Get your Hot Tub ready for spring

The first step to get your hot tub ready for spring depends on what you did with it over the winter.


If you’re one of those people who like soaking in their hot tub on a cold winter night, watching the snow flakes float to the ground while you sip your wine, then your spring maintenance regime can be very simple.  Chances are, the water in your hot tub now has been there all winter.  Very few people will attempt to drain and replace their water when the temperature is hovering around freezing.  In your situation, spring maintenance is probably just spring cleaning.  If you’re due for a water replacement and hot tub scrubbing, the first warm day is the time to do it.

If your hot tub was winterized, the process of spring opening is a little more complex.

Chances are, winterizing your hot tub involved filling it with antifreeze.  If you’ve used RV Antifreeze (which is the only type you should), you may have the choice of either flushing it out, or diluting it with fresh water.  The considerations are, how warm is it outside, how late in the spring is it and what kind of antifreeze did you use?

By late spring, boosted by climatic humidity and warm weather, mold will begin to grow in your moist, empty,hot tub pipes.  When you fill the tub, you may see black, slimy masses of this mold seeping out of the pipes, or you may experience the same mold being forced out when you turn on the jets.


So, for late spring hot tub openings, your best course of action is to flush the tub with about a quart of bleach, which will dissolve the mold.  Of course, you’ll need to fill the tub with water first, add the bleach, run your pumps for about half an hour, then drain the tub.  Sponge down the sides with the bleach solution to kill any remaining microorganisms. 

Always wear eye protection and rubber gloves when handling bleach.  And remember, whatever bleach you splatter on your clothes will remove the dye and turn into a permanent while blotch.

If the tub has a dirty line or residue marking your normal water height, use “Soft Scrub,” normally sold for bathroom tile, to remove it.

One way to avoid the mold build up is to do an early spring filling.  Before you do that, you need to deal with the antifreeze you put into the tub before you winterized it.

Before continuing, be aware that there are two types of “RV Antifreeze.”  If you use an Ethanol based antifreeze, you can just fill the tub and let the antifreeze evaporate.  Unless you are one of the people who is sensitive to Ethanol, skin contact will not harm you.  Ethanol, by the way, is alcohol.

If you use a Propylene Glycol based antifreeze, you should flush it out of the hot tub before exposing your skin.  Even though the label will say “non-toxic,” propylene glycol is not an ideal skin lotion.  Many companies sell recycled propylene glycol and you won’t know where it was originally used before you got it, or what impurities are in it.

You can either spray water directly into each individual jet to clean the antifreeze out of the lines, or fill the tub completely.  To spray into the jets, you will need a high pressure stream of water, which you can get from your normal garden hose with a fine tipped nozzle.  Wear eye protection, it’s going to get a bit messy.

Although it will use more water, it’s also easier to completely fill the tub by putting your hose into the the filter compartment as you normally do.  When you turn the water on, you will immediately see the pink antifreeze flowing out of your jets and drains.  As the tub fills, the antifreeze will become diluted in the water.  By the time the tub is filled, depending upon how much antifreeze you used, the water may be clear.  Add about a cup of bleach, just to help disinfect the plumbing, then run your pumps about 20 minutes to disperse the bleach and flush the antifreeze out of the system.  Finally drain the tub, wipe the surface with a mild bleach solution, and refill.

When filling the tub for the first time, we always recommend a double shock treatment to kill any microbes that may be lurking in your plumbing.  If you would normally use 1.5 ounces of shock, give it 3 ounces.   And give the water 24 hours to stabilize before you start testing it and adding your chemicals. 

Finally, do not get into a hot tub with a double dose of Shock – it will irritate your skin.  Give it 24 hours to evaporate to a safer concentration.

As we’ve pointed out in many posts on this website, you should NEVER use swimming pool chlorine in your hot tub.  The chemical specifically designed for hot tubs is called “Dichlor.”   Get used to reading labels on your chemicals to make sure you’ve got the correct shock.  It may be called “Sodium dichlor,” “Potassium dichlor,” or one of a dozen different variations.

For more information or to schedule a service call to resolve your hot tub problems, contact us at 201-897-7900 or 732-894-4494.  You can also reach us by email through this link.