Chas
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2005
- Messages
- 6,481
- Reaction score
- 0
Well, we have thirteen shiny new Caldera spas on our brand-new showroom floor. I thought it was about time I did a wet test. Sheesh - some folks would have done this before buying just ONE!
Here are my thoughts from the wet test last night:
It was about 9pm. The store isn't officially open yet, but even if it was this would be an 'after hours' test soak. The isles are stacked with boxes of patio furniture and there is a scaffold tower just over there. The spa has a big fat cable snaking across the floor and a sub-panel lays prone with it's face open to the passing observer like some sort of electrical casualty in a retail war. There's most likely electrical blood all over, but fortunately it's invisible to the naked eye...
The spa is a Utopia Niagra. The system can automatically turn on the lights inside and outside of the spa everyday for you, and somebody has triggerd that so the tub is sitting in a glow of color-changing light washing around the floor on three sides as we enter the darkened building and begin putting towells onto the waiting towell rack.
A small problem arises, as I asked the guys to fill and wire the Aquatic Melodies Elation right next to it, but they have no idea which spa is which yet, so I now see that they filled the wrong tub. No real problem, eventually I want to try them all...
No lifter for the lid yet, so we slide the cover easily over onto the spa in the next display and begin trying to figure out how to run one of these things. Wow - what a major difference from a HotSpring tub! What's this air button do? Oh - that looks like a real selling tool there... as a cloud of chlorine odor wafts up to meet our noses.
And the light system is very different: to get it to change color you have to make use of the owners manual. Well, we did anyway. Turns out you hold the 'set' button and then tap the light button to start and stop the color-change. You can pause it on the color you like or let it do it's own thing. It dims just like a HotSpring: tap the light button once and it comes on full bright. Each following tap of the button yeilds a 20% decrease of the light inside the spa until it acheives oneness with the dark of night..
Suit on, towell at the ready and both my daughter and my wife chicken out. I guess the store isn't familiar enough yet, and there are large glass doors nearby, so we have a fine example of why some customers simply will not do a wet test. We are still building, and there will be a 'mood room' at the other end of the shooroom with two running spas in it ASAP. They say they can wait.
I hop in. Actually, the guys put quite a bit of water in this tub, and I carry a lot of weight to a tub... that is, I am overflow-challenged in most tubs. But this one is large, and easily handles the rise in water level as I slide gently in.
The tub is set for 101 as I enter, and I noted that after running the jets (both pumps) and trying everything out for about a half hour, the temp is now 102. I do like the fact that there is a read-out of actual spa temperature. Same control system does not offer that in a HotSpring...
I think that the temp change was all in the 'mind' of the control system. They put a temp sensor in the wall of the spa. It is quite likely that the water in that area of the tub may not be in motion as much as it should be for the thing to get an accurate reading. Once the jets and blower are active, the water moves around much more - of course- and I guess the probe gets a better 'idea' of the temp of the water. Hmm.
Continued when I get the time...
Here are my thoughts from the wet test last night:
It was about 9pm. The store isn't officially open yet, but even if it was this would be an 'after hours' test soak. The isles are stacked with boxes of patio furniture and there is a scaffold tower just over there. The spa has a big fat cable snaking across the floor and a sub-panel lays prone with it's face open to the passing observer like some sort of electrical casualty in a retail war. There's most likely electrical blood all over, but fortunately it's invisible to the naked eye...
The spa is a Utopia Niagra. The system can automatically turn on the lights inside and outside of the spa everyday for you, and somebody has triggerd that so the tub is sitting in a glow of color-changing light washing around the floor on three sides as we enter the darkened building and begin putting towells onto the waiting towell rack.
A small problem arises, as I asked the guys to fill and wire the Aquatic Melodies Elation right next to it, but they have no idea which spa is which yet, so I now see that they filled the wrong tub. No real problem, eventually I want to try them all...
No lifter for the lid yet, so we slide the cover easily over onto the spa in the next display and begin trying to figure out how to run one of these things. Wow - what a major difference from a HotSpring tub! What's this air button do? Oh - that looks like a real selling tool there... as a cloud of chlorine odor wafts up to meet our noses.
And the light system is very different: to get it to change color you have to make use of the owners manual. Well, we did anyway. Turns out you hold the 'set' button and then tap the light button to start and stop the color-change. You can pause it on the color you like or let it do it's own thing. It dims just like a HotSpring: tap the light button once and it comes on full bright. Each following tap of the button yeilds a 20% decrease of the light inside the spa until it acheives oneness with the dark of night..
Suit on, towell at the ready and both my daughter and my wife chicken out. I guess the store isn't familiar enough yet, and there are large glass doors nearby, so we have a fine example of why some customers simply will not do a wet test. We are still building, and there will be a 'mood room' at the other end of the shooroom with two running spas in it ASAP. They say they can wait.
I hop in. Actually, the guys put quite a bit of water in this tub, and I carry a lot of weight to a tub... that is, I am overflow-challenged in most tubs. But this one is large, and easily handles the rise in water level as I slide gently in.
The tub is set for 101 as I enter, and I noted that after running the jets (both pumps) and trying everything out for about a half hour, the temp is now 102. I do like the fact that there is a read-out of actual spa temperature. Same control system does not offer that in a HotSpring...
I think that the temp change was all in the 'mind' of the control system. They put a temp sensor in the wall of the spa. It is quite likely that the water in that area of the tub may not be in motion as much as it should be for the thing to get an accurate reading. Once the jets and blower are active, the water moves around much more - of course- and I guess the probe gets a better 'idea' of the temp of the water. Hmm.
Continued when I get the time...
