How do I clean my hot tub or spa?

|6.25.11

We had a question from a customer recently asking for more details on a spa cleaning tablet, so I thought we would go ahead and give some overall guidelines and instructions on how to clean and drain your hot tub, and how to use a couple different products to assist you.

First–when draining and refilling, do you NEED to use a special cleaning product?  No, not necessarily.  But it makes a lot of sense to ME that if you’re going to drain it and add another 500 gallons back in, it would make sense to get it as clean as possible first.  So.  What do these cleaning products do?  Things like the Aqua Finesse Spa Clean tablet and Natural Chemistry’s Spa Purge are designed to remove built-up organic waste from your plumbing.  Whatever your filter hasn’t caught has gone into your jet system, which means a build up of oils, lotions, hair products, and the like are very possibly coating the lines and jets.  What does this mean to you?  It means that your spa may have decreased pressure through the jets, more stress on your pumps, and that you may have a harder time keeping your water perfectly clean.

Here are some cleaning options and how to use them!

Aqua Finesse Spa Clean Tablet

This product is $22.95 and can save you a lot of work!  The product recommends removing your filters and cleaning them with their brand of filter cleaner, which is a great idea….but you can also leave your filters in and just rinse them off afterwards with your garden hose.  Leaving your spa full of water and heated up, you can add this tablet to a basket above the filter, use a floating dispenser, or just place the tablet directly into the area that typically holds your filter.  The product’s instructions say to run pumps on full power for 20 minutes, 3 times within 24 hours.  Depending on the kind of spa you have, if you have a 24 hour circulation pump, that’ll help you out a lot.  After you’ve got the tablet in, go ahead and fire up all your pumps and let them run!  That high pressure water is going to dissolve the tablet quickly, and the moving water will help loosen debris.  If you aren’t in a big hurry, or if your spa is particularly dirty, let this product be in your hot tub for up to 48 hours, running your cycles periodically.

Like many products, it really IS okay if you don’t follow the directions to a “T.”  If you need to drain it again after only one cycle, it won’t hurt anything, you just won’t have used the full cleaning power of the tablet.  If you are going to be busy/out of town and can’t run a perfect three cycles for two days, it’s going to be okay.  Be lenient with yourself a bit–after all–spas are supossed to be relaxing!

Things to not worry about–the directions say to shock your water first.  Not a big deal, don’t waste your shock.  Especially don’t use a chlorine shock if you are on Soft Soak products!

Rinse spa after using this product, then refill!  (Remember, you can always bring us a sample of your water so that we can help you get it rebalanced for FREE!)

Natural Chemistry’s Spa Purge

Spa Purge is $18.95 and is a liquid that you pour into your filled, hot spa.  It works fairly similarly to the SpaClean product, removing the organic waste from the circulation system.  Basic instruction are really simple!  It says to remove your filters, but again, this is mostly because they would like you to use their filter cleaning products.  Great idea, always, but maybe not necessary.  With your spa water at least 95 degrees, pour the whole bottle of Spa Purge in.  Run your gets a minimum of 5 minutes.  This product may cause foaming, so keep an eye on it.  Take a break from the jets if you need to, then run them again when the foam has lowered.  Maintain the temperature and let your spa circulate overnight with the jets off.  Drain, rinse, then refill!  And again:  (Remember, you can always bring us a sample of your water so that we can help you get it rebalanced for FREE!)

I think both products are great.  To me, the Spa Purge sounds a lot easier to use, except for the potential foaming, and it is a little less expensive.  Both products have had great reviews, and I haven’t personally been able to compare their use side by side to see what I would end up preferring.  Either way–great products that’ll help you out.

Previous Next