Giving Up the Hot Tub

Neither Jason nor I ever really wanted a hot tub.  When we would go to a hotel with one, we might go in it.  I enjoy using my Aunt Polly's hot tub when I visit Minnesota, but we never would have bought one for ourselves. 

When we bought our house, it came with a hot tub.  There were some issues because we closed on our house in February and although we put antifreeze in the tub, there was ice in the tub and pipes in February.  When we filled it and turned it one, one of the diverter valves burst and sent geysers of water spurting up.  There is one hot tub repair place in Colville and they didn't have the part to fix it.  We called places in Spokane and they didn't have one.  Finally we ordered one from Seattle, it was on back order, and a week later it arrived.  While waiting for the part, we put a board and bricks to keep the geyser flow contained.  After fixing the diverter valve, we started taking stock of our new hot tub.  About half of the jets had either fallen out or didn't work.  The plastic from the jets was deteriorating and there were always little bits of plastic suspended in the water.  We bought a pool skimmer but some of the pieces were too small to catch.  Yet in the winter, even without the jets, nothing warmed me up faster than sitting in the hot tub.  I loved sitting in the hot tub and reading a book before bed.  We decided to wait to decide what to do about the tub.  Then last week I got into the tub and it was warm-not hot.  It was only 96 degrees.  I changed the filter and I checked the pipes and I couldn't figure out what was wrong.  I called our local hot tub place in Colville and they gave me their technician's phone number and despite leaving numerous messages, he never called us back.  I called Spokane repair places and they would charge $80 just to come up and give an estimate. 

The Hot Tub in question

All the parts that need to be replaced (I don't know why the photo is upside down)

That helped make the decision for me.  We had never really wanted a hot tub and I didn't want anything causing so much stress, so we gave the hot tub to one of Jason's co-workers in return for 2 cords of wood to burn this winter.  Now that it's warm out, I don't really miss it.  And if I want to warm up come winter, we always have a bathtub.