Leaving town for 2 months

Kpax755

Active member
May 11, 2020
34
Columbus, OH
Hi everyone, I have a Hydropool Self clean model with UV/ozone that uses liquid chlorine. I have to leave town for about 2 months. Any suggestions on how to best leave the tub? I am going to drain and refill when I return regardless. I was thinking of just setting to "vacation" mode and having a neighbor check the tub every week or two, maybe shock it? Do you think it'll be fine to leave it as is? No one will be using the tub while we are gone.

Thanks!
 
Hey Kpax !! I would just drain it now and use a shop vac to get out whatever you can from the jets/drains. Kill the power and plan on doing an ahh-some purge when you get back. Why even worry about it by leaving it full ?
 
If you blow the lines out well it should be fine- if you have a power outage for an extended period while you’re gone & the spa is full during frigid conditions u could have a freezing issue.
 
I’m sorry it appeared you were leaving soon and 2 months would get you well within the above freezing temps. If the 2 months are Nov and Dec, or Jan and Feb, Then yeah. Lol. Put the ship vac hose on each return and drain and you’ll see or feel any water still getting sucked. Pull the drain plug on the motor and leave the tub drain open. For added insurance you can use a funnel to spread a gallon of antifreeze In any openings. But if you’re leaving soon, it *probably* wouldn’t matter.
 
I'd drain and refill. Could he use a little "animal friendly" non-poisonous antifreeze in the lines just in case? If there is a purge when he gets back I can't see how that would hurt. I'd do it if I were going now for two months... If that was added then that definitely would be the way to go on that... There would be no worries at all doing that...
 
I hate to say this, but you could you use trichlor in a couple of floaters for two months as well, (get a couple of spa sized ones meant for bromine and close them almost completely) but it would be better to drain before you go and refill after. I'd consider doing at least half the water first if you did this anyway... You would definitely need to drain and refill after this... and you'd need to have a week or so before you left to monitor the chlorine levels to make sure they are staying steady... Draining is better--This way if you lost power or something (like the GFCI tripping) you'd still be safe if it froze. I have considered draining the tub here in Arizona in June-Sept since it doesn't get used then anyway much....but haven't for the first two years...
 
In 25 years in the spa business I have never met or heard of anyone who will guarantee a winterization on a spa. Too many variables in the plumbing system that cannot be properly blown out or vacuumed and no realistic way to blow in antifreeze like you do in a pool. If you can avoid winterizing you should consider it. Every spring I fix spas that were winterized last fall. But the concern of a power outage is a valid point. I guess it depends on your circumstances.
 

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For just 2 months, yeah, I would leave it filled, set the temp down and/or vacation mode, boost the FC up to shock level. Then figure out (use the pool math app) how much it would be to dose it to shock level once a week or so. You could even pre-portion the doses for whomever is doing it. If you have an ozonator, you might consider disconnecting it since ozone, with nothing else to do, will consume chlorine. With the lower temperature, you chlorine will last longer as well.

I leave my tub for 5-6 months at a time during the winter. On my first (used) tub, I installed an inline SWCG cell (salt water chlorine generator) from Control-o-matic. The duty cycle was set manually using a simple knob, but once you had it dialed in, it would maintain the chlorine level to whatever you wanted. For two winters I left the tub filled, and when I came back, was amazed to find the water perfectly clear and the FC level exactly where I had left it, well at least for the first winter. The second winter I did that, I came back to find the FC had crashed to 0. Turns out a slug had slimed its way into the tub at some point and used up all the chlorine. The system didn't have a sensor like some of the new ones do, so it just carried on with its maintenance setting and never was able to recover the FC on its own. After that I started just draining and winterizing the tub when leaving it that long.

The first time I winterized the tub by draining it and vacuuming all the plumbing out the best I could, my 24/7 circ pump died. It had a magnetic suspension steel impeller which then sat in a little pool of leftover water all winter. It rusted on one side and thus became off-balance, so I had to replace that pump. The new one was more efficient with higher flow, and a plastic impeller.
 
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