Hot Tub Repair

Has anyone had any experience repairing a Watkins/Hot Springs Spa, (Prodigy model) hot tub. Ours is leaking. The repairman came out and for $95 said, "yep, it's leaking, it will cost $350 to put it up on blocks so we can look at it, and another $350 to put it down again. All that plus the parts and labor to fix the leak." This sounds like a lot to me. My son and I jacked it up with my old floor jack and I figure that I can look at it and see what's leaking. It looks to me like the unit is completely foamed in from underneath. Do you just cut out the foam and find the leak? I think that it is leaking because chipmunks have gotten in and gnawed through a hose. Anybody have a similar experience? Thanks for your time. John

Reply to
John Eagan
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What the spa repair people do is to put dye in the water, run the pumps, and look for the dye. They dig out foam, tracing the dye path, until the find the leak. Once the leak is repaired, they then replace the foam with new foam. The spa needs to be filled to trace a leak this way. I suppose you could just start digging out foam, but be careful, you don't want to cause additional damage. If you don't know the general area of the leak, you may end up removing a lot of foam. This stuff isn't extacly cheap to replace. I know it's probably not what you want to hear, but my advice as a fellow spa owner is to leave this one to the pro. Are there other repair people in your area, to at least see how fair this repair estimate is? Good luck in whatever you decide. Dave

Reply to
DaveG

$700 to jack it up and then set it back down? That's absurd, to put it very mildly. Are you certain none of the side panels are removable? Yes, you will need to cut away and remove foam in the area of the leak. The easiest way to trace the leak is to put some red food coloring in the water so you can see it better. If the leak isn't showing up, you may need to run the pumps for a bit.

Plumbing leaks in hot tubs are generally not a big deal to fix once you locate them. All the plumbing parts are generic, and you can find places online to buy jets, or anything else that is not available at your local Home Depot. The plastic plumbing is very easy to work with, and if you screw up, you can replace the parts you screwed up for very little money.

A few questions:

How old is this spa? How big? Has it ever been allowed to freeze with water remaining in the plumbing? What makes you suspect a chipmunk is to blame? How fast is it leaking?

BB

Reply to
BinaryBillTheSailor

I just got through replacing the valves (repairable, but no parts available) and several seals. The heater seals were bad, though only a few years old. I just removed the jet ring, replaced the seal, put some Teflon tape on the threads, and put them back together. Rather time consuming replacing the gate valves because of lack of good access, but worth doing yourself. OTOH, if you can't see the leak could be anything in the back. If you still have leaks after replacing the seals, find a reasonably priced spa repairman or do the dye thing and get a few buddies over to help lift out the spa from the base.

-- Mike D.

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Reply to
Mike Dobony

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