Does winterizing a hot tub guarantee no leaks?

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One thing we can guarantee:  Just draining a hot tub and letting it sit “empty” over a cold New Jersey winter will leave cracked pipes in the spring.  The degree of pipe damage depends on how much water is left in the tub after you empty it.  We’ve seen only a single cracked manifold that could be repaired for three or four hundred dollars, and we’ve seen massive damage that was beyond repair.
Residual water in a "drained" hot tub collects in the bottom - cracking pipes during winter freezes

Residual water in a “drained” hot tub collects in the bottom – cracking pipes during winter freezes

No magic can protect your hot tub from damaging freezes; you must get the water out of the pipes.  There are are basically three steps to winterizing a hot tub:

  1. Drain the water
  2. Blow out the residual water
  3. Fill the tub with antifreeze
After step one, draining, we typically find anywhere from 5 to 10 gallons of water still remaining in the pipes, which is blown out with compressed air.  For most hot tubs, that’s the water that does so much damage during a freeze.

Adding antifreeze to the hot tub is additional insurance against missed water.  The antifreeze flows to the lower plumbing where any remaining water is hiding, and provides additional protection against water freezing and cracking your pipes.

To keep the hot tub completely protected against freezing, you must have a good cover in good condition securely held to the top of the hot tub.  It doesn’t help your hot tub if we remove the water, only to have a leaky cover begin dripping water into the tub as soon as we leave.

Many customers will secure a tarp over the hot tub as additional protection against water.  We even have some customers who put thin plywood on top of their covers to protect the cover from snow and ice.

Back to the headline of this post, while properly winterizing your hot tub is not a guarantee against leaks, NOT Properly winterizing a hot tub is a Sure Thing for lots of expensive damage.

Going to winterize your hot tub by yourself?  That’s fine, but before you make an expensive beginners mistake, call us for more information.  Contact us at 201-897-7900 or 732-894-4494.  You can also reach us by email through this link.