Hot Tub Forum
Original => Hot Tub Forum => Topic started by: iggythewetcat on January 25, 2006, 08:30:56 pm
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My HS Jetsetter is about a year and half old. IÕve routinely done water management with nary a problem. Today I went out to put some chemistry in, I believe calcium reducer. The water level was low, but not critical. It was just below the top of the four precision jets. My plan was to top the water up over the weekend when I had more time. I let the jets run, with the cover open for about an hour. I went out to add some chlorine and was surprised to see the jets sputtering or not working at all and the water about two inches lower. I freaked out, I couldnÕt figure what caused the water to disappear! This had never happened before. I called the dealer and explained my problem. He said why donÕt you try to determine where the leak is. You know, remove the door and see if thereÕs water there or any place else. I said, canÕt you do it? What do I know about this stuff? He said, it would cost about $75 an hour for them to come out to look. I replied, whatÕs the warranty for??? Ultimately I removed the door, looked around and could not determine where the water may have gone. I refilled the tub and all seems OK. Does anyone have a clue about what could have happened? Should I have expected more from my dealer?
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If it happens again and you see a big puddle - it's a leak. ;D
If it doesn't happen again, I'm guessing that some space aliens needed to fill their radiator up.
I don't think peaking inside your equipment area is asking for too much. In fact, I think it's a good idea. If you had mice or something worse building something in there, I doubt it would be covered by warranty.
For your sake, if you do lose a lot of water again - I hope it IS puddling inside your equipment area. The alternative (pipe or shell) is a much bigger pain in the neck.
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Well, first I think your expecting it to be a problem, when right now it is a question. I would suggest putting water in the spa to the proper level and see if everything is operation properly. Look for eveidence of wherewater could have gone. Is something wet? Check the equipment area.
Basically, your HS dealer is saying he wants to be paid for his trip or time to investigate what you can find out yourself. If you are losing water, it's got to be pretty obvious. If you fill it up and the water line stays the same for 24 hours and then a couple of days, then a week, well nothing is wrong.
Check it out, find out where the water went. If you find an obvious problem, then call your dealer back and let him know what you found.
Have you looked in the EQ area, can you see water anyplace. If your dealer did come out what would he do first, everything suggested above.
The warranty is to fix defects in material or workmanship and we really don't know what's wrong.
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Hmmm. If you were really down 2" in that short time frame you would see water around the spa. The sputtering jet are very typical when the water level gets down to the level of the highest jets. I bet the topping off takes care of it but you'll know very soon. After topping it off, run the pump(s) for 10 seconds to get any air out of the lines, turn them off, note the exact water level and cover the spa. Come back later tonight or in the morning and see where you are.
As far as the dealer goes, his thought is similar to mine that you very well may not have an issue so he wants you to confirm it before he sends someone out. I don't really blame at this point. If you really do have an issue then you will find out how good he is.
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I donÕt mean to sound like a whiner. I wouldnÕt ask the dealer to come out if the problem was even remotely obvious. ItÕs was difficult for me to determine if the tub had been leaking because we had about three inches of show which has been melting. It looks wet everywhere, but frankly I still think I would have noticed two inches worth of water somewhere. I mean that must translate to several gallons of water.
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I donÕt mean to sound like a whiner. I wouldnÕt ask the dealer to come out if the problem was even remotely obvious. ItÕs was difficult for me to determine if the tub had been leaking because we had about three inches of show which has been melting. It looks wet everywhere, but frankly I still think I would have noticed two inches worth of water somewhere. I mean that must translate to several gallons of water. Â
Iggy, relax, fill it up and let's see what happens. Â Given everything you say, with 3 inches of snow and all, what could you expect more of your dealer than what you can do as well, investigate. Â You may discover nothing, and it may not even loose water again. Â If it doesn't lose water again, and he finds nothing, it looks like he would like you to pay him for his time. Â It seems reasonable.
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One or more of the jets may have simply gotten close enough to the surface of the water to shoot over the side of the tub. If you did see water, it could be some distance away. Once the level got low enough for the jet system to suck air, it began 'surging.' I would simply fill the thing and let it go.
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and look around for space alien tracks in the snow.
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Those darn Hot Spring! Always attracting aliens. ;D
Watkins really does have an awesome marketing program!! ;)
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Clearly there were no alien tracks but several squirrels looked guilty and bloated. My suspicions are that Chas is might be right, but itÕs still pretty weird if you ask me. ???
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wmccall, what's up with the strange characters?
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Letting your jets run for about an hour in the cold with the cover open may have caused enough evaporation to drop the level a couple of inches. Once it gets below the top jets, it just adds to the situtation.
I know someone who was away for a few days and his cover blew half open while it was cold. He came back to a half full spa with frozen jets above the water line. Lucky to have no damage, but this was caused by evaporation.
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If you had the cover off, could the sputter jets sputtered the water out of the tub?
Dont be too hard on the dealer. The warrenty doesn't include running out to your house for every problem/issue/question. It covers replacing broken parts that have failed. Usually (and I too was surprised when I first learned this), a service fee, above and beyond anything under warrenty is charged to the consumer. This occurs not only in the HotTub industry, but also in applaince repair and in the Automotvie industry (Get your car fixed under the manufactuers warrenty, and you will still pay a $50 co-pay, even though you brought the car in).
Some dealers don't explain this up front and cause some confuion (and annoyance/frustration) when a customer calls and learns that every single little thing is not going to be covered with an emergency repsonse team. :^)
I have had great luck with my dealer via e-mail. They are very responsive to talking with me throughe-mail on parts and service and answering questions. I don't tie up thier phones. It works great.
Good luck with the leak/water issue. Please keep us informed!
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OK here’s the bottom line, the water is exactly where it was yesterday afternoon after toping the tub off. One of two things must have happened:
1. It DID leak and a squirrel preformed a miracle.
2. It probably was a combination of low flying jets shooting the water out of the tub and evaporation.
I just never would have thought two inches worth of water could literally evaporate in an hour.
Gomboman
RE: strange characters
Were you referring to certain individuals on this forum or the things showing up in my writing? If it was the latter I may have the answer. I often type my emails in MS Word first so I won’t have the bad spelling mistakes you often see here. I then cut and paste and obviously something doesn’t translate. Probably because it’s coming from a MS product, but that’s another forum!
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BTW, I don’t mean any disrespect of the tech people on this forum but don’t you think $75 an hour is somewhat expensive to repair a hot tub? In these parts costs are as follows:
Electricians=$100 per hour
Plumbers=$85 per hour
Master Carpenters=$45 per hour
Not to take anything away from hot tub technicians, but is the level of training and difficulty comparable to the occupations listed above?
The hot tub guy store is about 4 miles from my house. I agree he can’t just run over everyone’s house at the drop of a hat. However, I just walked in his store one day and bought my hot tub on the drop of a hat, and I buy all my chemicals etc there not online like lots of people. Maybe an offer of a courtesy call to my house would have been nice?
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Nope, $75 dollars isn’t bad. I am sure they are probably losing money on the deal.
1.How many hottub repairmen are there compared to those other professions? It is simple economics of supply and demand.
2.The consumer needs to use a factory-trained repairman or your warranty will be voided.
3.A trained technician needs to understand both electronics and plumbing.
4.How much does it cost to get to a house just for gas?
5.How much insurance for the car cost per service call?
6.How much does the repairman get per hour of work?
I am an accountant and get between $100 and $200 an hour. That is cheap for accounting services.
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I agree with Chris H...when I was a field service tech for a major industrial pump / compressor company, we charged 75/hr and had trouble covering costs even at that. Commercial insurance rates can be very high, as are fuel costs. Also, the techs may not be able to bill out 8 hours every day, and their salary has to come from somewhere :)
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Electricians=$100 per hour
Plumbers=$85 per hour
Master Carpenters=$45 per hour
Not to take anything away from hot tub technicians, but is the level of training and difficulty comparable to the occupations listed above?
Spa techs are highly trained. And if they do good they get a banana. ;D ;) ;D
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BTW, I don’t mean any disrespect of the tech people on this forum but don’t you think $75 an hour is somewhat expensive to repair a hot tub? In these parts costs are as follows:
Electricians=$100 per hour
Plumbers=$85 per hour
Master Carpenters=$45 per hour
Not to take anything away from hot tub technicians, but is the level of training and difficulty comparable to the occupations listed above?
The hot tub guy store is about 4 miles from my house. I agree he can’t just run over everyone’s house at the drop of a hat. However, I just walked in his store one day and bought my hot tub on the drop of a hat, and I buy all my chemicals etc there not online like lots of people. Maybe an offer of a courtesy call to my house would have been nice?
Yea, I do think it's a bit high. but....
Although, I do understand. My friend owns an appliance repair business and he charges $65 just to show up at your house and 75$ an hour for work. You have to keep in mind he doens't earn $75 an hour. That money covers travel time, gas insurance, the store, the phones, the guy who answers the phone and the time he puts in stocking his store, researching parts and looking up schematics, etc etc etc. (Say he gets 4 hours of billable servive hours in. between driving around town, and back and forth to the shop. At $75 an hour the company has made $300 for the day. Start to deduct overhead and costs, and you'll see the tech is making more like $100 a day. he aint getting rich.
Sears does the Exact same thing. Buy a brand new Stove and it breaks? $65 bucks to get the guy out there, unless you want to bring in your stove to thier repair center.
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Not to take anything away from hot tub technicians, but is the level of training and difficulty comparable to the occupations listed above?
This is a very specialized field. You cannot just go slapping new parts in to any old tub and hope it works.
You are welcome to find anyone else to fix your spa, but usually the dealer can do it more efficiently.
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This is a very specialized field. You cannot just go slapping new parts in to any old tub and hope it works.
You are welcome to find anyone else to fix your spa, but usually the dealer can do it more efficiently.
Small nit, no a customer who wants to keep his warrenty intact cannot find just anyone else to do it. I am not welcomed to find anyone else to do it.
It's frustrtaing to shell out $$ to get a warrentied item repaired, but it seems to be the way of all business's today.
I do understand the economics of it all, but what I find frustrating is with some repair centers i've delt (and this is not exclusive to hot tub repair, although i have had problems) with is thier lack of apprecaition of my time and costs.
I pay to have a service call on a warrenty item that you sold me, and in order for me to be home, requires that i take time off from my job. So not only do I have to pay the repair tech $65 to show up, ussualy I have to take a day (or at least half a day) off to accomodate you. I don't get paid that day. So, my warrentied item just cost me several hundred dollars in service fees and lost income.
What makes it worse is when they don't have the part in stock and after comming out and diagnosing the problem, you tell me "We'll be back next week". (sure no charge, just another lost day of pay for me). >:( In some cases, some products just aren't worth it to fix!
One time after arranging for both my wife and I to be home to meet with a hot tub technician at my home, they cancelled at the last minute because they had to do inventory. I flipped out.
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I understand an applicaple trip charge for a warranty service call, 25-50 $ depending on the distance traveled. This is at the dealers discretion per the Hotspring warranty. But a 1.5 year old Jetsetter still under warranty that has a possible leak (Which is unlikely, unless it is a bad ozone check valve), the dealer is required to fufill the warranty, Parts & Labor. I do understand the dealer trying to diagnose over the phone with the customer to get a better idea of the issue rather than travel to the customers house uneccesarily for a courtesy call. The dealer gets paid for discovery hours on a leak while a spa is under warranty. $75.00 and hour while under warranty is ludicriss(spelling). Granted, this customer most likely had a low water level that constituted 2" of displacement water shooting from the jets.
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It is not the dealership's fault that someone needs to be home. A hottub outside with the GFCI outside as well does not need anyone home.
I personally hate that dealerships charge a service charge for a warranty call. The only thing I could see is if the call is more than an hour out of the way or the customer demands service on a day when we are not in their area. Then I think a travel charge is ok.
The other side of the coin is that this should all be in a document that the customer signed so they are aware of the charges. If you were aware of the charges, there is no reason to complain.
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It is not the dealership's fault that someone needs to be home. A hottub outside with the GFCI outside as well does not need anyone home.
I personally hate that dealerships charge a service charge for a warranty call. The only thing I could see is if the call is more than an hour out of the way or the customer demands service on a day when we are not in their area. Then I think a travel charge is ok.
The other side of the coin is that this should all be in a document that the customer signed so they are aware of the charges. If you were aware of the charges, there is no reason to complain.
Serijacal, I wasn't directing my flame at you speficifally. And sure, it's not anyone's fault that I have to be home, but nothing upsets me more is a service team that seems to be indiffernt to thier customers about the costs to have the new product fixed.
Given that, though I can see why a dealer would say "Check this out before you have me come out" That's a good thing in my book. As well as if they say "lets try to figure it out before I come out. At least if I do have to come out, I should have the parts". I am all for that. :)
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It is well within the dealers right to charge $75 for mileage, but not within his right to charge $75 an hour for a spa under warranty. There may have been a communication problem there.
Quite honestly, I know of two dealers that last year started charging a low rate for mileage. One is $20 and the other is $35. Both dealers said it has cut out the bullshit service calls they used to receive. That is probably the best reason to charge for mileage.
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It is well within the dealers right to charge $75 for mileage, but not within his right to charge $75 an hour for a spa under warranty. There may have been a communication problem there.
Quite honestly, I know of two dealers that last year started charging a low rate for mileage. One is $20 and the other is $35. Both dealers said it has cut out the bullshit service calls they used to receive. That is probably the best reason to charge for mileage.
To clear it up, I was talking about repair techs for all products in general. No. I would not expect to pay for labor on an item under warrenty, and don't belive any reputable dealer of any product would. Sorry if I had confused any one. I thought i had chosen my words carefully.
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And sure, it's not anyone's fault that I have to be home, but nothing upsets me more is a service team that seems to be indiffernt to thier customers about the costs to have the new product fixed.
Agreed. (if I was a little blunt with my earlier response, I apologize) A dealership should be able to work with you to get a time that works best for both for you. During busy service seasons, this can be difficult sometimes.
Like you said, a dealer wants to be as prepared as possible before they come out. The more information you can get them, the less likely they are to have to make a return call.
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On the original problem, the jetsetter only holds 200 gallons so it doesn't take much to lower it a couple of inches.
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This occurs not only in the HotTub industry, but also in applaince repair and in the Automotvie industry (Get your car fixed under the manufactuers warrenty, and you will still pay a $50 co-pay, even though you brought the car in).
Interesting, I've never had to pay a "copay" for bringing any of my vehicles back for repair under the manufacturer's warranty. (I've seen some non-manufacturer's warranty that inlcude this) What make of cars do you own??
At least in my area, Northern VA, the pratice of including a "trip charge" varies with the dealer... but I had to specifically ask to get them to tell me about it when I was shopping. And even then some dealers tried to talk around it and didnt; want to direclty admit that they would charge it.
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I've said it before, we cover a HUGE territory (NE Texas and NW Louisiana). Â We've NEVER charged a trip fee or charged a customer who had a spa under warranty. Â Our service department makes a small profit, but we consider it to be part of doing business. Â None of our competitors in our market even have service departments, they subcontract everything. Â That is one reason why we OWN our market.
HotSpring is very generous in compensating us for warranty work. Â If other companies fall short of that mark, it's just one more reason why HS has been the #1 selling spa in the world for 20 straight years. If the individual dealers can't make due with what they're being given, then they need to take a look at their overall business plan, in my opinion.
Terminator
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Just remember that my posts mean even less than Brooke's ;), at this point as my tub hasn't yet even made it into my possession, but that being said, just thought I'd share that my HS dealer said that there would be no trip charges for service calls that are under warranty. I like the sound of that since he is two hours away from where I live. Hopefully I won't have to test that statement out any time soon. And hopefully, by this time tonight, I will have a tub warming up on my patio ;D.
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I've said it before, we cover a HUGE territory (NE Texas and NW Louisiana). æWe've NEVER charged a trip fee or charged a customer who had a spa under warranty. æOur service department makes a small profit, but we consider it to be part of doing business. æNone of our competitors in our market even have service departments, they subcontract everything. That is one reason why we OWN our market.
HotSpring is very generous in compensating us for warranty work. If other companies fall short of that mark, it's just one more reason why HS has been the #1 selling spa in the world for 20 straight years. If the individual dealers can't make due with what they're being given, then they need to take a look at their overall business plan, in my opinion.
Terminator
Please be careful slamming other dealers. Cost of doing business is different in different parts of the country. Quite frankly, as far as I know, Watkins compensation for warranty is the most generous in the industry, and it still falls short of break even.
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Please be careful slamming other dealers. Â Cost of doing business is different in different parts of the country. Â Quite frankly, as far as I know, Watkins compensation for warranty is the most generous in the industry, and it still falls short of break even. Â
Not slamming anyone, my friend. As I said, it's just my opinion. I'd be amazed to find a handful of dealers that service as large a territory as we do. Yet, we don't charge a trip fee. Why would anyone do so?
Terminator
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The service end of the business generally is not profitable until the spa is out of warranty. As I said earlier, I also think it relieves the business from bullshit service calls. That alone makes it profitable.
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Please be careful slamming other dealers. Cost of doing business is different in different parts of the country. Quite frankly, as far as I know, Watkins compensation for warranty is the most generous in the industry, and it still falls short of break even.
I didn't get the opinion that Term was slamming others.
I will say that Watkins pays $15 per hour less than I charge for non-warranty work, but I can spend a few moments with the customer on the phone and then tell my service guy exactly what to look at first, and what to take with him. I am right the vast majority of the time - the tubs are easy to troubleshoot and easy to repair. Most Watkins warranty calls last about ten to twenty minutes.
As a result, our service department is profitable, andtends to feed our sales floor.