We live in Montana, and this is our first spa out here. We had one in Connecticut, which gets cold, but not like here. We'll usually have a couple of weeks of -20F or more.

I would love to just keep the spa open all winter long. Our electrical rates are low, so that's not a huge issue (I think, that's why I am asking), but I don't want to hurt the spa by keeping it running all winter. It's a new Costco model, and is well insulated.

For those of you that live in colder areas, what do you do? At what temp to you just decide to drain and winterize the tub? Mine is now fully enclosed with the deck (accessible, but not as easy as just pulling a side panel), so that process is more of a pain.

If I do decide to stop using it, can I just drop the temp to the lowest setting and keep it running anyway?

My other thought is to build a "topper/gazebo" for it as well, to at least make it more user friendly.

Looking for advice and experiences. Thanks!

We live in northern Ohio...its gets cold but rarely as cold as -20. I never close and winterize our tub. As long as the wind is calm, we pretty much use it below freezing temps. I would think it would be more of pain to drain and insure all the water is out of the pumps. During long stretches of severe cold, I have dropped the temp down around 80 when not in use to help save on costs, but I look forward to a good soak when the snow is falling.
Barry

Thanks BC, that helps. We've seen a week at -42 at the lowest, and we usually have one good cold week, but Winter is the best time to use the tub, surrounded by snow and all that...plus it gives me an excuse to keep the snow off my new deck. I'll play it by ear I guess, and I can always turn the temp down so the heater doesn't have to work so hard...

Barry,

I presume you keep the circulation pump running to prevent freezing of water in the pipes, right? Or is the pump and piping so well insulated as to endure periods of idle water? What if there is a power outage?

Richard

Yes and yes. A prolong power outage would be a concern since we dont have a backup generator. I would imagine I would drain then add anti-freeze and hope for the best.

I do have a backup generator, but if you had the water at 80 degrees even, it would take quite some time for it to reach a temp to freeze the pipes. We've had power out for maybe 6 hours at the most. If it went beyond that, I'd be looking to put the glycol in and fire up the genset on it to get it circulated. We're fortunate out here that it would be highly unlikely that we would ever see days of outages like they've seen on the East Coast. At that, if it happened, we'd have bigger issues than the hot tub for sure.