Mid-Atlantic Gardening: Hardscaping help, 1 by DaylilyDiva219

DaylilyDiva219 wrote:
Happy,

Glad you got that drain thing resolved before flooding the basement!

I have to say that we have never noticed a huge jump in our electric bill with the hot tub. If you know your soaking habits (for example, as I said earlier, we prefer to soak under the stars), you can have it cycling up to higher heat late in the day. The newer ones are pretty automatic. I'm sure it does pull some power, but it's definitely worth it to us!

We fill it and drain it with a regular garden hose, and when the original tub was installed, they ran a dedicated line/circuit for the power, so it's permanently "plugged in". Our hot tub is right against one side of the house, so the distance from the electrical connection is very short. The inside line runs under the floorboards through the basement. It was pretty straightforward.

And as you may have noticed in Holly's photos, they all come with insulating covers that flip up, and can either be removed completely, or just folded over when you are soaking. Our new one came with a gadget that will hold the cover upright at one end of the tub once you flip it open. If you're considering something like that, just plan out which way it would flip, (we made sure ours goes up against the fence behind us) or it could feel like you've got a wall, blocking your view.

I'm attaching a photo in case what I've written isn't exactly clear. This was taken just after we redid the entire area - had to get the new hot tub, which led to deciding that a new (composite - YAY!!!) deck was in order, since of course the old one wouldn't look good with the new hot tub... and then the fence needed to be replaced too, for the same reason. Sorta like when you get a new kitchen sink, and wind up with an entire kitchen renovation, ya know? ;->

ANYWAY - to the left of the tub in the photo, you can see the power line. The cover is flipped up, and if you look closely you can see some black metal rods at either side - those are part of the "lifting" mechanism. At this point, we just flip it up so it's perpendicular to the pool, and the thingy (pardon the technical term!) holds it upright, against the fence.

Again, hope this isn't TMI, and that it helps. If you've got any other questions, just ask, or d-mail.

Barb