Problems with Acrylic spas?

[Terileli]

We are in the market to buy our first spa. We visited a Custom Spa dealer and he showed us many horror stories on:

1. Acrylic spas: Chipping, fading, cracking
2. Full foam: leaks requiring removal of foam, rodents eating and nesting in foam
3. Warranty: Acrylic tub dealers voiding warranty if tub is exposed to sunlight or chemicals  (needed for pH balancing).

He strongly recommended a different material called Duraplexx, accessible plumbing and also a rodent barrier underneath the spa.

All sounds reasonable. The question that I have is how pevalant are these problems with the acrylic tubs and full foam tubs? What is the lifetime expected from an acrylic hottub? Any comments on the warranty issues?

Thanks

[jfish63]

I think your "custom spa dealer" over played some of the issues you are stating. What custom spa was this guy selling?

[drewstar]

Duraplex you say?

I dunno...  the only tub worth considering is made from  poly injected krptonconlite.      


he only Duraplex I ever heard of  is an acrylic product . This "dealer" sounds like he is hustling you.

What brand of tubswas this again?

I bet the tub had a TON of jets.

Run away fromt his guy as fast as you can.

[Spatech_tuo]

We are in the market to buy our first spa. We visited a Custom Spa dealer and he showed us many horror stories on:

1. Acrylic spas: Chipping, fading, cracking
2. Full foam: leaks requiring removal of foam, rodents eating and nesting in foam
3. Warranty: Acrylic tub dealers voiding warranty if tub is exposed to sunlight or chemicals  (needed for pH balancing).

He strongly recommended a different material called Duraplexx, accessible plumbing and also a rodent barrier underneath the spa.

All sounds reasonable. The question that I have is how pevalant are these problems with the acrylic tubs and full foam tubs? What is the lifetime expected from an acrylic hottub? Any comments on the warranty issues?

Thanks

I don't doubt that his pictures were real. If a spa has a failure rate for a certain issue of 1% but all you see are pictures of the failed spas but never see the other 99% you'd think that was a low quality product. If you sold Mercedes I'm sure there would be incidences where you sell a car that has real problems and it comes back to you as a lemon. If the BMW guy has a picture is it fair for him to show it to customers and say "see what their quality is like"?

You're getting a dose of salesmanship.

[Terileli]

Ok, so it is clear that the acrylic spa part of the question is 1% of the issue.  

What about the question of full foam vs. access to the plumbing? Are the Hot Spring and Jacuzzi and other manufacturers being discussed addressing this problem? Also the rodents nesting and eating the foam?

The company we talked to is LifeSpas (www.lifespas.com) and their tubs did not have tons of jets; the range was between 14-25 jets and the emphasis was on quality of the jet. Their primary emphasis was on the issues with Acrylic and Full Foam spas.

Thanks

[Terileli]

The warranty is also a concern if it gets voided for reasons like exposure to sunlight. How long do the manufacturers that you all are familiar with cover the plumbing, acrylic shell and motor/heater? Do they provide on-site diagnosis and repair?

Thanks

[Spatech_tuo]

Are the Hot Spring and Jacuzzi and other manufacturers being discussed addressing this problem? Also the rodents nesting and eating the foam?

The company we talked to is LifeSpas (www.lifespas.com) and their tubs did not have tons of jets; the range was between 14-25 jets and the emphasis was on quality of the jet. Their primary emphasis was on the issues with Acrylic and Full Foam spas.

Thanks

The only problem with the Hot springs and Jacuzzi (and Sundance and Marquis and ...) is that which the life Spas sales guy conjured up in his negative sales pitch. The reality is rodents love all spas, foam or not, because they love the warm areas within the spa. They will do their best to get inside. The better spa makers do address this by eliminating the ability for the varmints to find their way in. The better spa makers also are the ones that have very few leaks so don't buy into that foam dig story either.

Any time a spa salesman sells his spas on negative comments about the competition you should raise your eyebrows. If his spa is really that good he should be able to sell it on its own merits.

[Mendocino101]

Ok, so it is clear that the acrylic spa part of the question is 1% of the issue.  

What about the question of full foam vs. access to the plumbing? Are the Hot Spring and Jacuzzi and other manufacturers being discussed addressing this problem? Also the rodents nesting and eating the foam?

The company we talked to is LifeSpas (www.lifespas.com) and their tubs did not have tons of jets; the range was between 14-25 jets and the emphasis was on quality of the jet. Their primary emphasis was on the issues with Acrylic and Full Foam spas.

Thanks

Life Spas ?.....I must congratulate you as you have found the chance to do business with a company that is in the top 5 for well lets just they have a real interesting take on the Truth, I mean did you call on this 1995.00 spa advertised like it was from a private ad only to have to commit to a couple hour spa seminar with you and your spouse. Did they tell you that their "service techs" are so advanced in their training they can diagnose just about any problem you have with your spa over the phone and than inform you ...ITS WATER CHEMISTRY AND WILL NOT BE COVERED EVEN DURING THE FIRST YEAR....You might do worse but you are going to have to really really work at it to do so.

[Spatech_tuo]

The warranty is also a concern if it gets voided for reasons like exposure to sunlight. How long do the manufacturers that you all are familiar with cover the plumbing, acrylic shell and motor/heater? Do they provide on-site diagnosis and repair?

Thanks

The warranty for plumbing depends on the brand/models. Premium spas are normally about 5 years but that can vary. The other important thing with plumbing is buying it from a spa maker known for quality because some have very few incidences of leaks and others I may not be so confident on. Also, ask if the spa maker wet tests 100% of the spas they make (though I wonder if the sales guy would say 'no" if that was the case). You can pretty much expect the well known makers do run the spas with power & water but I know that not all spa makers do.

BTW, I assume you realize that the exposure to sunlight simply means you don't want to leave the spa open with NO WATER in it.

[Terileli]

Thank you all for your good insight.

Mendocino101, have you interacted with this company? They are in the top 5 of what?

The salesperson showed a copy of their warranty and it seemed to be straightforward coverage without disclaimers like water chemistry. There was a claim of high strength of their duraflexx material which was demonstrated by hammering against a well dented sample

The negative pitch was against all acrylic with full foam tubs for the issues mentioned.

Regards

[mattNY]

I'm going to quote spatech's post from another thread, since it lists what are generally recognized as some of the quality brands of tubs, vs. the many varieties of crap that will cost you money and heartache over time, and recommends wet testing, which is the only way to determine if a certain tub is right for *you*.

To some people they do compare favorably (and certainly you'd expect they would to the Coleman salesman or he should go elsewhere). There is no answer to the "which is the best" question. Visit the websites of the spa makers you've mentioned and see where their local dealers are located. Here is a list I saved from another post showing the dealer locator sections of the websites for a SOME of the more talked about spa makers (there are others and I added Coleman to it as well):

http://www.arcticspas.com
http://artesianspas.com/main/dealer_locator.asp
http://www.calderaspas.com/Locator/index.html
http://www.dimensiononespas.com/findadealer.asp
http://www.hotspring.com/index_spas_hot_spring.html
http://www.jacuzzi.com/products/
http://www.marquisspas.com/locator.asp
http://retailer.sundancespas.com/Retailers/index.php
http://www.colemanspas.com/content/show/home/

[ndabunka]

Thank you all for your good insight.

Mendocino101, have you interacted with this company? They are in the top 5 of what?

The salesperson showed a copy of their warranty and it seemed to be straightforward coverage without disclaimers like water chemistry. There was a claim of high strength of their duraflexx material which was demonstrated by hammering against a well dented sample

The negative pitch was against all acrylic with full foam tubs for the issues mentioned.

Regards

The reality is that 98% of all spa manufacturer's use acrylic.   The REASON they do this is NOT because of any inferiority of that substance but rather the benefits of that substance over "plastics" like that duraflex (durabilty, color retention over time, etc)

The Foam vs. Thermal Pane is a long and overused contention point buy less educated salesman (i.e. Spa Sales 101).  Again, the MAJORITY of large mfgs use foam simply BECAUSE it is the BEST insulator.  True, it DOES cost more to fill the cavity of a Spa with foam vs. "hot air" but that cost is a reasonable price to pay up front to save higher monthly cost related to many (not all) thermal pane spas.

Bottom line is that you get what you pay for.  The major players like Jacuzzi, Hot Springs, Maquis, Caldera, Dimension One, etc all cost more because in fact, they ARE better (In 95% of all cases)

[mattNY]

I looked through their website - the great thing is, their Dreamscape model is Full Foam!  Haha.  http://www.lifespas.com/html/dreamscape.htm

All poking fun at this company aside, I checked their BBB rating, they have a [link=http://www.labbb.org/BBBWeb/Forms/Business/CompanyReportPage_Expository.aspx?CompanyID=13114286]decent record[/link] in CA.  However, if $2000 is as high as you can go, I feel you'd be much better off with a used Hotsprings/Jacuzzi/D1/etc.

[Spiderman]

I looked through their website - the great thing is, their Dreamscape model is Full Foam!  Haha.  http://www.lifespas.com/html/dreamscape.htm
.

Yep, looks like a $2000 spa to me  

[hottubdan]

Interesting...

No warranty on web site.

They sell acrylic!