Professional Spa Care

Residential or Rental?

Residential

If you have your hot tub spa in your family home or cabin, and you do not rent your property to anyone else, then the residential program is the one for you.  It will ensure safe, clean water through normal use. Two people in the spa for thirty minutes every other day (rinsing off prior to use) is our definition of “normal use”.  We will schedule included water changes on a twelve week rotation, and filter cleans on a six week rotation.

But what if you have extra guests? To keep the spa perfect when you have higher use, you may find at times the once a week visit is not enough, and you can request an additional visit during these higher use times. 

Rentals and Higher Use Spas

For rental services, which includes Air BnB’s and property rental companies, or if you have a household who really loves spending time in your spa we recommend a higher level of care. A spa ads value to the renter experience, and renters expect a pristine spa throughout their stay, no matter how much they are using it.  It’s also helpful to have eyes more frequently in case there is neglectful behaviour by guests,  inexperienced spa users, and a higher overall level of use which requires a more sanitization in the spa.

We will schedule water changes every two months and filter cleans every one month, however if you have a high level of guests there may need to be more than this.

What About the Cleaning Supplies?

All chemicals and routine cleaning products will be supplied by Snow Valley Spas and are included in the price. We won’t store any of our products on site.

How Can I Use Less Chemicals?

Our goal is to introduce the LEAST amount of chemicals into your spa as possible. There is no way to not use a sanitizer such as chlorine, however there are complementary ways so you can use less chlorine. As such, we highly recommend the following spa features, and water sanitization options. There are now many options that allow much less chlorine use in spas (below 2 ppm if these are combined) and still address bacteria concerns.

• UV bulb sanitization: 2012 and newer Sundance Spas have a UV bulb that the water is run through each filtration cycle that modifies the DNA of bacteria to not allow them to reproduce. This reduces sanitization chemicals required by 50%.  This is now standard on all Sundance Spas.
• Ozone plus UV Sanitization: Ozone filtration can be added after market to most older Sundance spas, and this is now standard on all new spas. This removes 99.9% of bacteria. Ozone gas is directly injected into the water prior to passing the UV bulb. This process creates active oxygen and combining these two treatments exponentially increases their effectiveness. Ozone not only destroys micro-organisms, but also breaks down harmful chemicals and causes dissolved solids to clump together for easier removal by your filter cartridge. It also breaks down the sanitizer molecules that have bonded to contaminants, so less shocking of the spa is needed, as it frees up the sanitizers and allows them to be used continuously.
• Aqua Finesse Premium Water Care System: Aqua Finesse is a patented combination of 7 salts and minerals and environmentally friendly ingredients that is added weekly to your spa. It is formulated to reach throughout the water piping system of your spa. In addition to killing bacteria, it does not allow biofilm (a slime that develops in spas in pipes and on surfaces) to develop. Biofilm both grows over bacteria which protects it from sanitizers and is also where bacteria grow and reproduces.

What Do I Need to Know?

Please note that there are health hazards to an improperly maintained spa, therefore there is a basic level of sanitization that is required to address bacteria, parasites, microbials, and/ or water-borne pathogens in the water. If any of these are present in the spa it can cause several serious infections including skin rashes, eye and ear infections, and pneumonia. These are controlled by the level of sanitization (chlorine) in the water. The more the hot tub is used, the faster the sanitization is used up. The amount of sanitization each week required for the water to stay clean and safe is based on:

• How many people are in the spa and for how long.
• The level of contaminants on each person. Contaminants can include but are not limited to: dirt, germs, bacteria, hair products, skin products, laundry care products in suits, and aromatherapy salts or oils introduced in the water.
• How long between sanitization (technician visits) which allows them to grow and reproduce without proper sanitization levels.

Providing Snow Valley Spas with notice of change of intended use (spa is either going to be very busy, or no use at all) will allow us to plan for how much sanitization your spa is going to need for the following week. As well, if you are renting it out, providing us with a schedule of renters will allow us to try to schedule visits between guests, and plan for higher use. This is a balancing act and the more information we have the better, as you do not want too much or too little chlorine in your spa.

Technicians may, if they find chlorine too low, provide a chlorine shock to inactivate or destroy microbials and restock the chlorine levels in the spa. Each type of bacteria has a different level of tolerance to chlorine or other sanitization. The most common bacteria can be controlled with a small shock, which is raising the chlorine levels to 8-ppm. This will destroy or inactivate most contaminants as described above. Technicians may need to do a higher shock the following week, up to 10-ppm if they find microbials were not controlled by the 8-ppm shock. Technicians will post a sign stating the spa will not be safe to use until the chlorine levels have dissipated after sanitizing the microbials, which may be up to 4 hours. If there are still concerns with chlorine levels the next week, it is at this point technicians may need to do a water change.

There are very rare cases that microbes are not responsive to the 10-ppm shock, and a super-chlorination, which is raising the chlorine up to 20-ppm, may need to be done. This causes excess damage and wear and tear to the spa parts, so it should be avoided if possible. If the microbes present are not responsive to the super-chlorination, it is recommended to drain the spa, flush the pipes, fill with new water, and use a new filter in the spa.

If the technicians have found they need to completely refill the chlorine tab dispenser each week for more than 3 weeks in a row, they will bring a water sample back to the showroom to complete a photometer analysis. This is a high level of chlorine being introduced so there are also acids and by-products in the spa. If the cyanuric acid is over 100 ppm the technician will be required to do a water change, as chlorine is not effective beyond this level.