I’m back in the water business with a new hot tub!

[welbo]

Hey everyone! I missed you. I sold my home a couple years ago and left a TFP maintained pool and hot tub. I’ve just now acquired a used (2015) LPI X-12. The deck is built. Wiring is going in as we speak. Big strong people are on the way to haul all 975lbs off the trailer and onto the spot made for it.

I tell you, I got a lot of satisfaction out of maintaining my pool and hot tub. It’s really been missed. So I’m pretty excited to get back into it. AND... the new tub has an ozone generator. AND... I’ll be setting up a swg system for it as well.

The manufacturer sells the CSS5-1 salt and ozone generator. I already have the ozone generator though. Does anyone have this system? Likes or dislikes? Recommendations?

Also, we have very hard water (850 ppm CA in my test). The manufacturer’s manual says don’t fill the tub with water from a water softener. Why? I always add salt and borates to my water anyway for comfort. Especially if I end up with a swg, it seems like salt in the water would be much better than that much calcium/magnesium etc.

Thanks for the great site. If you can’t tell, I’m pretty happy to be back.

edit: oops, still need to change my signature line.

 

[tmm1]

Welcome back!

My spa manual also said not to use softened water. I think perhaps because it would be too soft and the water would try to pull minerals from the spa materials?

Since your water is so hard it probably makes sense to do half hard and half softened so you end up in the middle.

I am using the SmarterSpa SWG and quite happy with it. It's just draped over into my spa at the moment but I am considering the plumbing add-on kit for cleaner installation.

 

[welbo]

Thanks for the response @tmm1. I just saw that SmartSpa system. That looks great. Since I already have ozone it makes sense. I shouldn’t need much capacity either. Where did you get yours? How much did you pay?

As for the water softener, I’m hoping it doesn’t hurt anything because that’s what I’m going to fill it with. I’ll still have to add salt. And I’ll add borax too for smooth water. The calcium level will come up over time with replacement water most likely. The last pool I maintained had almost no calcium in the water. I used to read threads about people fighting high Ca levels and wonder what the problem was. Now I get to find out.

 

[tmm1]

I bought the SWG on Amazon for under $400. It arrived quickly and I installed it just before we left town for a week. Came back to 4ppm FC and haven't had to mess with chlorine since.

The SWG unit itself recommends a CH of 200-400ppm, and there is a similar guide line in my spa manual. Many of the guides I've seen recommend a baseline CH so I would be wary of completely softened water.

If you use the pool math app you can calculate the ideal CH based on your salt and borates etc to ensure CSI (saturation index) is not too high or low. If it's too low it will start eroding your spa shell, and too high will form scales and leave deposits in your plumbing.