My builder wants to keep the spa completly separate from the pool, he is doing this because he says it's more efficient. I have not seen this done before and just want to verify it's a wise thing todo. And what are the advantages and disadvantages? I would think it would have to cost more because of the extra equipment, but his bid is lower then the others not by much though. Thanks.
Spa separated from pool? Is this the rite thing todo?
- Thread starter Marlinman
- Start date
There is a definitely a cost advantage to sharing equipment between the pool and spa, though it is not really very much money saved when compared to the cost of a build. It is also easier to manage a combined setup, which basically gets cared for as if it were a pool alone, with the spa chemistry mostly taking care of it's self through water exchange with the pool. If you separate them you need to manage the chemistry separately for each, which is usually noticeably more work. All that said, there are a few potential problems that can come up which are unique to combined systems, but they aren't normally an issue.
If you were in the North I would say that you may want to investigate the benefits of keeping the 2 separate in order to use the spa in the winter while the pool is winterized. Since you are in Texas I don't see the benefits and would just want 1 set of equipment to run both. Less parts to worry about needing serviced.
I think that keeping the pool and spa separate is the better way to go. By maintaining them separately, the spa will always be ready to go. Also, since they will be kept at two different temperatures, the CSIs will be different.
From a personal perspective, my hot tub is attached to my pool (gunnite construction). All the plumbing is combined for both the pool and hot tub. I winterized the pool and ran the hot tub all winter with no problem. Just a couple valves set differently. During the summer, the pool water will be warm enough where heating the hot tub is simply changing the valves for that time period and heating the hot tub only. I haven't seen any problems with my configuration, but the pool was built in Sept last year, so time will tell. I don't think there are any issues using all the same pump/filter/etc...