Common Newbie Chemical mistakes

[Chas]

Spa owners, spa dealers, soakers, sulkers, lovers and lurkers: Lend me your eyes.

What are the most common chemical mistakes which newbies make? Let's list a bunch to try to make the transition to relaxing just that much easier for our new friends. Learn from other's little mistakes.

I have these to share right off the top:

• Ozone doesn't replace sanitizers. You will still need to have some chlorine or bromine in your water, unless you want a skin problem. Yes, even if you have a Nature2 cartidge, spa frog and/or MPS. You will need much LESS chlorine than non-ozoners.
  
• Don't retest for pH and TA within four hours of adding increasers or decreasers. The pH will plummet, then raise before finally settling at it's new level.
• You can't get a good pH/TA reading off of test strips if the sanitizer level is above about 5ppm.
• Rinse suits before using them in a spa. Laundry soap stays in them, so most experienced spa owners don't launder them anymore, or if they do they rinse them well prior to use in the spa.

[hottub.pool_boy]

The "TEENAGER FACTOR."
The teenagers come home from school with their buddies, hammer on the new hot tub, don't put the dichlor in when they're done and PRESTO. Mom and Dad go to use the spa that night and it's cloudy. The teenagers don't fess up.
This is part of our orientation to new spa owners with teenagers.

[J._McD]

What is in your skin pores will be in your water, oils, lotions, sunblock, perspiration, etc.  When you are in the water, your skin pores open and you emit into the spa water.  You will see the results in cloudy water.  It is not an operational fault of the Hot Tub.

It is recommended that only clean bodies enter the Hot Tub because only clean bodies get out.

If you have just finished a physical work out, or have been out jogging, or even just finished cutting the lawn, you worked up a sweat, you should cleanse your body in a shower before cleansing it in the Hot Tub.

If you just showered and you lay in your tanning bed, shower again, what is below the surface of your skin after cooking it under UV lights will result in cloudy water.


It is not a good idea to to allow Hot Tub users to cleanse their hair in the Hot Tub.  YOU will have to deal with the results, hair spray, gels, conditioners etc.

[sandiego]

"I clean the filter all the time"- cleaning the filter means cleaning it with a cleaning product (like filter clean or the dishwasher)

Rinsing it off with a high pressure hose is great, but you have to clean the filter with a cleaner..... People always say that they clean their filter all the time, but usually that consists of rinsing it off with a high pressure hose and they don't use a cleaning agent......


Also on that note, customers use way to much foam down to try and cover up their foam problem instead of cleaning the filter with a proper cleaner. Foam down maks the problem and if you use too much of it, it will end up making the water cloudy. You really should only use foam down when you're too lazy to clean the filter and when you use it, you should only use a few drops at a time. Don't go crazy with it.

Also, when you use a cleaning agent on the filter, make sure you rinse it off completely, when the suds disappear, wash it for a few more minutes just to make sure that all the cleaner is gone, otherwise you can have a major foam problem.

Keeping your filters clean is a big part of keeping you water in good shape, and keeping good jet pressure.
We recommend that you clean the filter with a filter cleaner (like the instant cartridge cleaner or dishwasher) once a month, then do a deep clean where you soak the filter for a few hours (using a product like filter clean) every 4 months. If you do that, your filters will last many years and you're water will be a lot easier to take care of......

[Mendocino101]

"I clean the filter all the time"- cleaning the filter means cleaning it with a cleaning product (like filter clean or the dishwasher)

Rinsing it off with a high pressure hose is great, but you have to clean the filter with a cleaner..... People always say that they clean their filter all the time, but usually that consists of rinsing it off with a high pressure hose and they don't use a cleaning agent......


Keeping your filters clean is a big part of keeping you water in good shape, and keeping good jet pressure.
We recommend that you clean the filter with a filter cleaner (like the instant cartridge cleaner or dishwasher) once a month, then do a deep clean where you soak the filter for a few hours (using a product like filter clean) every 4 months. If you do that, your filters will last many years and you're water will be a lot easier to take care of......

Question for you....We recommend using the Sea Klear clarifier and one reason is that you can rinse the filters as most things 'lay" on the filters instead of embedding into them, this allows you to rinse every few weeks and you can do an through cleaning at water changes. What are your thoughts....

[sandiego]

I never used the Sea Klear cleaner, but I know that when customers bring their filters in and they tell me that they've rinsed them off or cleaned them even with the LT Instant Cartridge Cleaner, if I look inside the filter (flip it upside down) I can usually see buildup in the holes and that does two things

1. if they are using bromine or chlorine, people complain a lot that when they turn on the spa initially they get a strong "whiff" of chemicals, usually because of buildup inside

2. it can also restrict water flow and thus jet pressure. I don't know maybe I'm wrong or overkill, but I know that when someone has a water related problem with the spa, and I tell them to drain their spa and soak the filter, that solves the problem almost every time.

Also you say yourself that "most things lay on the filter" that is true, but the key word is "most". I guess it depends on how much you change your filter, I find if people clean it regularly when they drain the spa, the filter lasts about 3 years. But then again we only use one filter so it's not as big of a deal to clean one filter all the time......

In my humble opinion I just don't think rinsing it off is enough. That's another reason why I'm not a big fan of the dishwasher, but that's just me.

[drewstar]

I see a lot of folks using ALL the chems the dealer sold them all at once.

"Hmmm. Time to do the tub. Add some dichlor..a  bit of shock. adjust TA. Opps a bit of foam over there better get the foam down, ok now a spash of defender for good measure, oops the water looks like it could be clearer, better add a shot of claifierfier...some enzxymes for good measure. a pinch of shock...."  Pretty soon the tub looks like stew.  

Not that I EVER did anything like that.  

Sanitize and walk away. Adress foam, and PH on other days.

[Chas]

Thanks for the reminder Drew:

Never add "Bright and Clear" and "Defender" on the same day.

In fact, add Metal Gon on a different day as well.

[East_TX_Spa]

This is not very common (thank goodness) but I have seen it happen more than it should:

When you purchase a new spa and it is delivered to your home and the delivery person shows you how to treat the water, THAT DOES NOT MEAN IT IS PERMANENTLY TREATED.  You have to continue to treat it YOURSELF on a daily or weekly basis.

The worst one was when a customer called us 5 years after we delivered his spa because the heater did not work.  When our tech arrived, the spa had green algae coating the entire interior of the spa.  Our tech asked when was the last time he treated the water.

"Oh, you guys treated it when you delivered it."

Some people have NO business owning a spa.  They'd be better off with a pond.

Terminator

[shabba34]

This is not very common (thank goodness) but I have seen it happen more than it should:

When you purchase a new spa and it is delivered to your home and the delivery person shows you how to treat the water, THAT DOES NOT MEAN IT IS PERMANENTLY TREATED.  You have to continue to treat it YOURSELF on a daily or weekly basis.

The worst one was when a customer called us 5 years after we delivered his spa because the heater did not work.  When our tech arrived, the spa had green algae coating the entire interior of the spa.  Our tech asked when was the last time he treated the water.

"Oh, you guys treated it when you delivered it."

Some people have NO business owning a spa.  They'd be better off with a pond.

Terminator

Enter Wisoki with snide no-bypass filtration comment...

[Bill_Stevenson]

Perhaps the most often neglected detail is to know your raw water before commencing with chemical additions.  It is best to test the water first and then work up an initial treatment schedule of chemical additions that would be used every time the tub is refilled.  Especially for people filling from a well, the initial step might be to prefilter the water.

Another common problem is worrying too much.  This results in micro managing the water and consequently adding too much stuff.  This is especially true in the first few weeks of ownership.  Use Chas's first law of water treatment:  Dump the tub after the first 30 days.

Finally, I would like to make a plug for Bill's second law of water treatment:  When in doubt dump the water.  If the water is cloudy, foaming, or otherwise sullied and a simple shock does not solve the problem, adding more chems often just makes things worse.  There is one sure fire solution for every water problem, fresh water.

Regards,

Bill

[sandiego]

Chas-
I try to tell people not to use Bright and Clear if they have an ozone, I find that it's just too much of hassle for them to clean out all that sticky yellow stuff, and that if they do it with regularity it will gum up the filters. I tell them that if they have a major foam problem to use the bright and clear then and clean the filter, but that it is more of an "emergency" thing than a standard thing. I've found that if they use bright and clear all the time it causes more problems than it's worth, buy only if they have an ozone. Do you disagree?

[Chas]

Chas- Do you disagree?

Yes, I do not disagree.

[anne]

So what's the deal with Bright and Clear and Ozone? Are they bad together? What if the ozone is not running while the B&C is doing is gooey thing? Not sure how I'd pull that off, though....

[The_real_Clown_Shoes]

1)  Stain & Scale and shock at the same time.

Orange water.

2)  Water Clarifier any and all times the tub is cloudy (for this reason I rarely sell clarifier if I can help it).

3)  Cross-over of pool and spa line chems with customers who buy both pools and hot tubs.  I don't know how many times people have come in for more Anti Foam after putting Polysheen Blue into their hot tub.  

Likewise I've also had someone put Cal Hypo in their hot tub and put chlorine tablets in their bromine floater.  The latter is one of the most dangerous things they can do.