Essential Bath

Planning permission is not normally required for items of a relocatable/temporary nature like a Hot tub or Swim Spa, however, if you live in an area of outstanding natural beauty, or listed property or a conservation area you please seek advice from your local council and planners before installing your pool or spa.

To install your hot tub, you only need to worry about three things: a solid, level area to stand it on, a power outlet, and a hose pipe to fill it up with. If you plan to sink the spa, there will be the added consideration of access to the component door for servicing, so do bear that in mind when planning and preparing your base. Always get full installation instructions from us, for specific advice on sinking the model you have purchased.

You have a choice for us to delivery or pick up yourself. Most Hot tubs are very heavy, so if you intend to move one yourself make sure you have plenty of help and good sledges/trailers to help move the spa. It is common to put a Hot tub on its side for moving but take care not to put it on the pumps side as the door on most Hot tubs are easily opened. Hire a trailer or flat bed to drive from one address to another if you do this yourself, most Hot tubs will not fit in a Luton or a Transit van. If in doubt arrange for us to deliver and install.

Firstly, we must remember hot tub heaters vary considerably, from 1KW up to 6KW, and the volume of water to be heated varies, as does the mains water temperature from summer to winter. As an example, let’s look at a 300 gallon hot tub with a 1.5kW heater, with summer temperature mains water. You should expect this to be hot in about 20 hours initially. Bigger spas, different heaters and winter mains water will all have longer or shorter heating times. A final point – hot tubs are designed to be hot 24/7. Once a hot tub is hot you, are only ever topping up lost heat. A 1.5KW heater will put about 3 degrees of heat into a spa per hour, so a typical 1/2 hour use will drop the spa temperature about 1 degree, meaning it will take about 20 minutes to recover.

Hot tubs are made in many different ways using many different materials. The least expensive designs will cost about £5 a week to own, up to £30 for other designs. Why the huge difference? Spas with a Thermal cover help keep heat in the best. Most heat escapes from the top so a good quality thermal cover will save you loads of money. Is the spa insulated with foam or reflective materials? If it is not, then your expensive heat is just floating off into the garden. Hot tubs are designed to be kept hot 24/7. If they are built correctly, an average 300 gallon hot tub used 1/2 hour per day, every day, with an average 15p per kW energy cost will cost the owner about £260 a year. Larger hot tubs with more surface area and longer use periods, in colder climates like Scotland, and with higher energy costs, will cost more.

Adding Ozone to the spa water after the heater as part of the circulation system is quite normal. The Ozone generator creates very high levels of ozone which in turn oxidises bacteria in the circulation system. If you do not have an Ozone system then you will use more sanitizer like Chlorine. Note UV Ozone system need to have a new bulb every year! CD ozone systems last longer but generally need changing every 5 years or so.

As a rule you should change your water every 3 to 4 months. Some times if the spa has had a lot of use it may be a good idea to change the water more often than this. The problem is TDS Total dissolved solids, just like a cup of tea if you keep putting in sugar there will come a time that it just does not dissolve. Same with a Hot tub if you keep adding chemicals to maintain the spa then there will come a time that it will be very hard to correct imbalances and it is best to just change the water.