Education on Arctic Spas

[Tman122]

Can any of you heat your tubs up to 104 and then unplug your heaters for however long the tub stays on the floor, and yes I do open the cover most of the day which results in temperature falling through out the day to around 98 degrees if the cover is off all day, then it is back to 104 by the next morning, so how can you argue that the pumps don't heat, or aid in heating water. The facts are facts.

Yes my insulation skeem has temperature creep also. About 3-4 degrees during 10-30 degree days. Problem is I only need 4 hours of filtration and it takes 6 to get this creep with 4 hours I get 1-3 degrees. but what about the 16 hours a day the motor isn't running?

[wetone]

I understand though, I would hate to have to live with the fear of facing a superiour product as well,  

Hmmm... the local dealer that used to sell Arctic now sells Jaccuzi Premium, why, they had a hard time competing with: Beachcomber, Hydropool, Hot springs, Sundance, Coleman, and all the other brand names sold here. Not because Arctic is not good, but, the sales pitch was so far out that most consumers here seen right through the fluf.

I would love to see them back in town, perminantly, not just a tent sale for a weekend.

[Chris_H]

I am still waiting on my education on Artic Spas.  Please teach me on the benefits and superiority of this brand because I don’t see that you have answered many of the questions asked of you.

[HotTubMan]

Can any of you heat your tubs up to 104 and then unplug your heaters for however long the tub stays on the floor, and yes I do open the cover most of the day which results in temperature falling through out the day to around 98 degrees if the cover is off all day, then it is back to 104 by the next morning, so how can you argue that the pumps don't heat, or aid in heating water. The facts are facts.

I haven't read the whole thread yet, but to this point I did not see anyone say that. People hear "heat the tub to 104 degrees with no heater" and walk out of the arctic store thinking they dont need a heater. That is the "bunk" that was being referred to.

I agree with another poster here in this thread. The tubs seem good. I have not heard of numerous complaints about the product. Its the pitch everyone objects to!

[HotTubMan]

Also I will have to look into hydro-pool I am not familiar with that product, I am sure there will be alot of similar design to an Arctic coming out, or already out there.

WHAT! Do you think Arctic invented thermal lock or something? Coleman did it for ten years before Arctic made one tub. I am not sure, but I doubt Coleman was the first either.

So isn't Arctic the copy-cat?

[wmccall]

Get your last digs in now  I will probably lock this thread by the end of the day.  Any individual issues can be discussed in new threads.   While quick to defend the original poster and wanting to welcome an expert on a spa brand I know nothing about, it seems that the only purpose of this thread is to be adversarial.  It may even have become a hit and run thing.

As moderator, I welcome info and news about lots of brands I have never owned and I'm sure soon to be owners will appreciate reading these threads and taking them on face value.  However, this one seems to be going no where.

[HotTubMan]

agreed altough i wish he would return to answer the questions posed. sorry for the lack of puctuation, hard to type with a baby in hand

[wmccall]

. sorry for the lack of puctuation, hard to type with a baby in hand

Or with 2345s=tg a 14 pound cat 245y8hyhfhahe  walking across the  efh3-93h- keyboard.

[stuart]

Get your last digs in now  I will probably lock this thread by the end of the day.  Any individual issues can be discussed in new threads.   While quick to defend the original poster and wanting to welcome an expert on a spa brand I know nothing about, it seems that the only purpose of this thread is to be adversarial.  It may even have become a hit and run thing.

As moderator, I welcome info and news about lots of brands I have never owned and I'm sure soon to be owners will appreciate reading these threads and taking them on face value.  However, this one seems to be going no where.

That's fine however make sure that Stabone has an opportunity to answer some of the questions if he PM's you and is nice about it.  

Most of us really do want answers as to what how and why Arctic does what they do....

[Chas]

Well, as a final post from me on this, let me say this:

The 'controversy' over FF vs. TP is overblown. Take a close look - the biggest players have moved away from TP and toward FF. But if you take any well-designed tub - FF or TP and put it in your backyard, it will heat and stay hot. And most end up costing about the same to run. I'm not speaking about the various poorly insulated tubs commonly sold through mass merchants or online. Some of those have no real insulation, and no real design for heat retention. Those babies can eat you out of house and home on the power bill.

Some of the TP spas - not all - will require a little changing of the filtering time as the season changes, but that becomes a part of the normal life with that spa as much as any other care and maintenance item. Some will get hotter as you run the jets - too hot in some cases - so you simply adjust the time you run jets, run the blower, or whatever.

My FF spa requires that I open the lid every day during a heat spell, or engage the 'summer timer.' It's not onerous, it's not a 'design flaw,' it's just part of living with a spa which keeps the heat in as well as mine does.

However, in response to 'bone' and his method - I see trouble ahead for any company who tries to make claims which cannot be substantiated.

[stuart]

I think he just "Had a Bone to Pick" with all of us for beating up on his brand... (sorry I couldn't resist)

[wmccall]

Well, as a final post from me on this, let me say this:

The 'controversy' over FF vs. TP is overblown. Take a close look - the biggest players have moved away from TP and toward FF. .

In the Forestry industry, I think this is called, setting a backfire to put out the original fire.  It doesn't always work however  

[Mendocino101]

I do not see where anyone really beat up anyone here...nor was anyone taking personal shots at anyone...more than anything real questions  were asked that we not addressed but plenty of bold statements were made....

[wmccall]

I do not see where anyone really beat up anyone here...nor was anyone taking personal shots at anyone...more than anything real questions  were asked that we not addressed but plenty of bold statements were made....

Probably correct, that is why I said the end of the day, all questions will probably be posted by then.  I just don't see them getting answered.  The thread will not be deleted and will probably remain forever

[stuart]

I do have some final comments:

I'm amazed at the lack of common sense used in most of the rebuttals by arctic people. If they want to be more recognized in the industry then have a more productive presentation then just marketing.

I also agree that the product probably has it’s merits however, I find myself picking it apart simply because of their hostile and borderline unethical style of selling.

I have said many times that spending money on things like aluminum cabinets while the filtration is still substandard is crazy. Redesigning your whole spa cabinet should have meant taking rails off that collect debris and bacteria in addition to allowing moisture into the foam.

I had a debate earlier in the month with JP Keirstead the VP of marketing for Arctic, a short time latter stabone pops up. I had a similar situation on spasearch last year and the board was suddenly flooded with arctic salespeople defending their brand. I believe you will see them attempt something similar here..…

Here is my comments that set JP off

My biggest issue with the way that Arctic insulates is that they spray all of they foam on the inside wall of the cabinet. By not filling the void they allow the weight of the foam to pull against the cabinet and then encourage more weight from water by adding several places on the cabinet to bring in moisture(i.e. rails top/bottom and door panels that bolt against rather than fit in the cabinet wall). In addition, by doing it this way they don’t provide any sound deadening nor support for the hoses and jets. They tout the fact that they are the only manufacture to use “Reflex Torsion hose” and are proud of that. I have news for you, with around 200 manufactures someone else would have picked it up if it was that good, it was available to all of us. The sheer nature of that type plumbing makes it harder to work with, glue and more in need of support, it’s bigger and heavier than standard PVC…
 
Let’s look at the heating system; first off, most of their marketing and sales pitch states that they can heat the spa without a heating element yet they put an expensive proprietary element in anyway, is this just to add cost? Many, many manufactures have tried to coat the element with Teflon and titanium but the failure rate made them quit. An example of that type of coating would be a Teflon coated skillet that you replace every year, the coating will and does come off!
 
Now, how about the “forever floor”? My first comment to that is I think it was absolutely unethical to sell it to the consumer the way they did when it came out. Did you get the “Ants in the cabinet pitch”? Over half of the dealers in the US were using that pitch which leads me to believe that it came from a factory level but regardless, if you understand the properties of fiberglass you would understand why putting a fiberglass base on the ground is a bad idea, have you ever heard of a substance called Cobalt?  
 
All in all Arctic might have their place however it’s my opinion that everything on their spa is much more marketing oriented then engineering oriented and their sales pitch borderlines unethical.  

You can see the whole thing by going to

http://www.whatsthebest-hottub.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=wtb-hottub;action=display;num=1100481772;start=30