Tips for Using Your Hot Tub in Winter

Using a hot tub or spa in the winter is a fun way to maximize your investment. To ensure your personal safety and preserve your hot tub from damage in freezing weather, keep these tips in mind during use.

Safe Winter Hot Tub Use

Enjoying your hot tub when the temperature drops offers the benefits of hydrotherapy, which uses hot water to relieve pain, stimulate circulation, and treat illness. Sessions in the spa may even help you prevent a cold; when you feel a bug coming on, a soak in the hot tub set at 104 can help you sweat out toxins. Even if you’re otherwise healthy, a dip in the hot tub with friends or family can help lift your spirits on cold and gloomy winter days. Just keep your sessions short (about 20 minutes) and stay hydrated – with water, not alcohol.

Protecting Your Hot Tub in Winter

• Prevent freezing: If you live in a cold climate, your hot tub can perform well in winter as long as you take precautions to prevent the plumbing from freezing. Some units prevent freezing with a no-freeze setting that can maintain a constant water temperature even when it’s below 32 outside.In more temperate weather, you can rely on the timer/thermostat setting that will increase the water temperature only when you are ready to use it. Units that lack the mode switch that allows for continuous heating can be manually set to turn on to heat the water for 15 minutes per hour.
• Use an insulating cover and floating thermal blanket: The insulating cover, made of dense foam reinforced with metal and covered with marine-grade vinyl, fits right over the hot tub to keep in the heat and prevent leaves, debris, and snow from accumulating. The cover is sloped to promote water runoff. In addition, a floating thermal blanket of rigid closed-cell foam eliminates evaporation and makes the hot tub less costly to operate.Since heat travels more quickly though moist air than dry air, water condenses on the bottom of the insulating cover, which leads to water and chemical loss. A thermal blanket below the cover prevents this from happening.

Water in tubs and spas needs to be periodically replaced, but doing so in the winter is inconvenient. Attend to this task before winter sets in, and then be sure that each person rinses off before entering the spa to keep the water as clean as possible.

Hot Tub Sales and Service

Your hot tub can be enjoyable even during the winter as long as you protect it properly. If you need service or repair year around, or looking to buy a new hot tub, spa, or pool, contact Crystal Utah to learn more.