Hot Tub Maintenance Tips

Ensuring that your hot tub remains sparkling clean and enticing to take a dip in requires some diligence, which means you’re going to have to learn a bit about proper hot tub maintenance if you want your new and luxurious investment to be worth your while. 

Don’t worry, though, as it’s not all that difficult to keep your tub looking beautiful once you’ve gotten the hang of things, and even if you’re new to hot tub maintenance, just take a look at this easy guide to balancing your water, swapping out your filters, and keeping things as clean as possible.

Hot Tub Water Chemistry

Ensuring that your hot tub’s water stays balanced is crucial. You’ll be dealing with a bit of chemistry here, and knowing a bit about pH levels will certainly help, but you don’t need to hold a PhD to get the job done.

Hot Tub Chemical Checklist

To keep your water balanced, make sure you have the following chemicals on hand at all times: 

• Alkalinity Up
• A pH increaser and decreaser
• Shock
• Sanitizer
• Test strips 

There are a few other optional chemicals you may want to have handy, but if you’ve got all the items on this list, you’re in good shape to maintain your hot tub’s water chemistry.

Testing and Adjusting Your Water Chemistry

To test your water chemistry, you just need to dip a test strip into the water briefly and allow a few seconds for the chemicals (or lack thereof) to react to the strip. There will be a color guide on the test strip container that will let you know what the strip is telling you about your water’s chemistry. Once you know what your water needs, you can then add the necessary chemicals.   

Shock is only necessary if you haven’t used your tub in a long time or if it’s seeing heavy use. When you do use it, make sure you follow all instructions on the packaging.

Maintaining Your Hot Tub Filters

Your hot tub filters constantly work to keep your hot tub water as clean as possible. However, they will eventually need to be cleaned themselves, and at some point, they will need to be replaced entirely.

Cleaning Your Hot Tub Filters

You should be rinsing your hot tub filters a few times a week whenever the tub is being used frequently. All you need to do is pull them out and spray them down with a garden hose until they look refreshed. You should also give them a deeper clean with some filter cleaner once every week or two and soak them in cleaner every time the tub is drained. 

There will come a time when the rinses and filter cleaners are no longer capable of doing their job, leaving your filters looking grimy even after you’ve performed your regular cleaning routine on them. Once this happens, it’s time for you to replace them.

Maintaining Your Hot Tub

Your hot tub water will eventually become too full of contaminants for the filters to properly clean them out. When this happens, it’s time to drain the tub and refill it with fresh water. You should be completing this process three or four times a year, possibly even more than that if the tub is frequently used. 

Before you drain the tub, you should run a cleaning chemical through the filtration system to clear out any built-up gunk. Once the tub has been drained, you should also take the time to clean the body using a special cleaner.

Maintaining Your Hot Tub Cover

Your hot tub cover isn’t something you should ignore in your regular maintenance routine. It’s both a costly and important component of your hot tub, and it can last for far longer if you take great care of it. Not only that, but an unkept cover can collect contaminants and then redistribute them into the water, completely negating your efforts toward maintaining a beautiful tub.

To keep your hot tub cover clean, pull it off of the tub and lay it down on a flat surface. Then, hose the underside down gently and allow it to dry. After that, you can flip it over and clean the top side of it using either a solution of mild vinegar and water or whatever chemical cleaner the tub’s manufacturer recommends.