Common water issues

Common Water Issues

Here are just a few issues you may face with your hot tub water chemistry. We hope this guild will help, but remember you can always call to have a professional come fix any water issue you may have here: 403 550 5140

Cloudy or Green Water

Cloudy water in your hot tub can be the cause of a few different factors:

1: Contaminants in the water; maybe a drink got spilled (things happen).

2: (the most common reason) You don’t have enough sanitizer. Whether you use bromine, chlorine, or salt, running low on your sanitizer is a sure fire way to get cloudy water fast.

3: Your alkalinity is too high. A common issue in some parts of central Alberta is very high alkalinity straight out of the tap. This can cause your sanitizer to not work efficiently and cause cloudy water.

4: Your filters may need to be cleaned

Smelly water

If your hot tub starts to smell a little mildewy, or sort of like a swamp, refer to the section overhead. You’ve run out of sanitizer for long enough now that bacteria is taking hold. You may need to start adding granules of your specific sanitizer daily until the water clears up. Add no more than 30g of bromine or chlorine granules daily, and leave your lid off for 20 minutes after every dose.

If your spa smells strong of chemicals, it may have too much sanitizer in it. You may also just be sensitive to that specific sanitizer. Bromine typically has less odour than chlorine, but everyone reacts differently to different sanitizers. Test strips are your friends. Keeping your sanitizer in the ideal range is the most important thing when it comes to hot tub water care.

Rough feeling acrylic

If your hot tub is feeling rough, you likely have hard water staining. It’s all too common in Alberta. Luckily, there is a solution; high quality weekly hot tub treatment chemicals. There are a few good options out there for you. The main thing you want to avoid is big box store products. They aren’t typically high quality products, so you end up using much more product than you typically would need to. If you buy an all-in-one chemical such as Spa Life Harmony, you won’t need descaling products.

Another cause of scaling is high alkalinity, refer to the high alkalinity section for help with that issue.

Goo Around the Rim of the Tub or in the Filters

If you’re getting a gross build-up of a sticky substance around the rim of your tub, you may have biofilm. It can also gather around the water intakes, jets, and filters. Biofilm is a mucus membrane that bacteria creates to protect itself. It’s also the hardest problem to get rid of. Many people will see this and assume they should drain their spa, wipe it down, and refill it. This may help, but there will undoubtedly be more living inside your plumbing system. The best thing to do is kill the bacteria first, then drain it, and refill.

The Solution: sanitizer, algaecide, and a hot tub flush product. You may get away with just one of these products, or you may need to use all 3 depending on how serious your issue is.

When should you drain your spa?

When you change your water will depend on a few different factors:

1: How often you use your spa, and how many people use it?

2: What kind of filtration system you have on your spa?

3: What kind of chemical system do you use?

The best way to tell the quality of your water and whether it might be time to change your water is by sight. If your water just isn’t staying clear, even though you’re on top of your chemicals and all your levels seem to be in good order, you may need to change your water. A general rule is every 3 to 6 months you’ll want to change your water. A TDS meter is a handy tool to tell the quality of your water. As time goes on, your water will accumulate more and more TDS (total dissolved solids). There is no way to remove TDS from the water other than to dilute or to swap. TDS isn’t necessarily unsafe, but it will make balancing and treating your spa increasingly more difficult.

If you are experiencing any of these issues, we have the products to help, and get your hot tub sparkling like new again!