Get Back In Hot Water

A feature article by Jeff Sliger, Jan 03, 2008         

Are you using your spa as much as you used to? Is that heavy foam cover the reason why? In Search of the Perfect Replacement Spa Cover? If you have had your hot tub for a few years you've probably bought a few foam covers. You probably bought the first replacement cover from the same place you bought your spa.

You went in and told the salesman that your cover got heavy. More than likely he told you that now they have developed a better foam cover. One wrapped, glued, dipped, sealed in multiple layers of special stuff. But even that one got heavy eventually.

One friend of mine just thought he was getting weaker, until he went to the spa dealer and looked at a new cover. Preparing to use as much effort to lift the new cover as he did his own at home, he nearly threw the cover through the front window of the store. It was then that he realized his cover was getting heavy. Like him you have most likely figured out that rigid foam spa covers are flawed technology.

All rigid foam spa covers will always eventually become moisture saturated, heavy, and might even break or blow away. Regardless of what wrapping is around the foam it is doomed to get heavy.

Even if it were possible to keep the foam from saturating with water no rigid cover is ever going to be in contact with the water that it is supposed to keep warm. Every rigid foam spa cover is constantly losing heat between the bottom of the spa cover and the water surface. As the spa water produces steam that steam hits the bottom of the cooler rigid foam spa cover, condenses and falls back into the spa actually cooling the water.

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But the real point is that with a foam cover that slowly gets heavy we slowly stop using our spas. Generally speaking the foam fails slowly so you don’t notice it. If you use your spa every day, an ounce different here and there does not get noticed. It just becomes a little more work. So you just put up with it. But after while you get home from work and the thought of wrestling that cover off the spa just becomes less important.

That is a shame considering how much you looked forward to it when you first got your spa. It is also a shame considering how much you spend to heat the water that you are less willing to get into. It is a shame considering how much you paid of your hard earned money to get that spa in the first place. Did you know that the more time you spend in your spa the less sleep your body requires? If you got your spa for therapeutic purposes how often do you think you can afford to go without that therapy before you start to suffer?

Are you willing to loose all that just for the sake of a few inches of foam? I see it every day. People with spas in their back yard, but instead of using their spa they pile stuff on it. It might be the picnic table they moved just to make it easier to mow. Maybe it is toys the kids left out or the barbecue. Seems like an expensive place to pile your stuff but people do.

I propose you get back to enjoying your spa. Instead of replacing your heavy spa cover with another one that is just going to end up the same way, shop online for a different type of cover. Find a different type of spa cover that does not use foam so it will not get heavy. If you do, you can enjoy your spa for years to come. You will thank me later.

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