has sparked and smoked 4 times sitting next to my house is not comforting. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that it happens again.

We’re on our 5th circuit board, 2nd heater, I believe the 3rd topside control, 2nd chrome light system in need of a 3rd.

Litehouse just wants to keep sending guys out to try to fix it, apparently Artesian feels the same way.

Overall, awful experience. Has anyone had anything similar happen to them?

[A.O.]

Yes, I've had a similar situation.. we bought a new Artesian from Oasis in NC and had nothing but problems from day one.. big center jet would not stay in, they replaced it 3 times to no avail. The tub would not maintain temp.. it was constantly up in the 106,107 range even though it was set t 102-103, they replaced the sensors, which cooked our board too so it was replaced... long story short(er).. after fighting about 1 1/2 months and 3-4 Service calls Oasis agreed to pick it up and give us a full refund. KUDOS to Oasis... and boo on Artesian!!

[Hottubguy]

That sucks having to deal with that. All these circuit boards burning up are you positive the hot tub is wired correctly?  Just doesn’t seem normal at all no matter the brand

[cranbiz]

Honestly, this sounds like a dealer issue. Your dealer is responsible for honoring the warranty for you, not Artesian. Dealer deals with Artesian for reimbursement, parts and tech support.

I get it, you are frustrated, angry and upset but with my electronics experience, this doesn't happen unless there is something out of the ordinary with the install. A LED controller is not going to take out 5 spa packs, 2 heaters and 3 top sides.

[CanadianSpaTech]

Me...I'm looking at the incoming power all the way back to the main panel and checking every wire and it's connection to see first if they are in the right place and second to ensure they are tight as Fxxk especially the wire connections into the spa pack.
Would like to know how they realized it was the lighting that was causing the issue. Will it all work normal with just the lighting disconnected?

FYI...Clipped from Artesian Warranty page 73 Here: https://artesianspas.com/manuals/ArtesianElite-Manual.pdf

LIGHTING
The lighting is guaranteed to work upon delivery. There is no warranty covering the
lighting.

PERFORMANCE
In the event of any defect covered by this LIMITED warranty, a May Manufacturing LLC,
authorized agent will correct such defect within the terms and conditions contained herein.
There will be no charge for parts or labor within the above terms. However, travel charges
that occur will not be covered under terms and conditions by the warranty. If it is
determined by May Manufacturing LLC that the repair of the product is not feasible, a
replacement spa equal to the value of the original purchase price will be provided. Cost
for removal of the defective spa and delivery and installation of the replacement spa is
the responsibility of the homeowner and will not under any circumstances be covered by
May Manufacturing, LLC dba Artesian Spas™.

Me...If I am 1000% sure it's not an incoming power/Electrical issue. Then I'm bypassing the dealer and dealing direct with MFG as any decision on replacement will sit with them. Get them involved and keep them involved.
Please post back with your ongoing experience and let us know if they figure it out or what the end result ends up being and possibly help out the nest person looking for answers.

Don't think I've ever seen what's usually a low voltage and fuse protected LED system blow a board so I'm looking at other components and incoming power... but that's just me.
Post photos of the circuit board and the schematic on the inside cover.

[A.O.]

The lighting is guaranteed to work upon delivery. There is no warranty covering the
lighting.

Sounds like ... oh, buy someone elses hot tub!

[CanadianSpaTech]

The lighting is guaranteed to work upon delivery. There is no warranty covering the
lighting.

Sounds like ... oh, buy someone elses hot tub!

Not clear on what you are saying or are you implying something?

[cranbiz]

The lighting is guaranteed to work upon delivery. There is no warranty covering the
lighting.

Sounds like ... oh, buy someone elses hot tub!

Not clear on what you are saying or are you implying something?

He is implying something. He had a bad experience with an Artesian, however his dealer took care of him. So now he is anti Artesian.

I on the other hand, have had absolutely zero problems with my Artesian (that were not my fault) and my service and installation interactions with my dealer have been spectacular.

What is the lesson here is a good dealer is a must as well as the consumer doing ALL the research up front. Read and understand the warranties before committing to a sale. If you don't like the terms of the warranty, don't buy it.

Yes, most but not all other manufacturers have some degree of warranty coverage on lights, some are like Artesian, will work on installation, some 90 days, some 1 year and some with 2 years of coverage.

[BullFrogSpasMN]

crappy light warranty or lack thereof aside there's no way lights caused that many boards to 'blow out' like someone mentioned most likely an incoming power supply issue, a lot of spas have fuses to protect against such things but that doesn't seem to be the case here so every time power is applied it is frying the board. I would have your incoming power source checked

[Water Boy]

crappy light warranty or lack thereof aside there's no way lights caused that many boards to 'blow out' like someone mentioned most likely an incoming power supply issue, a lot of spas have fuses to protect against such things but that doesn't seem to be the case here so every time power is applied it is frying the board. I would have your incoming power source checked

Yep- sound advice right there. That happened one time to one of our customers. I think it was only two boards, but when the second one fried quickly, we knew something was up. Got electrician involved and then the local power company. It was putting out too much power into the house I guess. Customer realized too they were going through lots of light bulbs and other issues around the house. Once the power company fixed it, we were good to go after that.

[Tman122]

crappy light warranty or lack thereof aside there's no way lights caused that many boards to 'blow out' like someone mentioned most likely an incoming power supply issue, a lot of spas have fuses to protect against such things but that doesn't seem to be the case here so every time power is applied it is frying the board. I would have your incoming power source checked

Yep- sound advice right there. That happened one time to one of our customers. I think it was only two boards, but when the second one fried quickly, we knew something was up. Got electrician involved and then the local power company. It was putting out too much power into the house I guess. Customer realized too they were going through lots of light bulbs and other issues around the house. Once the power company fixed it, we were good to go after that.

That's funny. Generally power companies short the voltage!

[Water Boy]

crappy light warranty or lack thereof aside there's no way lights caused that many boards to 'blow out' like someone mentioned most likely an incoming power supply issue, a lot of spas have fuses to protect against such things but that doesn't seem to be the case here so every time power is applied it is frying the board. I would have your incoming power source checked

Yep- sound advice right there. That happened one time to one of our customers. I think it was only two boards, but when the second one fried quickly, we knew something was up. Got electrician involved and then the local power company. It was putting out too much power into the house I guess. Customer realized too they were going through lots of light bulbs and other issues around the house. Once the power company fixed it, we were good to go after that.

That's funny. Generally power companies short the voltage!

Ha- ya that's true. And in all seriousness, I suppose not enough voltage could cause the same issues.

[A.O.]

The lighting is guaranteed to work upon delivery. There is no warranty covering the
lighting.

Sounds like ... oh, buy someone elses hot tub!

Not clear on what you are saying or are you implying something?

Just if there is no warrantee on it... buy something else! Crazy to pay big money for something the company wont even back up.