With summer temperatures in the 30s in Manitoba, you might not be thinking too much about your hot tub.
But some folks still enjoy a nice massage and don’t want to be boiling hot.
Or you might find that your hot tub’s temperature is too high and won’t come down.
The sun beating down on it won’t let it cool down and the heat from the pumps and equipment gives off heat as well. If it can’t escape, that extra heat is being transferred to the water.
In the winter this is fantastic, but as temperatures get above 30 degrees Celsius, it can be a problem.
And sometimes hot tubs are insulated a little TOO well in the summer.
So what do you do to fix a “too hot” hot tub?
Here are some tips for adapting your hot tub to the summer heat. If your hot tub is overheating, follow these steps.
- Turn down your temp
This one seems obvious, but it still needs to be said. Turning down the temperature will reduce the set point. The real value in this is checking the forecast and turning the temp down BEFORE it gets too hot to avoid overheating. If you can see we have a hot streak coming up, consider turning down the temp before it happens so the tub has a chance to cool ahead of time.
2. Let some hot air escape
Open up the cabinet for a few hours to let some hot air from the cabinet escape. In the winter, hot tubs are designed to retain heat very well, so you may need to take off a corner piece or a cabinet side (not in the rain) to let some of the hot air out and let the tub cool down a bit.
If you own a Hydropool hot tub, open the air vents on the sides of the tubs to let the air escape.
3. Add cold water
If you have some room in the tub, add some cold water from the hose to the tub. If you set your temperature low on your hot tub, then the heater will not kick in and it will help cool off the tub.
You can also leave the cover open to let some of the heat escape as well. Hot tub covers are well insulated to trap heat in the winter, so leaving the cover off for an hour or so will help cool it down as well
4. Adjust your filtration settings
Sometimes the heat from the pumps will not let the hot tub cool down, especially the Hydropool tubs that recapture some of the excess heat from the equipment.
You might want to adjust your filtration settings to run mainly at night so the pumps aren’t running as much during the hottest hours of the day.
A word of warning: you might have to play around with this a bit to get it right. If you don’t filter your water enough, it may become cloudy and skunky. So a rule of thumb might be to run the filtration cycles from 8 pm to 8 am.
5. “Summerize” your tub
Some folks just don’t use their tubs in the summer. We use ours year round at Urban Life and just keep the temp low. It can also be a great place for kids to play if the temp is set low enough.
But we have customers who “summerize” their hot tubs by shutting them down for the summer and opening them up again for the fall.
Just turn off the power, drain the water, blow out the plumbing lines and vacuum out any residual water. Or we can come do this as a service for you.
If the problem persists or the tub is getting to unsafe temperatures, you may have an underlying issue like a bad temp sensor or faulty heater element, so be sure to book a service call if you are getting error messages or the tub does not cool off, even in cooler weather.
