Lowest Cost & Effort Chemicals For Tub Use 3-4 Times A Week?

[livin]

Use Case:

Winter - use is 3 or 4 times a week
Summer - use is 2-3 times a week
... sometimes we are not home for a week at a time so levels need to maintain during that time.

My tub does not have an Ozinator


Questions...

1. Bromine is expensive but is floating Bromine tabs the lowest effort and most reliable for my situation?

2. Should I also dose with bleach or dichlor after every use?

3. How much Bromine should I be buying at a single purchase? The price drops quite a bit when you buy 25lbs or more.

4. Anyone have a use case like mine - what do you do and use?

5. Where are you guys buying your chems to get the best price?

thanks!

 

[Isaac-1]

Dichlor then bleach is a good system, and cost are minimal (certainly a small fraction of the cost for electricity you are using to heat the tub).

As to where to buy, a hot tub uses so little, I don't really shop by price. 2 pounds of spa dichlor is only about $20 online from Amazon with free shipping and that will last years, bleach most people have around the house and you are only dealing with a spoonfull at a time. That only leaves pH and TA adjustment

 

[livin]

Dichlor then bleach is a good system, and cost are minimal (certainly a small fraction of the cost for electricity you are using to heat the tub).

As to where to buy, a hot tub uses so little, I don't really shop by price. 2 pounds of spa dichlor is only about $20 online from Amazon with free shipping and that will last years, bleach most people have around the house and you are only dealing with a spoonfull at a time. That only leaves pH and TA adjustment

I'll only need about 1 lb Dichlor a year for my usage (3-4 days a week)?

 

[chem geek]

With Dichlor-then-bleach you use very little Dichlor. With 40 ppm FC for around the first week after a water change and assuming a 350 gallon spa (you didn't give your spa size) that's only 3.4 ounces weight of Dichlor. With the Dichlor-then-bleach method you should be able to have a Water Replacement Interval (WRI) of (2/9) x (350) / (3/7) = 181 days assuming one person-hour of soaking when you soak an average of 3 days per week. If there are two of you soaking, then that's 30 minutes soaking. You didn't say how many people are soaking nor for how long nor if the spa is 104ºF. With adding 6 ppm FC per month to maintain the CYA level, then over 12 months that's an additional 6 ounces weight. So this would only be around 13 ounces weight for a year.

If you are soaking longer then you could need more.