mindsquirt

If you want to see some survival skills, go here. otherwise, check out my hot tub skills:

I got wind of free hot tubs ripe for the plucking at walnut ridge in Clarksville. They sell lots of ourdoorsey and indoor recreational stuff such as billiards tables, card tables, pools, and hot tubs. Anyway, this was about 2 months ago. My dad, brother, and I went there and quickly pounced on the free tubs. The place needed to get rid of them because they were trade-ins, and I guess not valuable enough to be re-sold.

Most of the tubs were in various states of disrepair, in fact, so I know that there was some work that needed to be done from the get-go. I got a 4-seater Jacuzzi that was nice and deep. While I was there, I noticed some old dirty derelict air-hockey tables, so I snatched one of those too! I also got a old huge cantilevered umbrella, but it was slightly used. I put those in storage. My friend and I transported the hot tub up here, and my work on it started.

Before I detail that work, I should mention that I spent no more than $500 on this tub. In it’s heyday, this tub would cost a razzeling $5000. Defiantly money I don’t have. Here is what I spend that $500 on:

~$100 on a cover.
~$150 on 50 amp interior and exterior wire, and the sub panel GFI* (see pic #4)
~$50 plumbing
~$50 insulation
~$30 transporting the tub 100 + miles (gas money)
~$20 15 amp wire and miscellaneous
~$100 on chemicals for maintaining clean water*


* These materials I would have to have bought even if I bought a brand new tub, so the true price of this tub is $250.

So, unless this tub depreciated 90% or more since it was brand-new, I think I got a good deal.

Plumbing:

Immediately I noticed some slice marks in the flex pvc in areas 1, 2a, and 2b (click on the pic above). I think the dealer said that the trade-ins had to be damaged for some reason. This flex pvc were the jet lines into the tub. It was obvious that they had to be repaired. At the time, all of the cuts had enough space to use a simple repair coupler. I did this while the tub was at my parent’s house, and left it there for two weeks. I also hooked it up electrically, and it immediately tripped the GFI breaker. I also filled it up and noticed that two of my repairs leaked. I transported it to my house, (thanks dan!)
The leak were in area 2b and 1. This was a great fear of mine, b/c after those initial repairs, I knew I had to rebuild the entire assembly that you see in 1 and 2b. this was a lot of work. It is hard to see, b/c I filled in and around assembly #1 with “great-stuff” to lend some strain relief to the bottom of the filter box. (this is the thing surrounded in Styrofoam, which seemed to have thin walls) The entire assembly #1 consisted of 2 90s, a “t”, and a coupler, all in tight quarters. 2b also leaked. 2b was a weird assembly. If you notice, it is a regular “t”. the bottom of it plugs directly into a flange that threaded on to the output of one of the pumps. The top reduced to a ¾” flex pvc. So I had to buy a 2” to 3/4“ reducer, something I have never seen. The part of the t heading to the left, simply went to a piece of 2”, which went behind the control box(#3) (and included two 45s). There also was a simple fix with the plumbing where there was two pipes linked together with a screw-in thingie and some ¼ or so tubing. I don’t know it’s purpose but it leaked.


My dad came to my house and helped me on this plumbing horsemarm. Thanks dad! He is a much better plumber than I.


Electric:

I am no stranger to electrician stuff. I have wired up more than one house in its entirety and did countless repairs and add-in circuits. So, I felt pretty comfortable with this hot tub electrically. What you will see is how sassy this hot tub really was.

Area 3 on the picture above was the control box. It has 5 external things it turns off and on via some relays (the yellow things inside there); 2 pumps, a blower, a ozone generator, and a light. You will notice on the bottom right 5 plugs going to them. Now, when I unplugged the blower from there, the GFI didn’t blow. This was a small victory for me, b/c I knew it wasn’t something terrible that was wrong. At that point, I was convinced it was my blower that was shorted, so alls I had to do was to replace it. Bada-bing, bada-boom. I later took it out so I could spec it, and I decided to hook up an multimeter to it, just to make sure it was shorted out. I did that, and it read 3 ohms. I then called my brother, who measured his, which was also 3 ohms. I was stumped. Further, when I plugged it directly into a 110 outlet, it worked. This ruled out a short, and thus the blower to blame. I knew one thing for sure, it only seemed to act crazy when the blower was plugged into the control board. I noticed that all 110 devices were passi ng through transformers, except for the blower. That was very curious, but I was still at a loss. Eventually I called Jacuzzi and told them the story. A guy there said that sometimes people hook up the GFI wrong. Even though it was clearly a problem with the GFI, I ruled this out as I thought that there would be no possible way that I would honk-up something so simple. Turns out, I did. If you look at the below picture, it will show you how not to hook up a GFI. This GFI came with a white pigtail (a short length of wire) already hooked up to that neutral bar up on the top right of the box. I did the human thing (didn’t read the directions) and hooked the incoming and outgoing white wires to it. Now, if I would have read the directions it would have told me to stick the white wire going to the hot tub directly into the GFI where the screw terminal is, similar to the way the red and black wires are. Whoops. That really explained why a 110 device tripped it and 220 devices were fine! The white wire (neutral, part of a 110 circuit!) was not an input to the GFI circuit!!!!

problem solved bitches.

how to wire up a 220 VAC GFI incorrectly

Insulation

Over-Insulating this hottub really worked out well. before I insulated it, the hot tub would drop from about 100 degrees to about 90 in 24 hours. Now, it drops from about 100 degrees to about 95 degrees in 24 hours. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but it is considering how much thermal mass we are talking about here. To insulate it, I bought some 2” rigid foam board. You can see the before and after on the first picture. The factory insulation was sprayed on expanding foam that coats the tub, it is that dirty yellow color in the middle of the picture. The bright white insulation is stuff I stuck on there. I covered the skimmer box you see on the right of the first picture, and I cut a huge piece for the entire side of the picture you see directly below. Of course, it is covered by that wood so you can’t see it. I also stuffed in some bats of fiberglass insulation here-and-there. You can see one on the left of the first picture and on the second to last picture. I tried to do that where I could get good coverage but not around the pumps. I really tried to cover a lot of the pipes that go to the jets, that were not covered by the factory insulation at all. In the last picture below, you can see some rigid foam that came from the factory. This is the side opposite the control box side. I left that in and stuffed some bat insulation in as well. I also used some “great stuff” spray insulation and put that under some of the pipes to a) provide some strain relief for components connected to them (see first picture on left and right), and b) get some of the flex PVC off of the cold ground. After that, I put on the panels and started to enjoy my hot tub! The finished product is what you see in the last picture!

It is very glamerous. sometimes i pretend i am a moviestar when I am in it. Cooper doesn't get in it. He says it will dry his skin and he has to look his best for a glam Hollywood gayla he is invited to this weekend.

side of tub, you can see the control panel on the right side (which is the front).

back of tub, shows factory rigid foam and some bat insulation behind it.

Finished tub, how glamerous!

# posted by fooiemcgoo : 10:02 AM