Your hot tub’s heater is immersed in your tub’s plumbing. The heater has several switches or sensors that will shut it down if the water stops moving. The purpose of that is to protect the heater from burning itself up, which could happen in a matter of seconds if it was exposed to air or if the water in the plumbing boiled off.
The FLO message is your hot tub’s way of telling you that it isn’t getting enough water flowing through it.
There’s nothing like a clogged filter to restrict water flow in your hot tub.
How dirty does your filter need to be to generate a message or to stop the heater from working? Look at the photo to the left, comparing a new filter to an excessively dirty filter. This dirty filter prevented the heater from coming on. Dirt takes many forms, however. Skin lotion will form a gooey coating on your filter which will restrict water flow while still looking nice and clean. The easy way to check the filter is to take it out and feel it. If it’s slimey, that’s probably a combination of skin moisturizer, hair conditioner and shampoo.
The first thing you should do when you get an error message is to check your filters. If your filters are clogged with debris, water flow will be restricted, leading to intermittent heater operation. There are other electrical reasons that could end up with a FLO message, but at least 30% of the calls we get are resolved by replacing old dirty filters with new ones. So next time you see FLO on your control panel, check your filters before making a phone call. It’s an inexpensive way to save yourself the cost of a service call.
For more information or to schedule a service call to resolve your heating or FLO error message problems, contact us at 201-897-7900 or 732-894-4494. You can also reach us by email through this link.
