Fill Hot Tub With Hot or Cold Water?

[clayfiregrrl]

Hi, our 2005 hot tub (HS/Tiger River Caspian) is being delivered tomorrow (hurray!), and although our electrician is not available for another two weeks , we are already thinking about how to fill the tub once the electrical work is done.  

Is it best to just fill the tub with cold water from the garden hose and then heat it in the tub or to fill it with hot water from the sink (a friend of mine said that's what she does with her hot tub) so that it does not have to heat as long in the hot tub or does it really even matter?  Cost wise, it seems to me it would be a wash (no pun intended).  

Also, another friend told me tonight that she thought the fire department could be hired to fill a pool or hot tub with water...is this true?  Has anyone ever done this and if so, what does it cost and is this a good idea or are there other issues with this approach?  I've never heard of such a thing...

And my last question about filling the hot tub (at least for now!) is do we start filling the hot tub with water the day before the electrician comes or do we wait until the electrical work is done to start filling it?  Was told we should not have standing water in the tub but not sure if the electrician needs it filled to test the connection???  What is the optimal sequence of events on this?

Thanks and happy hot tubbing to all!

Dorie

[Neohcouple]

Fill it with cold water only.  I just refilled my HS Vanguard & the owners manual clearly states cold water only.  It only took about 5 hours to heat up to 100 degrees.  

[twok99]

During the warmer months (April through Oct) I use my garden hose.  When it is colder and especically if I am filling in Jan-Feb I run a hose from my basement sink and mix hot and cold.  The mix results in water in the mid 60's (my straight cold is 36-38 in the winter).  I think the mix is fine, I would not use straight hot water nor and get a mix so my water ends up at 100.

[Cola]

You should fill the tub ta day or two before the electrician arrives, that will be fine.  It will take about two hours.  Your hot water tank is about 10% the size of the hot tub so unless you run a mix of 20% hot and 80% cold, the tank will go cold in about 10  minutes.  Straight scalding water could damage the tub.  Lastly, the fire department likely doesn't want to be bothered filling swimming pool.  The public works department might do that but I wouldn't want to pay some union guy to stand around and watch my pool fill up.
Good luck

[Spatech_tuo]

You should fill the tub a day or two before the electrician arrives, that will be fine.  

It generally only takes about 45 mintues to fill a spa. I would NOT fill the spa until the electrician agrees. If he wants to move it even a little it needs to be empty. Based on his progress, I'd start filling it about an hour from the time he anticipates being done.

[Brewman]

Most household water heaters are 40 gallon to 50 gallon.  Filling with hot water would just be wasteful- you'd empty your tank in pretty short order, and you'd be without hot water in the rest of your house.  
Let the spa heat the water, that's what it's for.
Also, if you have a water softener in service, you don't want to put softened water in your spa.  A mix of soft with non softened may be ok, but straight soft water isn't recommended without adding a supplement.
It's likely that if you do have softened water, all hot taps are connected to it.

[stl-rex]

We filled ours in about an hour (540 gallons) using the access point in the basement before the water hits the regulator.  Both of our outdoor spigots are post regulator and have significantly lower pressure.  Personally I'd fill it the day he's due to arrive.

[marks]

I agree with Spatech.  Wait for the electrician. We had to move our spa about 2 inches, if it was filled with water it could not have been moved.

[Rayman]

It doesn't take long to fill up the tub, wait for the electrician.  Have the hose ready and as soon as he/she says it's ok then turn it on.  45 minutes and it will be ready to go, probably before the electrician is ready to leave.  Fill it up with cold, moine is 400 gallons and it took about 6 hours from 62 degrees to 100.

Ray

[drewstar]

It doens't take too long to fill the tub.   I would fill the tub from an outside spigot or the cold water tap. Filling it with hot water is a waste, and as mentioned scalding water could damage the shell.

I'd be hestient to have the fire department fill it. Don't they just take water off the hydrant? Water from a hydrant can be very, very rusty and create huge problems.

[Chas]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned:

DO NOT turn on the power unless/until your Tiger River spa is full of water. You can ruin the circ pump by running it dry, and it is silent, so knowbody will notice it happening. The heater now has a pressure switch to keep it from running dry,' but the circ pump and jet pumps can be damaged very quickly by running dry.

Also: there is a tip which I think has finally made it into the owners manual about turning on the breakers. You need to turn on the 30 amp first, and wait for everything to settle. Run the jets for a few minutes, shut them off. Look at the surface of the water: when it is calm again, you should be able to see the water moving a bit directly above the floor fitting. This indicates that the small circ pump has caught its prime and is ready for you to power up the heater - that is - turn on the 20 amp breaker.

And one more item: as you fill the tub, do so through the core of the filter. Take off the cap, run the hose on the ground for a half minute or so, then put the hose into the filter core and fill the tub from there. That will help to prime all systems.

I put cold water in my spas at home, but I have rigged up a hot water tap in the showroom to help speed the heating process. It is not soft water, it is clean water, and I add it carefully to avoid overheating the spa. It's a lot of work - run the cold first to put about a foot or so of water, then run the hot and cold together, wait 20 minutes for the heater to reheat, then run it again, while holding an accurate thermometer in the tub to keep an eye on the mix of hot and cold water.  I only do this if I have a customer coming in right away or if we had to do a water change during open hours - wet test by dirty people....

[tootsie]

regarding the fire department,  In this area we have a volunteer fire department and they fill pools for a predetermined donation (and you could always give more) kind of for a fund raiser thing.  We didn't need to use it so I never checked any farther into it, and I don't know if the fill from town water or a pond.

[drewstar]

Using the fire department, even if it's clean water (not from a rusty hydrant), would be over kill.  Perhaps if you had a 20,000 gallon pool, it might be worht checking into, but for a 350 gallon hot tub, it's  absurd.

[Brewman]

Our FD won't do anything like that, even for large volumes like pools.  From our outdoor tap, our 500 gallon spa fills in pretty short order, under an hour, maybe even less.

The city does give residences a break on water rates for a window of time in late spring for those filling pools.  They pay the same rate for water as usual, but don't get as many gallons charged for sewer.  Usually they base sewer charges on metered water usage pretty much gallon for gallon.  

[SerjicalStrike]

If your spa is delivered during the winter months, I would have the electrician turn on the spa for a few seconds (then shut it back off) just to make sure his work is correct.   Then start filling the spa.