Bargain Hot Tubs
Cheapest hot tubs and a lowest cost deal are two totally different things. In car terms the Tata Nano is supposedly the cheapest car in the world, designed and built that way with low costmanufacture in mind. Built to look good and sold cheap. Incidentally Tata from India now own and manufacture Jaguar but we cannot compare a Jag with a Nano!
Best Hot Tub Deals UK
There are cheap hot tubs made to sell at the cheapest possible price and the finish may be such that they look as good as an exclusive luxury spa but as the old saying goes, ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’.
Because a hot tub is cheap, it doesn’t mean it is rubbish. It may be the manufacturer has microscopic overheads, no wages to pay and methods that keep the costs down to rock bottom.
How can a hot tub manufacturer cut costs in order to make the cheapest hot tubs in the UK?
The acrylic may be thinner and the ebd finish could have less detail, so compare the overall appearance.
(Aristech Acrylics and Lucite are the main branded acrylics.)
If the hot tub inner is too thin how would the hot tub perform under the stress of hundreds of gallons of hot water and a few adults? Ask for a wet test … that is a full blown swimming costume test with friends and family. Make sure the hot tub you are testing is the same as the one you are buying. What is the point in testing the top of the range, state-of-the-art hot tub and then paying for the cheapest bargain hot tub?
If the shell sits on the cabinet rim it is not really suitable for the UK weather because water rests on the wooden plinth around the top of the cabinet. These ‘puddles’ not only cause unsightly water marks, but eventually could cause rotting and splitting.
If the shell overlaps the cabinet rim creating a lip, although more expensive in manufacturing, the water to falls away from the cabinet and provides far less maintenance.
The cabinet itself may not be solid wood but don’t let this put you off because if it is pine, spruce or redwood it may not be so good for UK weather and could suffer from damp and rot unless fully treated inside and out. Mahogany is more suitable for UK weather conditions but far more expensive.
Synthetic wood offers better anti-rot and pest resistance compared with genuine cedar and mahogany, and will never need sanding or treating.
Superior synthetic hot tub cabinets are indistinguishable from real wood, beware of foil-wrapped fibre board, it may not last.
So, cost cutting can be made in the cabinet without compromising appearance.
The other two important factors are insulation and heating.
Insulation isn’t just about keeping the hot tub hot, perimeter insulation creates a protective insulated wall around the spa cabinet. It only locks the heat inside just like your home, but the pumps, heaters, and plumbing are also insulated.
Pumps that are over insulated could risk over heating so many full foam spas have foam on just three sides of the hot tub and nothing on the 4th. This way the pumps are cool, the pipes around the equipment are also cold, and so is one wall of the spa.
Some hot tub manufacturers spray about 10mm of foam onto the spa shell. This insulates the shell slightly, but not enough as it may leave all the pumps and pipes exposed to the elements. What happens when the heater and pump are activated? the freezing cold water that has been sat in the pipes could be foreced back through the jets! Expect a shock of freezing cold water about your bare person!
Foam can degrade and break down into a yellow dust over a period of time. Where it is sprayed as a 10mm layer onto the back of a shell, be mindful that as the shell heats and cools, it also expands and contracts. This means that the movement could cause pieces to crack and fall off.
A solution to the above is for some manufacturers to support the shell by turning the hot tub upside-down and pumping the entire spa with foam. It makes perfect sense but in the fullness of time the foam may brea down and start to sag, equally if there is a leak or other problem, access will be difficult.
Hot Tub Heaters
Heating is a very important issue. If a hot tub is described as having a ‘Heat Recovery’ system, it generally means it has no heater! – The water around the pump is heated from the hot pump, so it sounds good and appears to be economical but at the same time as it is taking the heat from the pump, and it also cools it, so surely cannot generate sufficient heat to bring the temperature up to the comfort required. It may be good for maintaining temperature when the spa is not in use, but as soon as the cover is opened and the jets are turned on, you will feel the temperature drop.
The same applies to smaller 1.5kw electric heaters because they will struggle to keep-up in colder weather.
So what is an adequate heater specification for a hot tub?
If the heater is specified as 5 or 5.5kw, it is a safe bet that it was are generally quoted for the US market where they run on 110v. The system is likely to have been modified rather than designed specifically for the UK market, it may not be reliable.
A UK hot tub heater ought to be between 2 and 3.5 kw but it isn’t unusual to have a 6kw heater in a large hot tub or swim spa.
Armed with these important snippets you might grab yourself a genuine hot tub bargain and buy the cheapest spa in the UK !
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