Worried About Spa for Vacation Home

[MarKee]

Altazi: A heater, control panel, or pump is something that can be fixed at your vacation house if you were to ever have a problem at no expense to you.  A factory installed component is something that is not essential to run the spa, for instanced a floating remote.  Most dealers will swap this out for you if you were to ever have an issue arise.  If you were to ever have a problem with the spa shell surface for instance, there would be no charge to you and Marquis would swap out the spa for free with a new one.  If you lived on the east coast, the dealer has the option to charge you shipping to get a new spa shipped out.  Marquis is really known for honoring their warranty, unlike some companies in the industry.  Marquis has the only transferrable warranty among the big manufacturers, so if you ever sell your spa or your vacation house, the remaining warranty will transfer.

[Amanda_Panda]

Hello All,

I am currently shopping for a spa for my vacation home in Central Oregon, where the winter temperatures can drop to 0F and the snow can accumulate to 36" when I am not there to shovel it.  I am concerned about the maintenance of the spa while I am not there, which could be as long as several weeks.  I am interested in selecting a spa that requires as little maintenance as possible.  What features or options can help me achieve this goal?

Worse, I am worried about what happens if the GFCI breaker trips while I am away.  Full-foam or thermopane construction, either would freeze when the spa is without power for days.
I welcome any suggestions or comments regarding this issue.  Also, do any of you know if there is any product that would allow me to easily monitor my spa over the Internet?  If I could do this, at least I would KNOW if there was trouble, and call someone to go check it out.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Regards,

Altazi

Hey Altazi! Nice to see you in here.
If you are gone for several weeks, I recommend draining and following the directions for winterizing. There are some at home monitors but threy usually have a battey life of 10 hours or so... so best thing is to have a close neighbor keep an eye out if you will be gone for a week or so. There are folks thart make a living off of caring for a spa chemically and I'm sure you could set up someone like that to check a couple of times a week while you are gone if you didn't want to winterize it. There are sanitizing systems like the "genesis" salt system that are less maintenance but I still recommend to test the water weekly no matter WHAT low-maintenance system you have.

You could be a very rich man if you design and patent a system designed to monitor and care for your spa through a computer from a different state.
Bestof luck.

[Tman122]

Yes I will monitor your spa for you....where did you say you are. I do several for people here.

[Altazi]

Hello All,

MarKee, thanks for the clarification.  I'm certainly not a lawyer, but did I misread the warranty to come to the conclusion that I did?  What you described certainly makes more sense to me, and keeps the Marquis products on my short list.

Amanda (Panda), thanks for the kind welcome.  I don't believe you and I communicated on that OTHER forum.  I admit to being surprised that I have found such little mention of the remote monitoring of spas, and disappointed at the lack of such products.  Alas, someone has patented the concept of Internet spa monitoring, so anything I make myself will stay that way - mine alone.  Too bad the patent-owner appears to be just sitting on the patent.  Probably hoping to get rich by having someone else come along and license the rights.  Lazy a$$!!!

Tman122, my vacation home is in Sunriver.  It does seem like I will need to have some kind of maintenance / monitoring service.  First things first, though - still stuck on deck design & spa choice.

Not sure if I want the spa sitting on a slab, with the deck built up around the spa so the entry & exit is easy - this can make getting to the spa access panel(s) problematic.  I don't relish the idea of making a take-apart deck.

The alternative is to just put the spa ON the deck, and use a couple of external stairs.  Access to the spa panels is a cinch, but now the deck has to support the whole spa (& me in it!)

One of the requirements in Sunriver is that the spa be surrounded with a wall that blocks visibility (of naked bathers, one assumes).  This complicates things just a bit - I have to try to figure out how to put up the wall without blocking the spa delivery.  I DON'T want to make a take-apart wall!

Finally, I never suspected that I would have such a bewildering array of choices of spas - manufacturers, features, etc.  My head is spinning!  Oh, wait, that might be the wine from last night. . .

Regards,

Altazi

[Tman122]

I have some great solid ideas for removable panels that have worked well for me.

[Altazi]

Hi Tman122,

Nice deck!  Is that your personal set-up?  Where does the spa cover go when it's off?

I happened to see some Dimension One spas at a parking lot sale (put on by the local dealer), and saw how the cover lifter worked.  It was a smooth, one-hand operation, but the cover ends up folded in half right next to the hot tub, so I need to leave space for that to happen.

I am getting ideas about tub placement - I just have to start sketching. . .

Regards,

Altazi

[Tman122]

There is a cover butler on the side.



Flip the cover in half and slid it onto the arms as you enter the tub.

[Altazi]

Very nice!

A "Cover Butler"?  <sigh> So much to learn!!!!!

[Chas]

You already got one pitch for a dual breaker, which IMO might buy you a few hours, but if you don't have someone checking the tub, will just result in a more uniformly frozen tub by the time you get there.

Actually, if the heater trips it's breaker, the circ pump will keep running until you shut it off. In a mild climate, that circ pump can and will heat a spa to the mid 90's and hold it there. In freezing temps, it will do what it can to slow the temp drop, and it does one more very important thing: it keeps the motor compartment warmer. Not only does it generate a small amount of heat, it is pulling the hot water through the heater and the compartment.

Of course, if you do get a long term power outage you can just drain the thing. HS has a second drain which empties all of the plumbing for you.

[Tman122]

Hi Tman122,

Nice deck!  Is that your personal set-up?  Where does the spa cover go when it's off?

I happened to see some Dimension One spas at a parking lot sale (put on by the local dealer), and saw how the cover lifter worked.  It was a smooth, one-hand operation, but the cover ends up folded in half right next to the hot tub, so I need to leave space for that to happen.
I am getting ideas about tub placement - I just have to start sketching. . .

Regards,

Altazi

At the risk of sounding like a salesman, I also do a complete backyard evaluation and advise service just for this kind of thing. We plan decks, retaining walls, gazebo's and the entire back yard area to create an extension to your square footage in your house. And yes that is my deck.


Extra insulation!!!

Wish I knew how to resize these? Term?