Hot Tubs

[j2 lot]

On a similar vein to the double glazing thread, Other half has always wanted a hot tub and circumstances conspired in that:
1.A friend hired one for her daughters 18th party and Ann got a shot.
2.We are just about to start landscaping the garden
3.We have (some) available funds

After a bit of web surfing I am at a loss as to what represents a good deal and who are the trusted traders/ experts to speak to in order to get the full SP.
Does anyone have any knowledge or words of wisdom to impart on the subject .......?

[tenkfeet]

Mate put a hot tub in his back garden, the novelty wore off after a year and it ended up an expensive pond. He also never got the chemicals correct at first so they all ended up with skin and ear infections.

Having said that it was great fun while it lasted. Cost £7k excluding running costs. Location in the garden and ease of use were not the best.

[Dave]

We got ours from http://www.hotspringcentral.co.uk/ quite a few years ago, not the cheapest at the time but it’s still going strong.
A few points worth mentioning are not to get to hung up on having the most powerful pumps with as many jets as you can get, we rarely have ours going full chat, in fact it’s usually set on the lowest setting as we find this more relaxing.
It might sound a bit daft, but if possible try before you buy, we sat in loads in the showroom with all different sorts of seating arrangements, we thought we’d found the one we wanted until we were given the opportunity to try a couple out, what we found was once the tub is full of water you don’t actually sit in any of the seats and just sort of lounge about all over the place so what you perhaps though was ideal seating can somewhat change.
Another thing we were going to get was a gazebo for it to sit in, but the sales girl actually recommended trying it without this and see how we went on, we’ll all these years later we still don’t have the gazebo, however I do have a rather large parasol which can be put over the top if it’s raining or snowing.

[renmure]

Agree with everything Dave says. We have had our Hotsprings tub for 9 yrs and it has been perfect. We also went to a big showroom and felt silly getting in 4 or 5 different tubs before realising that all our list of "must haves". .. Mega powerful jets, recliner seats, multi adjustable nozzles etc could be rubbed out because when you got used to owning one, you just lounged across seats and hardly ever had the jets on full, and when you did they were all more than powerful enough.

Wendy wanted one and I did think it would be a white elephant type purchase, but we use it 3-4 times / week, invariably in the evening, preferably in darkness under the stars, even more often in the winter months, particularly if it is snowing... Or even battering it down with rain. I couldn't recommend one any higher.

I remember when doing all the background reading before we bought ours that it appeared the cheaper ones to buy cost more to run, and vice versa, and even Hotsprings had cheaper range than the one we bought but despite the cost the quality has been top notch.

A friend of mine owns this Hot Tub company in Carnoustie http://www.thegrizzlybearhottubcompany.co.uk/

They dont do Hotsprings Tubs but have a great reputation, and are really busy so don't need to peddle duff info so would be a good first contact for information.

[BiggestNizzy]

Make sure you don't pour chernobly into the electronics.

[point n squirt]

I did a lot of research years ago before buying ours in fact im sure I have a post on here anyway long story short Hotsprings and Artic spas were easy to deal with no pressure and both had good things to say about each other which was nice. Some of the other players were real sharks so we ended up going with Artic Spas Macmerry Kevin is the man to deal with and have had a great after sales service for a bout five years now. Buying these things is exactly like buying a car so do your homework. We have only had one small problem with ours which was quickly sorted . I was never out mine for the first few months and my beer consumption went vastly up also I developed a lets just say bad affect with the chemicals and had to change to bromine so be carefull not to overuse. I now also use ours about 3/4 times a week ,my wee boy loves it and has given him a confidence in the water. Running costs are higher than any sales people say but life is short .....in fact im going to pour a malt and jump in right now cheers.

[Sanjøy]

Don't let a Paine bros add the chemicals .....

[VXJON]

One of life's important lessons.

[ed]

[Mike Scib]

"Drive faster Mike, it's taking my mind of my balls!"

[cragus]

Another option is a wood fired stove hot tub.

[Shug]

"Drive faster Mike, it's taking my mind of my balls!"

Still makes me smirk, that incident...

[Stephen]

A friend of mine is the Ops Manager for Aqua leisure so knows all there is to know and best of all is not involved in sales so will give you good advice. I'll pm you his details.

[j2 lot]

Thanks all - food for thought and some good leads to follow up - SE always come up with the goods and the odd back story too by the sounds of it