Urgent: Are spill over spas worth it? Should I consider one?

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^^^Right. What jv92red said :)

Assuming the same model heat pump is being used, it shouldn't matter if its on a separate pump / heater vs same pump / heater when it comes to the temp of the spa. Either way the spa is isolated and the heater is only heating the spa at that time. Unless like JV said, your pool guy is talking about a situation where you are keeping the waterfall affect on and tryig to heat. But I can't imagine that making much sense.

We should be able to settle this pretty easily. How many gallons is the spa going to be and how many BTUs is the heat pump going to be? That will tell the story.
 
The spa itself holds 288 gallons and the heat pump can get up to 125,000 BTUs. The actual pool pump is a 2 hp pump. Hope that helps!

I just talked to the pool guy, the option he was talking about is to add a smaller natural gas heater and an additional pump for the spa itself so it can be used longer into the year. However, it is not a standalone system so it does require the pool to be open. He told me the additional heater would allow the spa to run at hot tub like temperatures and the pool to stay it's normal temperature.

He was guesstimating it will cost about $3000-4 to add another heater and an additional pump. I don't think it's worth it. We have a Jacuzzi tub in our bathroom.

He also said the waterfall effect still works when you have it set to spa mode.

Any thoughts?
 
Correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds to me like they are not plumbing a suction line from your spa to your pump. There should also be a valve before the pump that you can choose where the pump is drawing water from, pool or spa. If they aren't doing that for you then you cannot operate in spa only mode. And this is for a pool and spa system, not stand alone. You'll MAKE it a stand alone system when you flip the pump valve to draw water from the spa instead of the pool and also flip the valve on the output from the pool to the spa.

If you want my honest opinion on what I would do in your situation - I would talk to another builder or two. Second or third opinion should clear things up. Who knows, maybe I'm wrong, maybe they plumb pools differently in colder climates because of the freeze?
 
Totally agree with JV again. Make sure there is going to be an option to pull water from the spa only and return to the spa only. It sounds to me since you said (the waterfall still works when set to spa) that it will be plumbed to always use suction from the pool. Then return to either the pool or spa.

IMO this sounds a little 'off' to me. If its plumbed like an actual spa, you should be fine. Maybe if possible get a heat pump with a bit more output. But all in all, it should heat 300 gallons... Thats a lot different than trying to heat an entire pool :)
 
"Valve" as in one? Should be two. If they are telling you there is only one valve then that still can be only an output valve they are referring to which still is not good. If the equipment pad only has an output valve and the output valve is turned to 'spa' out then the pool water will be brought in, then heated, then outputted to the spa. This is not good since the heated spa water will just spill over to the pool again. So you would be slowly heating the pool water through the spa. You need to make sure you have valves at BOTH the pump input side AND then after the filter output to create a closed loop spa.
 
When we built our pool several years ago we were going to go with a spillover spa but instead we got a separate spa that is right by the house under the deck which is about 20' away from the pool. I am REALLY glad we did that since we use the spa year round and being under the deck means that you rarely have to walk through snow to get to the tub. As someone else mentioned it is really nice having a spa outside on a cold winter's night - and we had a lot of them last year.
 

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