Drained hot tub, ready to clean - now what?

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poolshrinker

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Jun 4, 2016
72
Portland OR metro
Hot tub is 375 gallons and 6 months old.

Today I put in 4 tsp of Ahhsome and ran the jets for 20 minutes, then let it sit for a couple hours. I soaked the filters in there as well.

Then removed the filters and sprayed them with a hose. Pretty clean.

Then drained the hot tub. Then ran the jets for about 5 seconds to puke out the last bit of water. And let the tub drain again.

There is now an inch of water at the bottom.

Tomorrow I plan to wipe down the spa surface; remove the head rests and clean them.

Question:

1. I have seen vinegar, bleach, various spa cleaning products, etc recommended. I plan to use vinegar because that’s what I’ve got. Everything I read says to spray a 50/50 vinegar/water mix on the hot tub surfaces, let it sit for 15minutes, then wipe down. Is this right?
2. After spraying, sitting, and wiping, it would make sense I should also rinse it with some water. Is that logical? And then let that drain out as well?
3. I read different things about cleaning the jets. Do I need to remove each jet and wipe behind it as well as each jet itself with vinegar/water solution? I checked the first 1 or 2 - it is pretty clean.
4. Assume I wipe down the head rests with the vinegar/water solution as well?
5. There is some small amount of undissolved Ahhsome (blue streaks) near the intake and the fountain. How critical is it I remove that?


Then I will remove the last of the water with a cup and sponge. Spray and clean the bottom layer. Rinse it down then remove that water as well.

Finally fill.

Does this all make sense? Any tips or suggestions or do I have something wrong?
 
You are planning more than you need. Vinegar will dissolve scale, but if you have no scale you won't need it. Do you have a white buildup at the waterline or a sandpaper feel inside the spa? Any stains?
Get the ahhsome out before you fill.
If your jets look good and are all still turning as they should you can skip that.
Cup and sponge is huge overkill. Rinse it out well and run the hose in it with the drain open for a few to flush it out and you will be fine with what is left in there.
 
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Did you have a lot of junk come out when you did the Ahh-some purge? Did you have air valves open when you ran jets?

As I understand, letting it sit doesn't do anything. The jet action with air is what does stuff. The two times I've purged to date I needed to run multiple purges to get everything out. What I did this last time was make sure I had chlorine, added my 3.5 tsp of Ahh-some, and ran both pumps on high with all air valves open. My pumps time-out after 15 minutes, I restart them for a total cycle of 30 minutes, then scoop the junk out of the foam. I then add a half dose of Ahh-some and run jets for another 30 minutes. It took me about 4 cycles I believe until I only had a very small amount of junk coming out.

Obviously you've already drained, but I just wanted you to be aware for next time if you got junk out in your purge, you should scoop the nasty stuff out and repeat with a half dose until things look pretty clean. Note though that if you didn't get any or hardly any junk out on the one cycle then doing multiple cycles is overkill. (It's not in the instructions, but @Ahhsomeguy has mentioned if you get a lot of junk the first time you may need multiple purge cycles and to use 1/2 dose on subsequent cycles after the first cycle)

After my purging was finished, I removed my filters (which were floating in the tub during this purging, not installed) and sprayed them down with a hose. I drained the tub then sprayed the shell with 1/4 tsp of Ahh-some dissolved in 32 oz of water in a spray bottle, wiped off the shell with with rags, and rinsed with a hose, draining the rinse water. At this point I normally refill immediately, but I did not this go around as I need a new pump drain plug hose adapter, as it broke off while I was troubleshooting the leak I had on that this last drain. New adapter is arriving today, so I'll be filling tonight.

As to removing the jets, I did remove one random jet and inspected. It didn't appear to dirty, so I put it back in as I figured removing my jets and manually wiping them all down would be overkill. It certainly wouldn't hurt anything, but there's probably around 50 jets on our tub and I didn't feel like popping them all out one at a time if they were not very dirty.

poolshrinker said:
Then drained the hot tub. Then ran the jets for about 5 seconds to puke out the last bit of water. And let the tub drain again.
Click to expand...
poolshrinker said:
There is now an inch of water at the bottom.
Click to expand...
Does your tub have a drain plug? Mine does, but it's tucked into the equipment bay, so I have to unscrew that panel to access. The first purge I drained with a submersible pump that gets down to about 1/8" inch of water, but the benefit of the drain plug which I used after my submersible pump could no longer pump water out is that not only is it connected to the low point on the tub, so it drains below the floor, but it's also connected to each of the two pumps so it drains the pumps and hence the plumbing too. It's not strictly needed but it will remove the most of the residual water and is easier for draining out rinse water, especially if you're like me and rinse with a garden hose and nozzle attachment.

Also note my particular drain plug can be mounted through the tub wall, but was not done by the manufacture. I may drill a hole and mount the drain plug, that way I could drain the tub without opening the equipment bay. Not sure if the valve can stand freezing though, as it would almost certainly freeze in the winter if mounted through the wall. Of course it may do that even in the equipment bay, so maybe that's fine.

Anyway just a few things to think about. Hope it helps.
 
thank you both.

i did run it with the jets running for about 20 minutes - i also had to restart once after timing out at 15 minutes.

it looks clean but after running the ahhsome there was some yellow foam and a sticky residue that needs to be wiped off. not much came out in my opinion, we use the tub often but my wife keeps it very clean with daily water monitoring and frequent filter cleans. i just need a simple cleaner to wipe off the surfaces and will get rid of the residual water to get out as much ahhsome as possible.

tthe first two jets are clean so i may check a couple more but otherwise will happily abandon that part of the job.
 
poolshrinker said:
i just need a simple cleaner to wipe off the surfaces and will get rid of the residual water to get out as much ahhsome as possible.
Click to expand...
I recommend the 1/4 tsp of Ahh-some in 32 oz of water in a spray bottle. Worked quite well for me to get off the residual gunk from the purging. I recommend using hot water while mixing it in the spray bottle, it takes a while to dissolve. Spray, wipe, rinse.

If there's nothing stuck to the shell, then I see no reason to spray the walls with any sort of cleaner. If they are clean, they are clean. Fill, add chlorine, soak in happiness!
 
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I’ve been reading thru all the ahhsome threads as today is water changeout day for me & stumbled upon this one. I wanted to point out something that happened as I went about my ahhsome flush. My water is 6mos old. This is the longest I’ve ever been on a h20 changeout. I Usually do it every 3 months (always with ahhsome) but decided to delay until warmer weather & after i got my pool going. I keep with the dichor then bleach method & have a saltron mini that runs on a timer for an hour 4 times a day unless i add an hour here & there. I also augment with bleach for heavy bather loads. To my knowledge I have never been below the min fc level for my cya ( I’m a compulsive tester ?) I have noticed my demand getting a little higher recently but that’s to be expected. Anywhoo I brought the tub up to shock level, pulled my swg out, threw my rinsed filter in the tub & put in 2 tsp of ahhsome & turned on the jets. Water was 106 degrees. The foam began - I started scooping- no funk - ran about an hour- got a tiny amount of “residue” off the shell but not much - & no colored foam. So i proceed to wipe, rinse & drain etc. I fill Her up - confident in my purge - i add 10 ppm dichlor & my salt . I noticed the water didn’t look blue like it usually does it was more dingy looking (my spa is beige but my water never looks beige) . I let the jets run & go in for like 20 minutes. When i came back out There was brown goo! Like randomly floating & collecting on the side ?. So I run & grab more ahhsome & add a tsp - 10 minutes later there was brown greasy specks all in the foam & on the sides?. Scooped & scrubbed all that out & added another scoop & ran another hour to be sure. Now I’m filling again. From now on i will always do a 2nd purge.! I will also be back on the 3 month regiment. I’m sure its due to my hubby not scrubbing his hands & arms well enough. He’s a pipe fitter & really gets black. Chlorine can only overcome so much. I may also look into the ahhsome maintenance product.
 
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